Orientation

Coming to a large Secondary School, especially when you have been enrolled at a much smaller school can be somewhat daunting. The good news is, we understand that reality and factor it into the way we do things.

By the time you have arrived at school to attend classes, a number of things have happened:

• You will have attended the Open Evening held in Term 3 the previous year

• You will have received a Prospectus and Option Booklet

• You will have attended the Enrolment evening, where you and your parents/caregivers will have sat down with a staff member and worked through your subjects for next year and passed on any important information about your learning needs

• You will have attended a pre-entry day at Gore High School where a number of assessments are made around literacy, numeracy and reasoning. These allow us to place you in the correct class to best suit your learning and to set you up to achieve rather than fail.

• You will have attended the Y9 day when some Y13 leaders would have escorted you around, you would have met all your teachers and attended a powhiri to welcome you formally to the school. This is the day before classes begin.

The process is deliberately gentle, so that by the time the other students arrive you are familiar with the environment and what is expected of you.

The mentoring by senior students is very valuable. It gives you someone to refer to who, knows what to do and well as helps you feel as though you belong very quickly.