The theme for my last word is hard work.

Some and probably most of you will be thinking I’m going to talk to you about sport and the hard work you have to put into that to be successful, but I’m not. I’m going to talk to you about hard work in the class room.

For some of you work in the class might be easy, difficult, challenging and for some just can’t be bothered but that’s fair enough as there are plenty of jobs at McDonalds for the likes of you so don’t worry too much boys.

For me, work in the class room is difficult as I am a dyslexic student. Being dyslexic makes the class room life not as enjoyable as it is for a normal student.  I’m sure other dyslexic students sitting in this room will know, the different challenges that we have to face throughout the learning day from period 1 to 5.

I  work hard in the class room as that is the only way you can beat dyslexia. The result of the hard work I’ve put in has now given me the right credits and qualifications, to now start applying for my polytechnic course for next year and to hopefully achieve one of my goals of getting UE in case I want to head to university.

One of the things I had to accept having a learning difficulty was help. I had to be courageous and brave. In my younger days of being an OB's boy, I would hate having to walk through school with my reader writer to a separate room to sit down and do my exams. I just wanted to do the same as everyone else and do what they were doing because I didn’t like being different.

I’m not saying this help has been the making of my time at OB's but I definitely think accepting and using this bit of help contributed to my meeting at the polytechnic two weeks ago for my course of choice for 2017.

I think as a whole school we need to get better at accepting help from teachers, friends, family or whoever it may be, but most importantly show some courage, be brave and ask for some as you will never know how far just a little bit of help might take you.

I'll finish with a quote from Sir Peter Leitch, better known as, "The Mad Butcher" who is also a dyslexic. He was once asked, "What advice would you give young New Zealanders?"

"Never give up – work twice as hard, and you’ll get to the top of the mountain if you want to. Don’t be afraid to seek help. Help is out there. There is no shame in putting your hand up and asking for help."

Cheers boys.