Kia ora tātou - The word community is derived from the Latin communitas (meaning the same), which is in turn derived from communis, which means "common, public, shared by all or many." Communis comes from a combination of the Latin prefix con- (which means "together") and the word munis (which has to do with performing services). And therefore I am calling on our Ngatea community to help address some of the 'modern social trends' coming into our schools.

 Many of our parents and caregivers do an exceptional job in raising their children. It is definitely a bumpy road with many challenges to overcome - and these challenges often bombard the parents, families and children from left, right and centre. And therefore, it’s a massive thumbs-up to our parent community trying to navigate their children from childhood to adolescence.

While many parents are navigating the many challenges individually, I also think that as a community we can do very much better, when it comes to social media and the new trend of vaping

With social media, targeted advertising and the casual use of mobile phones our students are exposed to so many of the challenges they and parents/caregivers are having to navigate daily. Yet we are finding more and more students from very young ages having social media accounts - most of which actually have 13+ age restrictions. The questions I have are:

• How well are parents monitoring these accounts?

• Are parents aware that some children have more than one account?

• What snap photos of themselves (and of their peers) are being shared?

• And what language is being used in the various chat rooms?

We’ve seen it all here at school: from very young ages engaging unsupervised in a range of online activities. And in many instances, the can of worms is opened at school when we are having to deal with the outcome of unregulated activities. A massive thank you to those parents/caregivers who do monitor their children’s online activities, and often intervene in something before it becomes a problem.

Equally concerning is the growing use of vaping amongst primary (and secondary) aged children. Yes, children will challenge the boundaries, and want to give “things a go”. At school we are hearing about more and more incidents of vaping amongst young people within our community. And once again, a massive thumbs up to those parents who have stepped in. Well done. Yet, my questions are:

• Who are the people who are supplying our children with the vapes?

• Where do these “suppliers” come from?

• Do these “suppliers” walk out of the front door of the houses in our “village”?

• And if this is the case, how is it possible that the trading of vapes can happen in the very same village that is meant to protect our youth?

The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 2020 prohibits the sale of vaping products including non-nicotine vape liquid and toy vaping products to anyone under the age of 18 years. Therefore, let’s claim our village back:

• Let’s be more aware of what's happening via our very own front doors.

• Let’s identify and call out those supplying our young people with vapes illegally.

• Let’s put a kink in the supply chain by banning all forms of vape sales within the village.

If you are making vapes available to our young people, then there is no place for you in our village.

Ngā mihi nui

Neil