After being postponed earlier in the term due to lockdown and level shifts, we managed our first whole-school assembly just last Friday.

Traditionally, the first school assembly of the year is dedicated to our ‘Excellence Club’, which recognises the top NCEA results of our students. To be a recipient you need to have achieved ten or more Excellence grades in NCEA the previous year, and in 2021 there were 41 students receiving an Excellence Club Award – 17 students in Year 12 and 24 students in the current Year 13. Each recipient was also awarded an Academic Badge in recognition of their outstanding achievement.

Outstanding students like Skye Murray and Amelia Holt were rightfully pointed out by Senior Management as students whose work ethic enabled them to gain top of the Excellence Club results in their cohorts. Skye (Year 12) achieved 27 Excellence grades last year and Amelia (Year 13) achieved 22 Excellence grades. These two students were held up as examples of simply giving schoolwork their best shot every time, something for which all BC students can aim.

This assembly was also the first chance our Head Students, Deputy Heads, Student Council, Peer Support, Year 12 Community Leaders and Arts Council were able to be introduced to the rest of the school. The Sports Council was, of course, busy helping at the Interschool Primary Swimming Sports at the time, so they were unable to be at the assembly. However, our junior school will have had a clear indication of how much opportunity there is to get involved with school life as they go through to senior years.

Article added: Monday 29 March 2021