Kia ora Parents and Whānau

Haere Mai, warm Pacific greetings and welcome to the 2021 school year. As usual the year has started well. 

We have about 300 boys who have joined us in Year 9 and they have made an excellent start to the year. We had a mihi whakatau on the first day to welcome our new students and their whānau. I’d like to thank our Board of Trustees Chairperson, Iaean Cranwell and Year 13 student Theles Hakaria for their korero, and Hohepa Waitoa for representing the whānau.

We have a number of new teachers joining us in 2021. We welcome Ms Louise Richards who is our new Assistant Principal, and joins us from Rongotai College in Wellington; Mr Fern Webber, Head of Faculty for Mathematics; Mr Michael Tamati (Social Studies); Mr Rabin Kumar and Mr Jacob Dalley (Mathematics); Dr Richard Viskovic (English); Mr Nick Ward (Science, Maths & Technology); Mr Lachlan Russell (Commerce); Mr Reuben Spicer and Mr George Inwood (Health and PE); and Mr Justin Galligan (Technology).

I am really pleased with our NCEA results in 2020. The table shows that we are at or above other schools in the country and schools who are the same decile at Shirley Boys’ High School. We would like to see an improvement at Year 13, and also an improvement in our Merit and Excellent endorsements.

To improve our results, we need a strong focus on student achievement and success. Our teachers are providing high quality teaching and learning, and therefore we require boys to be fully engaged in lessons so they can get the benefits of the teaching. We have established the Gold Standard in the classroom and around the school. This outlines how we want boys to behave and mange themselves, and how they live the Shirley Boys’ High School values of Belonging, Character, Respect , Whānau, and that they always strive to be Better Than Before.

As I have said on a number of occasions, success at school does not just involve the student. When everyone, students, staff, parents and whānau are working closely together, communicating regularly and supporting each other, the chance of boys achieving well increase dramatically. It is important at the start of the year that you are supporting your boy at school. Help him get prepared, ensure he is sleeping and eating well, and support our expectations around attendance, punctuality and boys managing themselves at school. 

Ngā mihi
Tim Grocott