O’Shea Shield – now residing in Kilbirnie!

Every year St Catherine’s fields an exceptional team for the O’Shea Shield Competition, and every year we bring home trophies for the various individual sections.  This year, though, we have brought home the main prize – the O’Shea Shield itself!  We shared the overall honour of winning the Shield with St Patrick’s College, our brother school, and we are proud to share the success with them.

Over the weekend of May 18th/19th, St Catherine’s competed in the O’Shea Shield, held at St Patrick’s College, Silverstream.  As always, we put forward the strongest team we could muster, and the girls have done us proud once again.

Congratulations go to our team: Caela Heke, Ella Jansen, and Julie Vidal (Debating); Petala Elama (Impromptu); Nera Tautau (Oratory); Elisha Prasad (Junior Prepared Speech); Anna Cacace, Sophie Halliday, Petula McPhee, Rebecca Moriarty, Saasha Riddell, and Clare Sullivan (Drama); Lagi Aukusitino (Scripture Reading); Karishma Patel, Liana Roberts-Letiu, and Kaysee Savali (Religious Questions); and Julia Ryan, Emily van Voornveld, and Amy Campbell (Debating – we were asked to put forward a second team to make the total number of teams even). 

Our results were tremendous.  Both debating teams won their debates; Petala was second in the Impromptu Speech; the Drama team won the Society of Mary Cup for Religious Drama; Lagi won the Peter Chanel Cup for Scripture Reading; and the Religious Questions team won the Mercy Cup for Religious Questions.  All of our competitors performed superbly, contributing consistently excellent marks to our final total score to win the O’Shea Shield overall.

The last time we won the Shield was in 1999.  Since then, the College has never been outside of the top five placings, in most years achieving second or third place.  We work so hard for this competition every year, and this year, all that work has paid handsomely!  Many thanks to the coaches who have helped the girls to achieve to such a high standard: Jenny O’Brien and Deirdre Walsh (Religious Questions), Gill Willis (Scripture Reading), Victoria Casey (Debating), Chris Jarratt (Junior Prepared Speech), Martin Kaulback (Oratory), Claire Hewitt (Drama) and Kathy Ryan (Impromptu Speech and Debating, and overall O’Shea Shield Co-ordinator).

Fantastic effort, girls!  We are so proud of you all!!

Thinking of enrolling at St Catherine’s College 2014?

Click here for St Catherine’s College Enrolment Pack for 2014

St Maria’s Entrance Scholarship for Year 9 2014

St Catherine’s College offers an academic entrance scholarship for students who have enrolled in the College for year 9, 2014. The scholarship covers the Catholic Schools’ Board fees for one year for the recipient. Further details can be obtained from the College office.

Open Day – Tuesday 28th May

open day ad

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Wellington Regional Debating

Clare Sullivan, Emily van Voornveld and Amy Campbell

Clare Sullivan, Emily van Voornveld and Amy Campbell

The Russell McVeagh Wellington Regional Debating Competition was held over the weekend of May 11th/12th.  This year we entered two teams in this great competition.  Both teams completed a total of four limited preparation debates (with only 30 minutes to prepare for each debate) before the semi-finals and finals took place on Sunday.  Our Premier A team (Ella Jansen, Julie Vidal and Julia Ryan) won three out of their four round-robin debates and continued through to the semi-final.  Unfortunately, they lost the semi-final to Queen Margaret College, who were the eventual runners-up to the whole competition.  However, Ella Jansen was Highly Commended in the competition, and Julie Vidal was named in the Wellington Debating Squad for 2013.  Julie will now work towards securing a place in one of the two Wellington teams to compete at the national competition in August.  Congratulations to all the girls who took part in the competition: Ella Jansen, Julie Vidal, Julia Ryan, Clare Sullivan, Emily van Voornveld and Amy Campbell!

Posted in Academic, News

Newsletter 2, 2013

Download St Catherine’s College latest newsletter here >

Holocaust Education in the Holy Land

The Dome of the Rock

The Dome of the Rock

History and Classics teacher, Brad Evelyn spent 15 days (14-30 January) at Yad Vashem International School for Holocaust Studies in Jerusalem, Israel. This was a series of educational lectures and workshops which taught a group of 24 New Zealand educators about the causes, course and consequences of the Holocaust, as well as introduction them to Jewish history, culture and religion. The group were given the opportunity to learn from renowned Holocaust lectures, meet a number of Holocaust survivors and travel to different parts of Israel including the Old City of Jerusalem, Masada, the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv, Bethlehem and the Golan Heights.

This was a once in a life time opportunity. Thanks must go to the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, Yad Vashem and the Israeli Foreign Ministry for making this opportunity for Brad possible.

Congratulations Brad

Posted in News, People

Netball Trials 2013

Seniors – Year 11, 12 and 13
Tuesday 5th March 4.00pm, Thursday 7th March 4.00pm, Saturday 9th March 10.30am

Juniors – Year 9 and 10
Monday 11th March 4.00pm, Thursday 14th March 4.00pm, Saturday 16th March 10.30am

All trials to be held at the St Catherine’s College netball courts.
Please bring suitable clothing, footwear and bottled water.

Posted in Sport

Coming up: Athletics Sports

Where: Newtown Park
When: Friday, 8th February -
*all students must report at 8:30am. Day will finish approx 3pm.
What: Dress up in your house colours! (red, blue, yellow or green)

All friends/family are welcome to come and enjoy the day with us.

Posted in News, Sport

10 Art Fashion Frenzy

As part of the Year 10 Art Fashion Design programme students’ were given the opportunity to create their own fascinator design. To gain inspiration students’ looked at the renowned UK hat designer Philip Treacy, enabling them to brainstorm ideas for their own fun, quirky and aesthetic outcome. The design had to follow a clear set of design specifications, such as it had to be suitable to be worn in the Fashion in the Field event at the annual Melbourne Cup, it could be any size, colour, style, and had to be able to perch strongly on a model’s head. Here is the wonderful array of student outcomes:

Posted in News