One highlight was the visit of Dr Vincent O’Malley.

On the afternoon Tuesday 28th August Dr Vincent O'Malley, author of The Great War for New Zealand, took the first of two student sessions in Manawa Toi Whakari. This session involved around 100 Y12 and Y13 students from LPHS and Queens .

The next morning Dr O'Malley provided a second session for LPHS's Y11 students, 10G and 10L. Around 120 students attended. A number of staff who were available during the sessions also took the opportunity to attend.

Dr O’Malley can draw on extensive personal research in the field of indigenous and settler history in New Zealand and provided engaging and, at times, challenging accounts which clearly raised questions amongst students that continued to prompt discussion in the weeks that followed. The two sessions provided a special opportunity to hear about and discuss at first hand the issues around events increasingly seen as central and formative in our society with a leading scholar in the field whose work has inspired petitions, parliamentary committee inquiries and a new currency to exploring our colonial past and its legacies. Later emails made it clear that Dr O’Malley enjoyed the responsiveness of the students to the sessions as much as

Our thanks and appreciation to Dr O’Malley and to Bridget Williams Books who included us as the southernmost school in Dr O’Malley’s current speaking tour.