by Steve McCracken
Steve McCracken
Whaia te iti kahurangi. Ekea to tapuhipuhi. Pursue excellence. Follow your dreams. Reach your potential, be all that you can be.
As we rapidly approach the middle of the calendar year, our country begins to prepare for Matariki, the Maori New Year, a time when we can celebrate and spend time with our families. For many in our community, it is also a time to consider the next part of our young people’s schooling future. Our Year 12 and 13 students are considering, very carefully, their futures in the wide world of post-secondary education or employment with a real desire to complete their school qualifications to the best of their abilities. The remainder of our secondary students are working on their continued pathways through our school, with a focus on their personal excellence and an eye to the future. Our local primary schools are following a similar pathway, I am sure, with the focus for their senior students being on the successful transition from Primary to Secondary school. I know that many parents will be considering this also.
Secondary school is very different to the primary school experience for both students and parents. Traditionally, students at this stage, desire a sense of independence and freedom to grow and develop further into being their own person. This is often challenging for parents, who have been integral in their child’s development for the past eight school years. You might find that boys will change the most, often going from the beautiful, enthusiastic young person who has been carefully nurtured and developed for the past 12 to 13 years, to a thing that grunts and groans, emanates a strange new smell and eats everything in sight. After many years of experience, please believe when I say they will be ok. The next few years through teenage hood is a challenge, even for the most resilient, yet loving parents, but with firm values and attitudes, your young person will learn to control their hormones and will develop and flourish into a fine young person (although that might take longer than normal for some).
Kaipara College will develop your young person’s sense of belonging. Our school prides itself on being unique to other schools, with the best staff, offering a complete, well-rounded and future focused education for our amazing students. It is so important that young people have a sense of their place in the world. Over the five years we are fortunate enough to educate our community’s youth, they will be given many opportunities to find their sense of belonging, not only at Kaipara College but within the wider world. Our students, over their five years of secondary schooling, will also experience personal success. With the exciting and ongoing development of our flexible and innovative curriculum, we feel our young people are very lucky to be at Kaipara College at this time.
We would love to be able to accept all students who want to come to our school in 2021, but unfortunately there are restrictions we must abide by. We are currently over subscribed and at the start of this year the Ministry of Education placed an enrolment scheme into our school, to alleviate the rapid rate of growth. All the details can be found on our website, but if you are in zone, you are automatically entitled to enrol at our school. If you live outside the Kaipara College school zone, an enrolment place is unlikely, unless there is a sibling already at our school. For all enrolment queries, please visit our website, or feel free to contact us.
