Kia ora koutou. Talofa. Kia Orana. Malo e lelei. Bula vinaka. Fakaalofa atu. Namaste. Kumusta. Haere mai ki Te Kura Te Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka. Warm greetings to the Hornby High School community. Ki nga whānau whānui nau mai hoki mai. Ki nga whānau hou, nau mai tauti mai. Welcome to all of our existing whānau members, and to all of our new whānau members. This is a great time to be a part of our Hornby High School community.

Our school roll continues to grow, reflecting the growing community confidence in our kura. Over the past 5 years we have grown by a whopping 25% and we have started the year with a roll of 815 students, a level not seen since the 1980's.

Our students' academic achievement continues to improve, and you can read more about our wonderful 2021 NCEA and scholarship results elsewhere in this newsletter. In 2021 we saw some fantastic sporting achievement, but yet again we expect to see Covid limit the opportunities for participation and competition, such a shame for a community that has so much talent.

We also expect to see cultural aspirations continue to flourish as we engage in initiatives designed to support the sense of belonging and cultural identity for all of our learners and our staff.

We can expect the usual amazing opportunities for musical and cultural development, even if Covid limits live performance opportunities. Our focus does of course continue to be on improving academic outcomes for all learners.

In the middle of the year we will be host to Dr Claire Hughes who will work with us under the Ministry's ‘Creatives in Schools’ scheme. Claire is a virtual reality specialist and she will work with students and staff to develop skills in this rapidly growing area. One of the outcomes will, we hope, be the virtual reality re-telling of the cultural narrative of our area. This will be a fabulous opportunity for those amongst our student population who want to be engaged in this exciting area.

The diagram below, from our 2022 strategic plan, gives you a good quick overview of where we will be focussing our attention this year. You'll be able to see more detail on this on our website once the final details have been confirmed over the next month.

In this regard, last week I regularly took the opportunity to walk through our learning spaces as learning was in progress. As always I saw amazing teachers working hard to build positive learning focused relationships with our learners, your rangatahi. We are privileged to have such a wonderful group of teachers working with such an amazing group of young people. I carried with me a profound sense of pride and optimism.

There’s a lot to do, but we also need to take a moment to ‘smell the roses’, to reflect on what has been achieved at Te Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka Hornby High School over the past 15 years, as we head into this new year. Our hashtags #manahoromaka #hornbypride have never been more fitting, more appropriate.

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