The world comes to School House.

We had an international flavour last week with our Japanese themed formal dinner on Thursday and the French rugby test on Saturday.

Formal dinner was a lot of fun with many boys eating food they normally wouldn’t try. The menu consisted of salmon steaks, miso soup, sushi and chicken teriyaki. For all those former boarders out there, I bet you didn’t have a meal like this when you were at school! For the seafood lovers in the hostel, it was a fantastic night as we very rarely have fish during a normal week. The next international formal dinner will be Thai, this will be in the second week of term three.

The boys had a thoroughly good time at the rugby and it was great to see 15 on 15 for the whole game for a change! We were sitting in the Otago Daily Times stand and saw plenty of action with the tries to McKenzie and Smith scored almost directly in front of us.

The holidays are fast approaching and the boys are certainly ready for a break. We have had a fair bit of illness this term, which is perfectly normal for this time of the year. Term two is also the time when the reality of NCEA starts to hit, especially for the Year11 boys. There are always a lot of internals to complete in term two and on top of this, the boys start to realise that the end of year examinations aren’t that far away. The juniors also have exams just around the corner. Regarding junior exams, I often hear people say ‘’they don’t matter’’, well actually they do matter. They matter to the boys who sit them and they are also valuable experience for the boys before NCEA starts. Success in junior examinations gives the boys a shot of confidence which sets them up for the future. As the old adage goes, success breeds success. I will be talking to the juniors this week about how to approach exams and deal with the stress that comes with them.

On Thursday we had John Hedges come to speak to the boys at the formal dinner about the challenges facing young people today and the law. We also had the School House rowing competition after dinner, which this year forms part of the Mitchell Cup. 

Have a great week, stay warm!