Ngā mihi nui kia koutou katoa. Welcome to the Hornby High School newsletter for June 2023. Tēnā koutou katoa. This is the final message from the desk of the Principal.

It has been a busy term. Everyone from students, to teachers, support staff and parents/caregivers have felt the pressures of a term which has been heavily impacted on by the PPTA industrial action. It was heartening, to have all students back on site fully last week to focus on learning before the July holidays.

Resiliency is a key attribute for any young person and while the rostering home was not ideal for continuity of learning, it was an opportunity for all rangatahi to ‘step up’ and take charge of their learning journeys. The New Zealand Curriculum has seven key competencies including self-managing. If there was ever a time when students needed to enact this, it was during the period of rostering home.

The word homework has a tendancy to cause a range of reactions most frequently, “nah the teacher didn’t give us any”. On many occasions this is likely to be true. However, a resilient, self managing learner with clear academic goals will always find ‘work’ to do ‘at ‘home’. This might include:

• reviewing work covered in class

• reading a book

• checking out the subject learning site

• doing online research related to current in class topics

• checking out studyit (https://studyit.govt.nz/)

• writing a personal blog

• getting a study buddy…………………..

It is key for students to take responsibility for their learning; the teacher is there to guide and facilitate but a successful teaching and learning relationship needs to be reciprocal. On that note, our senior students in particular should be using the July holidays to complete unfinished work and to start studying for the derived grade examinations scheduled for next term.

A reminder also that we do have an ‘open door’ policy at Hornby High School, and if parents/caregivers have concerns please feel welcome to contact the office to arrange to talk with one of our staff. Enjoy the holiday time whether you are travelling or staying at home, we look forward to seeing everyone back at school at the start of term three on the 17th July.

Ngā mihi nui
Iain Murray
Principal