THE ACADEMIC COMMITTEE
The academic committee has had a very productive year in 2013.
Beginning in Term 1 we have been holding academic assemblies to
recognise achievements in NCEA standards throughout the school. These
awards have been for both last year’s external exams and internal
assessments completed during this year.
To further improve academic achievement of the student body, we
have organised and run a peer tutoring programme covering a wide range
of subjects. Within this we invited Year 13 students to put their names
forward to tutor a group of their peers in one or more subjects. After
setting up a timetable, senior students were given the opportunity to sign
up for lunchtime sessions as they wished. The tutor groups would meet
on a weekly basis to clarify any questions and go over classwork. The
commitment shown by the peer tutors is a credit to our year group.
To support the Year 9 group, the academic committee - in
conjunction with Mrs. Keown - established a Year 9 homework session
every Thursday lunchtime in the library. Members of the committee shared
the responsibility of overseeing the Year 9s and offering help when
required.
Our final endeavour to assist academia in the school was at the
request of Mr. Fenton. The committee met with him and spent an hour
brainstorming about the future of learning in the school. We discussed ‘21st
century learning’ and how we can adapt to this and the advantages of
using personal devices to benefit learning. Also mentioned was the current
format of the timetable and whether or not it can be changed to better
suit the needs of the students. Being invited to talk about these matters
with Mr. Fenton was a reflection of the importance of student input into the
future of academic learning at Havelock North High School.
As leaders of the academic committee we must recognise and give
thanks to Miss Sparling-Fenton for the huge amount of work she has put
into the organising of academic assemblies and supporting us with the peer
tutoring programme. We hope that next year will be another successful
year for the Academic Committee with academic learning and success
continuing to improve in the future at Havelock North High School.
Devin Farmery and Nicola Mulvay