12th March

The Otago Secondary Schools Athletics Championships were held last Saturday in Dunedin. Our team represented us with pride. My thanks go to Mr Ward and the parents who went along to assist. The conditions were not always in the athlete's favour but they stuck to the job and produced some fine performances. Of particular note was Andrew Whyte's outstanding run in the Senior Boys 400m. He is now the new Otago record holder for this distance. Other results are to be found later in this newsletter. The Otago Southland event takes place this Saturday in Invercargill. I wish all the athletes well.

At the end of the term, on Monday 29th March and Wednesday 31st March, there will be parent teacher meeting nights. These are open to parents of students in any year level.

This year we have a new system for booking these interviews. You will be able to do this on the internet. To do this you will need to go to www.schoolinterviews.co.nz and enter the school code which is B6CUC. Once in the programme you enter your name, your email address and the student name. You can then choose the subject and the teachers for the interview from the drop down menus. (The names of the teachers and the subjects they teach will be found on the Interim School report that arrives home on Wednesday 24th March.)

The next step is to choose the interview times, just click in the box of the time that you want. Interviews are 5 minutes. We recommend not making back-to-back times. Once you have finished a screen will display a summary of the times that you have chosen. The programme will send you an email confirmation of your times. Bookings will be open on Tuesday 23rd March. There is a tutorial on our website (www.sohs.school.nz) to help if you get stuck! If you do not have access to the Internet you can ring the school and times can be made this way.

On Thursday I spent the day down at our Year 10 Outdoor Education camps at Tautuku. These have gone really well. The organization for this week is always a major logistical exercise. I wish to thank the students for their cooperation and good conduct, the staff for their commitment to these camps and the parents and year 13 students who provided able support. Camps are a true team effort.

Have a good week.
NICK SIMPSON
Principal