Kia ora everyone

It has been an exciting few weeks with our amazing combined OGHS/ OBHS School Production which had an epic season of seven shows, our winning of the Dunedin Secondary Schools’ Girls’ Rugby final, and our Year 13PE Cross-country Ski trip. Congratulations to each and every person involved in all of these activities and also to the teachers who have dedicated many hours and days of their time to make these happen.

On Tuesday we celebrated our Academic Achievers and it is a perfect time to think about the importance of learning. Education is the biggest factor in our success in life. Literacy and being able to write and communicate well are essential for a life in which we participate and get a fair say. Numeracy is essential for a life where we can understand measurement, money, costs of living and financial planning.

Next week we have Student Learning Conferences and the Wellbeing Day for Year 9. This is a time set aside for you, your child and your mentor to reflect on progress, make goals and consider career plans - or make some if there are none! Appointments have been made and it is an expectation that a parent or member of your whānau must come to the meeting. This helps align support for every student and creates a meaningful and ongoing relationship between home and school.

Scholarship entries need to be entered at the end of the month. Scholarship is a separate examination or external assessment in each subject. Scholarship students are rewarded with the satisfaction of completing the exam, working in a small study group with specialist teachers - both in school and at tutorials in the wider city, extending the way they think and obviously possibly being awarded a Scholarship - which is prestigious and carries financial award. Junior students can prepare themselves for Scholarship by reading widely, watching a wide range of films and documentaries and using different thinking skills which help develop multiple perspectives and ways of seeing things. Your teacher can give you more information and there are Scholarship specialists in every department.

Don’t forget that phones can be a CAT-alyst for distraction from learning. Every class, every day, student phones must be in the phone motels. This is not-negotiable. We will be doing random checks of this over the coming weeks. Students are never too old to regulate their phone use - or to have it confiscated - and the real kaupapa behind this is to train them for future work where they cannot have a phone out at all. At lunch, phones should be turned off and put away in bags. Students only have five years here with their friends and they need to be able to be present and listening to their friends. A phone out - even if it is face down - looks like we are waiting for something more interesting to happen and gives a message to our friend that they are not important. Our real life is more meaningful and important than our online life.

I will leave you with a quote by William Butler Yeats: ‘Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire’