Stratford High Times

Kia ora tatou,

The weeks continue to go by at a rapid pace. As we move into Spring, it signals the importance of our students preparing themselves for the challenges of NCEA that are ahead. I spoke in the Assembly recently about the importance of ‘leaving nothing to chance’. We want our students to prepare themselves well for upcoming assessments and exams and to do this it is paramount that they set aside time to support this. There may need to be sacrifices in other parts of life to enable this to happen. One hour a night of concentrated time to go over notes, prepare resources or to complete assignments will make all the difference. I speak about this often, and by echoing this message at home will allow our young ones to see the importance of this.

The School Ball was outstanding! I was so proud of every student who came through the doors. The behaviour was superb and to see the ballroom dancing and the connection amongst the students was heartening. I know it can be an expensive and somewhat stressful time and I want to say thank you to you as parents for the support in getting your child to the Ball on the evening.

The Taita Exchange began in 1985 as a rugby game and has expanded to multiple sports and a relationship that is special. Giving students the opportunity to connect with students from other parts of New Zealand allows some of those important life skills to blossom such communication, going outside one's comfort zone and being able to consider others. Although we didn’t take the trophy home this year, the competition was great to watch, and we competed against much bigger opposition particularly well. Thank you to those families who took billets. We appreciate you opening your homes.

Lastly, thank you for your attendance at our Course Planning and Selection interviews on the 8th of August. This was the first time for this, as it is important to ensure all our tamariki are aware of the opportunities available to them to support their desired pathway. Having whanau and school in the same room is powerful and gives our students a sense of confidence that we are walking alongside them to support their growth in becoming well-rounded young people, ready to excel in the world.

Nga mihi

Cameron Stone

Principal

Ellie is a classic unsung hero. She turns up, sees what needs to be done, and gets on and does it.

Currently in Year 13 at Stratford High School, Ellie diligently manages school work alongside student leadership responsibilities and volunteering in the community.

As the Tyrer House Leader and Sports Captain, she is well known and highly regarded amongst her peers at school. In addition to these roles, Ellie is also part of a youth-established group of peer mentors and mediators who help support the well-being of their fellow students.

As sports captain, Ellie is taking the opportunity to try as many sports as possible in her last year of school. To encourage others to do the same, and to have a bit of fun, the seniors organise regular challenges against school staff.

Ellie is also heavily involved in athletics and her love of running is evident when hearing her speak about her favourite event, distance running. She has competed regionally and nationally in athletics and won several medals for her efforts.

Performing arts is another passion, and although Ellie laughs off singing or dancing, her acting skills saw her take on one of the lead roles in their school production and won her the Blues Award for Performing Arts in 2023.

Ellie is currently serving on the Stratford District Youth Council so she can encourage different groups of young people to try new things. She has particularly enjoyed her involvement in Youth Council activities such as free movie events and taking youth ‘on the bus’ to day trip locations around Taranaki.

The TET Kings Theatre is another organisation lucky to have Ellie! She has clocked up over 350 hours of volunteer work at the theatre, earning her a silver service award from the Student Volunteer Army in recognition of these efforts. Her roles include setting the theatre up before screenings, and, although she saw the Barbie movie 7 times, she definitely agreed that being able to watch movies was a perk of the job.

Studying Chemistry, Statistics, English, Home Economics and Commerce this year will guide Ellie towards her plans of studying accountancy at university in 2025. She credits her teacher Mrs Lightoller for inspiring her to follow this pathway. Achieving an Excellence endorsement overall in NCEA Level 1 and Level 2 with merit, is an endorsement of her outstanding academic work ethic.

In addition to all her own achievements, Ellie is the first to support her friends on the sidelines. She is a diligent and generous young woman who is always considering the needs of others. Thank you, Ellie, for contributing so positively to our district and setting such a fine example for young people.

Stratford High School's 2024 ball 'A Night In Greece' was a resounding success. The night was filled with dancing and laughter, and was a great way for Year 12 and 13 students to celebrate their time at school and create lasting memories. Our students looked amazing and demonstrated exemplary behaviour throughout the night. A huge thank you to everyone who supported the Ball this year!

Emma Taunt with her creation for our school foyer.

Our year 9 social studies enviro class ‘Take me to the river’ had recent visits by the Taranaki Regional Council, planted some ngā rākau/trees and had a day out testing the water quality of the Patea awa in 3 spots.

Thank you Taranaki Regional Council staff for taking time to spend with our akonga.

Kiahna Smith was 1 of 4 YES teams invited to the Chamber of Commerce 2024 Taranaki Business Showcase.

Lily Malo has had some recent success at the Taranaki Science and Technology Fair placing second in class for her drawing. Well done Lily.

Lucas Jacobson has come away with a host of prizes for his entries into the fair.

-Technological Development Y11-13 Third prize

-Scientific Investigation Y11-13 Second prize

-Taranaki Regional Council prize for the best project demonstrating some aspect of environmental science

-Todd Energy prize for the best project that is about reducing CO2 Emissions

-Energyworks prize for novel demonstration of the industrial application of science or engineering

Lucas come away with a total of $575 in prize money. Congratulations Lucas, all your hard work has paid off.

In July, I completed the 21-day Outward Bound Maunga course with 12 other year 12 and 13 strangers from Taranaki Schools. Coming out of this course these strangers have now all become lifelong friends. Our watch was called Shackleton 715. We got the chance to experience a range of challenging activities like rock-climbing, sailing, a two-night solo camp, tramping, a half marathon and so much more. These activities pushed us so far out of our comfort zones and taught us so many different skills that we will use for life.

The Outward Bound motto is ‘There is more in you’ and I absolutely love that. This motto stuck with me throughout the whole course, and it will stick with me for the rest of my life. This amazing course has helped me to discover many life skills, leadership, teamwork and communication. It also gives me the motivation needed to get through difficult moments. As they say at Outward Bound - ‘tough times don't last, tough people do’. I loved being out and about challenging myself physically and mentally.

While there we learnt about two types of fun, type 1 fun (fun in the moment) and type two fun (not all that fun in the moment but fun when you look back on it and accomplish it). While I was sailing I experienced type 1 fun, but the type 2 fun came on the 18-hour tramp from 9am-3am. We were singing trying our best to keep moving forward in the pouring rain and dark. If you asked me at that moment if I was having fun, I'd say not quite but the satisfaction of completing our tramp and looking back on what we did made it a type two fun experience. Rock climbing was one of our smaller activities, however it taught me a massive lesson about how we always need to keep moving forward. If you put one foot in front of the other and keep going you will get to the top. Once I got to the top I looked around and saw what I had just conquered.

In my opinion nothing is scarier than setting up a fly alone in the dark at night in the bush. However, with the exception of a couple of friendly possums who decided to jump down from the trees above and wander around my site, I overall enjoyed my solo camp as I got to reflect on myself and this amazing opportunity that I had been given.

My watch grew very close, very fast. We did some silly things like leaving our wet clothes outside to see if they would freeze, which of course they did as it was –4 degrees some mornings. We caught possums in the middle of the night instead of going to sleep which gave our instructors something to laugh about. We would sing our lungs out to hype up the mood and especially while we were rowing as I discovered that rowing is something I was quite uncoordinated at. We also accidently tacked into the ferry lane with a ferry heading towards us. Our instructors had to come and tow us away but at least it gave us a break from rowing.

I am so grateful for the 12 amazing people that I got to experience Outward Bound with and go through every fun and challenging moment with throughout this three-week adventure. What a great watch we had. I couldn't imagine having this adventure without any single one of them and I don't know what we would have done without each other's support. I am also very thankful for the amazing staff, especially the late-night matron who made us hot chocolate and let us listen to music on Spotify (only music we heard for 21 days).

I strongly advise anyone who is looking for an adventure to go to Outward Bound. This course has made an amazing impact on my personal growth in so many ways!

Congratulations to Jess Bielski-Jones for being the top fundraiser for the school who raised a total of $570.00. Well done Jess, that is a fantastic accomplishment.

Our 3 school hockey teams all made it to their respective finals last week.

The Girls 1st XI Hockey team battled through extra time and two rounds of penalty shootouts to come 2nd in their Championship A girl's final against NPGHS.

The Boys 1st XI Hockey team played a fantastic game to take out the final against Te Paepae o Aotea and win the Championship A boy's competition.

The SHS Mixed XI Hockey team also won their Championship B final against FDMC.

On Monday 29th July Hannah, Emma, Aaliyah and Leah attended DANCE NZ Made interschools in Wanganui. They competed as a dance group in the year 11-13 section, placing 4th.

Hannah and Leah also performed a solo dance. Hannah placed 1st in the year 12 section and received a nomination to nationals. Leah placed 2nd in the year 13 section.

Congratulations to you all.

We had a team of 7 attend the New Zealand Secondary Schools Swimming Championships at the Sir Owen Glen National Aquatic Centre in July. Payton Kolevski, Celia Gribble, Ava Stone, Reid Macdonald, Rylee McClung, Ashley Mattock and Camryn Austin all swum exceptionally well, with lots of personal best times gained over the week-long event.

Our Stratford High School B team were victorious in Section 2 of the Stratford Netball Satellite.

During the school holidays 3 Stratford high students travelled to Whakatane with the Taranaki Region 5 junior & youth darts team to compete in the 2024 nationals.

All 3 students brought in some great results over the 5 days of play.

13/7 NZ Open Singles results:

Shay - boys 1/4 finals

Jacob - boys last 16

Georgia - girls last 32

14/7 NZ Youth Singles

Shay - boys 1/4 finals

Jacob - boys 1/4 finals

Georgia - girls last 32

15/7 NZ Youth Pairs

Shay & partner - boys consolation last 16

Jacob & partner - boys 1/4 finals

Georgia & partner - girls consolation runners up

16/7 NZ Mixed Pairs

Jacob & Georgia - NZ Runners Up

Shay & partner - last 16

Jacob, Shay & Georgia performed well throughout the tournament & all 3 were selected in the NZ youth tournament teams.

Congratulations to the U15 Central Restricted Weight team who won their final in the weekend 40-5 against NPBHS.

Due to a recent update to the Android system, the KAMAR app can no longer be downloaded to android devices. KAMAR at this time are working on a resolution to this by migrating to a mobile friendly website. Due to the complexity of resolving this issue however KAMAR do not expect the resolution to be available soon.

You can still access the parent portal via our school website.

Please inform the school office of any student achievements so that we can join in celebrating with them.

There are a variety of ways that you can make payments to cover school costs. The main office receives cash and EFTPOS payments and you can also pay online via direct credit. Parents can also set up an automatic payment to cover schooling costs. When setting up the automatic payment, consider a minimum payment of $15.00 per week, which is sufficient to pay for all school, curriculum and sport costs for a student during the year.

Payments will be automatically applied to “required payments”. Subsequent payments will sit as a credit on the student’s account. If you would like to have payments allocated to the “voluntary payments”, please email ts@stratfordhigh.school.nz with the details.

You can set this up by either using your bank’s online banking services or downloading the Automatic Payment Authority form and taking this to your bank. Please remember to use the students’ name for any payments.

Have you moved recently? Have you changed your phone number or email address recently? Please fill out the following form to advise us of your new details. Also fill out this form if you have not been receiving emails from the school. There are a number of families who we don't currently have an email address for.

It is very important we have the correct information for your child in case there is an emergency and we need to contact you immediately. If any contact details change throughout the year please let the school office know.

This term the policy for review is Health and Safety Management policies. See below for instructions to provide feedback on this policy.

1. Visit the website Stratford HS Policies and Procedures (schooldocs.co.nz)
2. Enter the username (stratfordhigh) and password (swansearoad4332)
3. Click on the tab for current review and it should show you the latest policies for review.
4. Read the policy.
5. Click the Policy Review button at the top right-hand corner of the page.
6. Select the reviewer type "Parent".
7. Enter your name (optional).
8. Submit your ratings and comments.
9. If you don't have internet access, school office staff can provide you with printed copies of the policy and a review form.

As we progress through the year, remember to check your son's or daughter's results on the Kamar app or portal: https://stratfordhigh.school.kiwi/ If you have any questions, please contact the subject teacher in the first instance.

- Dr. Michael Taylor

Deputy Principal (Curriculum)

Our Charter is now available to view on our website. The charter sets the direction for our school and identifies our priorities as a school community.

The Stratford High School Policies and Procedures are managed online, through School Docs. To visit our School Docs, click here.

