2020 is the year that has taken lots away - it’s also given us lots too.

While Covid may have taken away several weeks of face to face schooling, our students certainly haven’t missed out on an education. We’ve made some huge advances in remote learning which is going to continue to improve how our students learn, combining the best of face to face learning and online learning.

It’s given us all another view of education too, which is closely linked to Hagley’s values. Doing the right thing and accepting and supporting others are the cornerstones of mana [respect] and tika [integrity] at our place. Covid has taught us some key lessons first hand. We haven’t been watching a video about it, we’ve been living it. We're living through a pandemic, a disease that is affecting the entire world. We’ve seen first hand how our country has responded and we’ve learned how the government has the power, when the circumstances demand it, to restrict everyone’s basic freedoms. On one level, that loss of freedom might seem terrible and that we have lost so much. If someone had told us on March 20 this year that, in five days’ time, we would have to stay at home, only be with people we're living with and no-one else – and do that for four weeks – in fact nearly seven weeks over Levels 4 and 3 – we wouldn’t have believed them. And yet, that is exactly what we all did five days later on March 25.

We’ve learned so much from the experience of living through Covid. All of us have experienced the power of collective action, the power of doing the same thing together and doing that for each other: for people in our whānau, as well as for people we don’t know at all. Think back to eight months ago to Level 4 and to us following strict social distancing rules. We all knew we had to do the right thing. We didn’t have to be told - we expected it from each other. That unified response gives us a powerful reminder of how linked up all our lives are, how our actions can impact on others, and how we are all capable of working for the common good.

We learn more about ourselves in the tough times than the good times, from how we react to negative and challenging things in our lives. Those tough times have taught us a lot about flexibility, a lot about being kind to others, a lot about resilience.