St Mary's College Wellington

🇯🇵 We warmly welcome eight students from Kojimachi Gakuen High School (Tokyo, Japan) who arrived on Tuesday for a two week visit to St Mary's. Their experience with us began with a mihi whakatau, followed by the chance to get to know our ESOL teacher, Ms Devane, through the very Kiwi experience of making lolly-cake!
🇯🇵 A huge thank you goes to our St Mary's homestay families who have opened their homes to our visitors, and to tour organisers OKC for bringing this lovely group of students to St Mary's.

🖤 We are so proud of our Poly Club and the beautiful performance our students delivered at the TuTagata Festival on 24 July. What outstanding passion and commitment on display. Congratulations!
🖤 Thank you to all who were involved in the performance, and those behind the scenes supporting the students.
🖤 If you couldn't make it to TuTagata this year, click on the link in the comments below to watch the full performance.

💃 What a fabulous night! On Friday last week, our Year 12 & 13 Ball took place at Te Papa. Music, food, glamour and fun - a good time was had by all.
💃 A huge thank you goes to all those who worked behind the scenes to organise this wonderful event, especially Ms Clarke, Ms Meulenbroeks, the Student Ball Committee, and Mrs Tanuvasa.

☕️ Coffee, anyone? This week some of our Year 12 students had the opportunity to participate in two days of Barista training, learning to make a wide range of hot drinks on commercial espresso machines. There was a lot of fun, while learning fantastic practical skills.
☕️ A big thank you to ITS for bringing their coffee machines in, and sharing their expertise with us.

Good luck to our Poly Club students performing at TuTagata tonight! You have worked incredibly hard on your performance and we can’t wait to see it on the stage. Thank you to the staff and Asosi who have supported the girls.

✨ As the school term comes to an end, we have celebrated Matariki. This week, staff and students placed stars on our Matariki Wall of Remembrance to acknowledge loved ones who have passed. Our Mercy Time and Peer Support sessions featured reflections and artwork to mark the season. The week ended with our annual Haka Competition, where our six houses combined in pairs to fight for top honours, delivering beautiful karakia, waiata and haka.
✨ We wish you and your whānau all the very best for the two week term break ahead and look forward to seeing everyone back on Monday 20 July. Mānawatia a Matariki!

What awesome work by a keen team of student gardeners this week! Volunteering their time after school, the group have started the process of beautifying some of our school gardens. There's been lots of laughter, lots of weeding, and lots of natives being planted. We're looking forward to watching this project grow!
🙏 A big thank you goes to these students for their time and effort, and to gardener extraordinaire, Ms Gray, for working with the team.
🙏 Also, a big thank you to Melanie Smith (Board of Proprietors) for donating several native plants for this project.

Book Week is a favourite Term 2 event: a full week of book-related fun and games. This year, it started out with a Book Week Puzzle, followed by a Hunger Games themed debate against Wellington College, a hotly fought House Book Quiz competition, and then the library's "Risk It For A Biscuit" event. The week's activities culminated in Friday's Costume Competition, in which every participant was a winner!
🙏A big shout out to our English and Library teams for all their work behind the scenes creating this fun week.

🎉 Our Showquest team delivered a stunning performance at the St James theatre last night. Their beautiful piece, Heartstrings, was rewarded by the judges with Recognition in Dance, Excellence in Technology (video design), and third place overall. A special shout out goes to Ava Duncan who won the individual "Whetū Rangatahi - Star of the Show" award.
🎉 Congratulations to every member of the team. You have done us proud! Special congratulations to team leaders Pearl Winkworth and Keisha Baloyo, choreographers Maisie Hartnett and Ruby Farrow, and lighting designers Charlize Siagian and Maddie Guerrero.