From the Rector

Dear Parents,

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.

- Jean-Paul Sartre

The examination season is in full swing and for some of our young men it could well prove a day of reckoning. Though many will have worked perspicaciously in preparation for the exams, there will be some whose preparation has been perfunctory at best.

Those young men will most likely fail.

They will fail to achieve the results of which they are capable. They will fail to do themselves justice. They might even fail the exam and/or the course. They will fail because in most instances they have been lazy and unmotivated. And in this world of shifting the blame, or not accepting responsibility, or avoiding the f-word (failure, not the other one) at all costs many will not accept that their failure is their fault. They are to blame.

But many will reap the rewards of their hard work throughout the year and will achieve positive results and, in doing so, will open doors for themselves for next year and beyond. Those who have taken responsibility for their academic work, those who have chosen to apply themselves and worked hard, it is those young men who will earn and deserve success.

The recent Senior Prizegiving gave us as a school community the opportunity to celebrate the successes of many of our young men. It wasn’t that long ago that some schools did away with prizegivings and the like because they didn’t want to upset those who missed out. As you can imagine, reader, that made me faintly apoplectic as yet another group of beige cardigan-wearers got in on the act of ruining it for everyone. Again.

Not everybody can win a prize. The Mandalorian would tell us, “This is the way.”

Those young men who crossed the stage to receive their awards earned the chance to do so, and they should be proud of their achievements. For the junior pupils to see the achievements of the award winners, particularly those who won the top awards – the Dux winners – is vital in building a culture of success and aspiration. We want our boys to be aspirational – to aim high and work hard to achieve their goals. There were many who missed out on awards by the barest of margins – in one case, by just one percent – and while they didn’t win the top prize, they can nevertheless be justifiably proud of their achievements too.

Our junior pupils have just finished sitting their school examinations and it will be interesting to see those results, and to read their reports as we head towards the end of the year. There will be some who have done far better than they might have hoped, there will be some for whom ambivalence will rule the day, and there will be some who have worked hard and who didn’t quite get over the line. All one can ask is that they gave their best.

Good luck to all our young men for the remainder of the NCEA examinations.

Staffing 2024

Appointments for 2024 have been made in the Commerce, English, Science, Social Sciences, and Technology departments.

Enrolments 2024

Year 9 numbers for 2024 are unprecedented. At this stage we will have 425 young men joining us in Year 9 next year, with a number of others joining us at different year levels. There remains a significant waiting list for out of zone pupils following a ballot, and we continue to receive enrolments from pupils living inside the school zone.

D M Bovey

Rector