Our school username is: stratfordhigh

Our parent password is: swansearoad4332

You will find policies for review and more information about the review process under the "Current Review" tab. We welcome your feedback via this review process.

Rummage around for those unwanted mobile phones to donate!

We have a Mobile Phone Collection Box in our office.

The Mobile Phone Recycling Scheme has raised over $3 million for NZ charities thanks to the support of Businesses, Government Departments, Organisations and many thousands of individuals from all over NZ.

Phones received are graded, data wiped and sim/memory cards removed and destroyed. Phones that can still be used are sold by tender to off-shore businesses that specialise in the resale of second-hand mobile phones. They are refurbished and sold as low-cost handsets to places like Africa and Asia. Phones that have reached their end of life are broken down and recycled in an environmentally friendly way with up-to 95% of their materials being recycled into other products. Regardless of condition, working or non-working, make or model all mobile phones are accepted by the Mobile Phone Recycling Scheme.

The Public Health Nurse will be at school one day every week for any health needs. Clinic is confidential and free.

• Health and hauora (wellbeing checks)
• General health concerns
• Contraception
• Condoms and pregnancy tests
• STI checks and the morning after pill

To book an appointment, see the school office reception or contact the Public Health Nurse, Anne Jonas on 027 204 1134 or email anne.jonas@tdhb.org.nz

Please see the office staff if a hearing or vision test is required.

Please find below key contacts for staff at school.

Senior Leadership Team

Principal: Mr Cameron Stone

Deputy Principal Curriculum: Dr Michael Taylor

Deputy Principal Pastoral and School Organisation: Ms Kelly Jennings

Assistant Principal/Academic achievement: Ms Allana George

Principal's PA: Mrs Joe Mack

School Board Secretary: Mrs Amanda Hill

Principal's Nominee

For all enquiries regarding NZQA or Te Kura

Mr Dirk Vermeulen: extension 707 or email

Deans for 2024

Year 9: Ms Kelly Rawcliffe

Year 10: Mr Jeff Walker

Year 11: Mr Bill McGeoch

Year 12: Mrs Lucy Gibbon

Year 13: Miss Heidi Seales

Guidance Counsellor: Ms. Liza Albers

Learning Support Coordinator: Mrs. Lisa Dent

For all other enquires please contact the school office 06 765 6039

Email: mail@stratfordhigh.school.nz
Website: www.stratfordhigh.school.nz
Location: Stratford High School Swansea Road, Stratford, New Zealand
Phone: 06-7656039
Facebook: facebook.com/SHSTaranaki

Instagram: @shstaranaki @heart_SHS @shs_SADD_team

Wednesday 28th August - Lions Music Awards

Friday 30th August - Disenchanted

Monday 2nd September - Mid-Term Break

For more information regarding Free Home Internet, please click on the link https://edos.kiwi/

We are pleased to advise that Stratford High School has reached Ferns' Fuel for School programme's threshold for redemption.

The current total is $1043.58.

We are super excited to introduce our newest addition to the program: Vegepod's. At Fern, we believe in the power of connecting kids with nature. Hands-on gardening experiences not only teach crucial life skills but also creates social bonds and boosts well-being.

You can now redeem from a range of sports, technology, literacy, music and of course Vegepod packages which will be hand delivered by your local Rural Sales Manager.

The Fuel for Schools sponsorship programme has helped put over $1.7 million dollars of resources into more than 600 rural schools in the last fifteen years.

Just a reminder of how SHS has received this donation...

SHS has been nominated by a local business/farm that receives bulk fuel deliveries from Fern, meaning that for every 100 litres of bulk fuel they purchase, 50 cents is donated to SHS. We would like to take the time to mention who those members of the community are that have contributed to SHS. They are listed as follows:

• Amberhay Limited - Finnerty Road
• Cornwall Park Farms Limited - AGO
  
• G & M Collins Family Trust
• Makino Deer Limited
• Palmerdell Trust 91 Only
  
• Palmerdell Trust AGO only
• Palmerdell Trust
• Cornwall Park Farms Limited
• WE & JJ Craig
• GN & RL Smith Trusts Partnership

Rural communities and schools everywhere can enjoy the benefits of the Fuel for Schools programme. For more information about the programme, call 0800 99 99 89 or visit their website fernenergy.co.nz/community/fuel-for-schools