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.

Term 1 is an extremely busy term in every kura. We have started the year with roll growth that is far greater than the Ministry of Education had anticipated (some 6% in fact), and we now face issues with an ever-greater number of whānau from out of zone seeking enrolment. These things in themselves create a fascinating tension. We have gone from a celebration of academic excellence with our Academic Honours assembly, to celebrating athletic excellence with our annual athletics sports, both wonderful whole school events that highlight the delightful whānau feel that makes our kura such a special place. We have a record number of students who could qualify for Canterbury Athletics championships should they choose to go.

Behind all of that we continue to work hard to make our vision as a centre of creative excellence a reality as we innovate in both our pastoral and our curriculum work. Our Kāhui are already embedding themselves as the centre of our pastoral system. They might best be described as a whānau or a House system, depending upon your cultural background or view. This idea was key to our whole school design when we planned the rebuild. They are designed to allow vertical groupings of students from Year 7 to Year 13, and we see seniors continuing to mentor and moderate amongst the more junior students, and to interact in both social and learning situations. Kāhui identity is already developing, something very evident at our athletics sports. This is a joy to see. I have also been thrilled to see the maturity with which senior students make use of the flexible and varied spaces available for them to study and work. Yes there are those times when they are less focussed than we might like, but as adults we are exactly the same. None of us focus on our work with high intensity throughout every single one of the long hours that we are at work. But we are seeing a culture of study and personal application continuing to develop amongst those senior students.

Embedded already in this system is our split of Year 7 to 9 students into ‘wānanga’ groups in which they have their own learning advisor who focuses on building deeper relationships with each student. Within the first six weeks of the term we have already seen some amazing benefits emerge for individual tamariki as these deeper relationships develop.

Our Year 7 to 9 curriculum innovation, in which students tackle their learning in context, crossing curriculum boundaries in a fascinating array of combinations, has gone from strength to strength. The evidence strongly supports better deeper learning when students learn things in context, when they see connections between subjects, rather than the old nineteenth century siloed approach where subjects were taught separately.

These are early days, with a lot of work still to be done. We make mistakes, but modelling the willingness to try new things and make mistakes is essential to developing resilience in young people. We identify it as one of the essential building blocks of creative excellence. That said, so far so good. Walking through our learning spaces at any time, you are presented with a calm focussed learning environment, with young people engaged in their learning like never before.

There is a lot about education in New Zealand that has been and is under review, not the least of which has been the review of NCEA. We must be careful not to presume that NCEA measures all that is important as outcomes from kura and from education. Oh that it were that simple.

For while we have been shifting our practice to be that 21st century culturally responsive kura we aspire to be, still children and whānau continue to struggle with deprivation, with trauma, with challenges that some of us cannot even imagine. A significant part of our work is to help those rangatahi and whānau to navigate their way through these challenges. That is for many just as significant an achievement as gaining NCEA.

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 on education at Hornby High School, and more generally, on my blog at https://whakataukihewakaekenoa.blogspot.co.nz/

Nga mihi nui

Robin Sutton