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Welcome to Term 2 week 7.

Support staff morning tea

On Wednesday we had a morning tea for our support staff to thank them for all the amazing things they do for us and our school.

Thanks to our volunteer teachers who are doing their jobs during the break so our support staff could enjoy their morning tea in peace!!

Assemblies on Monday

Below is a summary of what I talked about in our junior and senior assemblies.

Respect

As you know, one of our school values is respect - showing respect by caring for ourselves, each other, guests, and our environment. Recently, I had 3 year 12 health students come and see about the results of their survey on bullying and to talk to me about what we as a school could do. When I read it it made me want to come and talk to you about what I think.

So, firstly, we all have a personal responsibility to make sure that everyone feels safe and welcome at school. I like using “THINK” before you speak.

The other thing we can all do is be upstanders. An upstander is a person who sees someone being treated or talked to badly and chooses to stand up to that person or persons. This is not by abusing them or threatening them, this is by clearly telling them to stop.

The next important step is when someone has been brave enough to tell this person to stop, then another person supports them by agreeing with them. This is a very powerful thing to do. I challenge all of us to be upstanders.

However, there is another step if this doesn’t work. If someone or a group of people keep on treating people in a disrespectful way you need to tell someone - a trusted adult - a teacher, one of our Guidance Counselors, your family, but tell someone. We don’t always know what is happening - even if you think we should - but we don’t! If nothing changes then you need to tell your trusted adult again or another one - please don’t let it continue. I’ll say again we don’t always know what is happening but we will try our best to sort it out when we do know.

Exciting opportunities to get involved with around school

There are loads of things to be involved in at Grey High if you want to make a change not only in Greymouth but in the world. Clarke is going to talk about two of them. Firstly, the SADD program which is about empowering young people to make safer and better choices on the road. The other one is the World Vision 40 hours Famine where for over 45 years, young people of Aotearoa have stood together and shown the world what our small nation is capable of doing.

The focus this year is on sub-Saharan Africa where millions of kids are being brought to the brink of starvation, and many may not survive. But as their website says we can choose what happens next.

Remember, be an upstander not a bystander, if you want our school, our community, our country and our world to become a better place you need to do something about it.

I'd like to thank all of you for your support in making sure everyone feels safe and that they belong at Greymouth High School.

“Whāea te iti kahurangi - strive for success”

Ngā mihi nui

Samantha Mortimer

Principal

https://mrsmortimerreflectionsatgreyhigh.blogspot.com/