Term One has been a busy time for our Kaitiakitanga team at school.  Our Year 13 leaders for 2025 are Emilie Jean Abuyan and Kathrina Casandra Bacay have spear headed many of the activities this year and are continuing the great work of peers before them.  The prefects and wider team of school environmentalists begun with removing the invasive Moth Plants (and pods) from our school at the beginning of March.  What started as an endeavour to remove the pest, has now gained momentum and has seen the team collect over 3,000 pods (and growing) and entered into the Howick Local Board’s annual Moth Plant competition, which gives students the chance to collect as many as possible before Friday 9 May 2025.  This is a mammoth effort, thank you to all the students and teachers involved.

Continuing their environmental efforts, the team also had a chance to volunteer and work with Sea Cleaners NZ, an organisation that works to clear rubbish off New Zealand’s coastlines and waterways.  The team spent this day cleaning the coast’s rubbish and it was utterly shocking to them to see how much rubbish there was.  Not one to let chances go amiss, when they stopped at the various locations for the coastline cleanup, they also took this opportunity to rid and remove any moth plants (and pods) that came across their path.  And by chance, they came across many and were able to collect a large number of these moth pods to contribute to the Moth Plant Competition, in addition to cleaning the rubbish from our waterways and coastline.

Joshua’s Sub-Antarctic Expedition

Joshua De Guzman (Year 13 student) participated in the Sir Peter Blake Sub-Antarctic expedition team from Auckland to the Campbell Islands, where he collaborated with postdoctoral scientists to conduct research aimed at preserving Aotearoa’s hidden ecosystems. As part of this mission, he contributed to developing a plan to bring environmental education into Kiwi classrooms and communities, fostering greater awareness and stewardship of these fragile landscapes. Congratulations Joshua on being chosen for such a special expedition.