Kia ora koutou. Talofa. Kia Orana. Malo e lelei. Bula. Fakaalofa atu. Namaste. Kumusta. Haere mai ki Te Kura Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka. Warm greetings to the Hornby High School community.

It has been great to see the vast majority of our young people get back into their studies and their other work with enthusiasm and commitment. Last week our music and drama students presented their performances for us in a great evening of music and drama. They were wonderful to watch, I felt such pride ... #manahoromaka indeed. There were voices that I can only describe as spine tingling, and examples of stage presence that you might more normally think could only be presented by mature adult actors.

I have also seen great examples of commitment in Year 7-9 hurumanu where students have been looking at a range of issues such as the Treaty of Waitangi and biculturalism in New Zealand. I have seen students in mathematics classes challenging themselves to come up with solutions to really interesting problems, and students in DVC and technology whose clear goal was excellence in their work. And then there is the product of the Year 7-9 Arts Kete... Wow!

This is the spirit that fuels our aspiration to be ‘a centre of creative excellence’.

Sadly we have also seen some odd behaviours from a very small number of students that have absorbed a disproportionate amount of staff time. These are problems created because those few students have failed to follow our core values of Commitment, Achievement, Resilience, and Respect. They have made choices that do not meet the basic test of ‘kindness’. I spoke at length about this in both junior and senior assemblies last week. Some years ago I saw for the first time in 50 years a man who had bullied me mercilessly as an eight year old. Time had clearly not been kind to him, and he was hobbling on a walking stick, but I recognised him instantly, and I felt hatred. His physical condition was such that I could easily have walked over to him and ‘dished out some justice’, albeit 50 years late. However, as I told the students, my response was in fact to show one final act of kindness and turn away. I showed kindness by not giving him a piece of my mind, but by letting him be.

Our rangatahi need to hear this same message from all of us, from kura and from whānau alike: kindness is always the best option. If our rangatahi always held up the ideal of manaaki before everything that they chose to do, these issues would quickly disappear. Please talk to your children about this.

Please make sure you follow us on Facebook for the latest and most up to date news https://www.facebook.com/hornbyhighschool/ , and on our website www.hornby.school.nz . You can also follow my thinking our education journey at Hornby High School, and more generally, on my blog at https://whakataukihewakaekenoa.blogspot.co.nz/

Kia tau te mauri

Robin Sutton

Tumuaki