Our premier Academic Prefects get out and about in the natural world...

This is how the Academic Committee gets down to Earth. We're all about applying our knowledge, and doing the mahi in whatever way we can. The white shirts who make it work, back row from left: Jacob Porter, Notus Rivers, Jack Broomfield, and Deputy Head Prefect and Leader of the Academic Committee Levi Pruden. Front row from left: Hamish Kerr, Nathanael Loy, Michael Lin, and Campbell Wood.

The 2022 Academic Committee Report:

At the start of the year, I was honestly sceptical about being placed in charge of the “nerd committee”, not overly sure of what meaningful and positive influence we’d be able to have on this great school. In working with this fantastic bunch of young men, however, those reservations quickly faded away.

We started off this year with a few clear goals in mind:

• To give back to others by creating and supporting outlets for free academic mentoring and tutoring.

• To create opportunities for other students to mentor and tutor.

• To promote academic achievement and co-curriculars as positive things to aspire to and take part in.

• To make something fun out of arguably the least fun part of school.

• To ensure the best results possible schoolwide, including the never before reached goal of 100 Scholarship passes.

Although the outcome of that last marker of success remains to be seen, I strongly believe that this Committee has thrived in all its pursuits this year.

Arguably at the core of this was our involvement in academic mentoring programmes, something we rushed to organise in our first two weeks of action. This included following the tradition of running general school tutoring in the Library Mondays and Wednesdays after school, as well as the advent of the all new Argyle Tutoring programme Tuesdays after school. The latter of these two is something that both Jack and Mr Thomson deserve a lot of credit for, given their proactive efforts to make this programme meaningful and effective (such as with our English workshop for Hostel juniors run later in the year). We had a lot of success throughout the year in supporting a variety of different students who attended these. However, we noticed two trends in the students attending: firstly, that attendance to these programmes was higher close to the date of a test, and secondly, that students often attended to help close gaps in their learning created through COVID isolation.

COVID and its ongoing effects proved to be the great challenge in student learning this year, something that we also communicated with teachers about. In those first two weeks, we interviewed the teachers responsible for existing support programmes in the school, gaining insight from their views about what makes effective tutoring in the current climate. It was also through establishing this connection that we began to roadmap all the tutoring programmes within the school (i.e. the MMC, Maths Tutoring, Ngā Māngai), allowing us to better support and, with the work of our graphic design expert Hamish, promote each of them. With promotion of programmes often being key to their success, our efforts were not in vain, as we won the unofficial Noticeboard competition between Committees in our eventful first term.

Furthermore, we set up a system to get students outside of the Committee involved in our tutoring, setting up a Google Classroom for Academic Honours and Academic Excellence students that provided such opportunities throughout the year. With JP’s comprehensive rostering, our own service system proved to be extremely efficient. Having been unable to do inter-school events due to COVID (our persistent foe), we closed out Term 1 with a fun team quiz for the Junior ALP students, who we had previously visited to give advice and provide tip sheets regarding their time at HBHS. The quiz proved a massive success, as we overflowed the Library with students eager to compete. In the end, this quiz proved a useful trial run for larger events, as, with Michael taking the initiative, we had already begun to plan for a quiz night with Hillcrest in Term 2.

That quiz too proved a big success, with 25 teams of 4 to 6 people turning out, and HBHS teams taking 🥇 and 🥉 (a common display of dominance). We would go on to repeat this success with another quiz night in Term 3, this time with Girls’ High. We hit capacity at 20 teams, with HBHS teams taking the top 3 spots as well. Both of these events, which helped showcase the more light-hearted side of academics, were incredibly fun to organise and run, and hopefully to take part in as well. Special thanks to our quiz master Nathanael for his hard work putting together questions behind the scenes.

Within the school, Term 2 remained a very busy term, starting with the ALP Parent Info Evening in Week 3. We set up and made ourselves available to parents at this event, with myself being privileged to speak about my time in the programme. This was followed by House General Knowledge (proudly won by the mighty Steel House), World Refugee Week (where we ran both a quiz and a writing competition), Open Day assistance (providing info to prospective pupils about the ALP programme), and finally our speed scrabble tournament for Gifted and Talented Week, all the while maintaining our tutoring programmes.

The final stretch of our year as a Committee remained a busy one too, promoting Scholarship papers (and receiving sign-ups for around 350 papers), compiling a tutorials timetable, running our quiz night with Girls’ High, and running another writing competition for Te Reo Māori Language Week, all the while maintaining our own high amplitude study throughout an array of tests and assessments. We would cap off our year by bringing back the tradition of the annual Staff vs Prefects Debate, which had been wiped out by COVID, but is now hopefully here to stay. Led valiantly by Campbell Wood, our Prefects team secured a close but clear victory over the Teachers, arguing against the suggestion that “youthful enthusiasm is more useful for career advancement than experience”, adding another feather to the cap of our incredibly successful senior debate team.

Overall, what has been a challenging year has also been incredibly rewarding. For as much difficulty we have faced in our endeavours, I have been extremely fortunate to lead such a committed and able group of young men through it all, and finish the year proud of all the mahi put in by these boys. A special thanks to Ms Ashby for her invaluable support, Mr Thomson and Mr Scott for their insight and guidance, and to Notus for impressively distinguishing between our productive discussions and my mindless rambling in his note-taking throughout the year. I look forward to hitting that milestone of 100 Scholarships, and to watching HBHS students continue to thrive in their academic pursuits and beyond in the years to come.

Peace and love...

Levi Pruden

Deputy Head Prefect and Leader of the Academic Committee

Academic Committee Profiles:

Levi "Prudawg" Pruden

Quote:  "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Lee Harvey Oswald

Favourite Memory:  Becoming Captain of Mooting without ever mooting.

Future Ambition:  Dedicate myself to getting a PhD then come back and teach at HBHS...

Jack "Jacky B" Broomfield

Quote:  "Size always matters, but only in Chemistry."

Favourite Memory:  Ms Moffitt's Year 10 English class. 

Future Ambition:  A career in forensics...

Michael Lin

Quote:  "Even if we forget the faces of our friends, we will never forget the bonds that were carved into our souls." Jun Maeda

Favourite Memory:  Travelling to play chess with Mr Nolan.

Future Ambition:  Unlock skill: prescribe paracetamol...

Nathanael "Mister Meanor" Loy

Quote:  “It’s been five years and you still don’t know how to square a binomial!?” Mr Nolan

Favourite Memory:  Lunchtime chess in E4 with the boys.

Future Ambition:  To finally understand what politics means...

Hamish Kerr

Quote:  "Do the mahi, get the treats."

Favourite Memory:  Hearing Mr Horne's stories.

Future Ambition:  Be able to name all the foods...

Jacob "JP" Porter

Quote:  "If it ain't the due date, it ain't the do date."

Favourite Memory:  Singing "Postman Pat" with Mr Sutherland.

Future Ambition:  To start an assignment more than twelve hours before it is due...

Notus "Notice" Rivers 

Quote:  "Capital is dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks." Levi Pruden (original, authentic quote)

Favourite Memory:  Speedrunning Minecraft Education Edition in Mr Silvester's class.

Future Ambition:  Buy and subsequently delete League of Legends...

Campbell "Cameron" Wood

Quote:  "NCEA internals are rigged. You can't have the teacher be both the coach and the referee." Dr Williams

Favourite memory:  Watching "Jonah from Tonga" in Mr Tucker's Year 9 Science class.

Future Ambition:  To complete an English essay of my own free will...