As a seventeen-year-old, Ben Skeen had the opportunity to participate in a month-long immersion programme in India, which proved to be a life-changing experience that put him on a pathway to working with young people.

The eldest of four, Ben was born in Auckland to a father who was a builder and a mother who was a kindergarten teacher. He attended Christ the King Catholic Primary School in Mt Roskill until year 7 before moving to high school at St Peter’s College, Auckland.

St Peter’s College focused on the formation of good character and so Ben was incredibly fortunate to be part of a group of Year 12 and 13 adolescents, led by young, energetic staff, who spent a month in India volunteering.

The group visited Christian Brothers schools in India and worked in Kalighat Home for the Dying in Calcutta, a hospice established by Mother Teresa, which provided an opportunity to participate in ‘humbling’ volunteer work. They would help with the laundry and sit beside people the Sisters had taken off the street to provide comfort for them in their final hours.

“This was an incredibly moving experience for me,” says Ben. “I was so grateful to be part of this trip, I remember saying, ‘one day I want to return to this place,’ bringing back a group of youth to experience a similar experience.”

Once back home, a group who travelled to India wanted to find ways to help those within their own community. They knew about camps in Dunedin, set up by the Christian Brothers, as a holiday experience for youth who, for either socio-economic or emotional reasons, just needed a break from everyday living.

Ben and the group wanted to run these camps in Auckland. So as 18-year-olds they formed an incorporated society to set up a camp movement in Auckland. To this day there are several ‘youth run camps for youth’ in Auckland each year where young people, who are referred by the Police, Barnardo’s, local schools, or social welfare agencies, can participate in a week-long camp during the school holidays free of charge.

It was clear growing up, Ben had an underlying ambition to be working with young people.

After secondary school, he went on to study a Bachelor of Commerce with majors in HR and Economics and a Bachelor of Arts with a major in NZ History and minor in Political studies at the University of Auckland. At the end of his four years of study, he completed a graduate diploma in teaching.

On Ben’s seven-week teaching practicum at Auckland Grammar School, he fondly remembers watching the head of history mesmerise young people through his teaching. This teacher became a special role model for him when in 2007, he started as a first-year teacher of history at Auckland Grammar School.

In his second year, he joined the school’s boarding community and for five years was an assistant housemaster of Tibbs House looking after 120 boys from rural settings.

“I enjoyed the opportunity to live and interact with the boarders and to share in their successes and their worries,” says Ben.

“To be able to sit down at the end of dinner or prep time and have a young person say; ‘Hey sir, my teacher said this is the best piece of work she has seen’, or ‘I’ve moved up a class’, or providing wise counsel around the nature of living with, caring for and losing people when I learned of the passing of a grandparent, is pretty special.”

In his third year at Auckland Grammar, Ben took charge of the student leadership programme that takes young people outside their comfort zone.

In 2009, he initiated a flagship programme where he led a group of senior students to India, replicating the similar experience he had as a Year 12 student when at St Peter’s College.

Working with NGOs in India, such as Freeset, an organisation in Calcutta where females sold into prostitution, are pulled from the streets and given support to earn a meaningful wage, demonstrated to students, these females can get back their self-confidence, learn new skills and rebuild their lives.

“Through this immersion programme, we have been able to expose adolescents to the harsh realities of the world but also the richness and goodness that’s happening there too,” says Ben.

The month-long tour to India now happens every second year and has become Ben’s legacy at Auckland Grammar. He is proud of the establishment and evolution of this programme where the original students who went on their first mission are now running the programme.

Ben coached rugby at Auckland Grammar and was in charge of the school’s rugby progamme for five years. In 2012 he became assistant coach of the first XV rugby team and then coached the first XV for eight seasons.

“These were some pretty special years because we made six out of eight semi-finals, four Auckland 1A finals winning once and having some epic battles over the years.”

In 2015 Ben took on his current role as Associate Headmaster and continued coaching the first XV rugby team until the end of 2019.

As he enters his fifteenth year working in a secondary school, what excites Ben about educating teenagers is that ‘no one day is the same’.

“Teenagers have this marvellous ability to make you see the goodness of human nature and to marvel in the power of people. Occasionally they make decisions that make you shake your head for a moment, but out of those poor judgements, they provide an opportunity to make you feel like your life has meaning and purpose as you help them navigate those mistakes and put steps in place to guide their future,” says Ben.

“Young people are incredibly intuitive, they don’t always speak to what they feel, but they witness it, and they get it.”

Outside of work, Ben was contracted to NZ Rugby’s high performance match official squad where for 12 of his 15 years with the squad he provided refereeing services to World Rugby. He spent a lot of time in rugby stadiums, in NZ and across the globe and officiated in tournaments including the British and Irish Lions series in Australia 2013, Rugby World Cup in England 2015 and Rugby World Cup in Japan 2019.

“I was absolutely hopeless at playing rugby so I feel blessed I could follow my passion to officiate the game of rugby.”

Ben laughs that the beauty of working in education was always looking forward to Monday at school when young people would tell him what they thought, what their parents thought and what their neighbours thought about the refereeing decisions he had made on the weekend.

“Rugby has taught me a lot about the value of decision making. It has provided the contrast of making decisions where I have lacked time and the ability to collaborate with others compared with making life decisions when often there is time to sit around and debate and discuss before making the decision,” says Ben.

Rugby has also provided Ben a sense of perspective.

“There have been times on an overseas flight home when I have been feeling reflective around a refereeing decision or some media profile I was getting. Then the next morning I am faced with a young person in my office, through no fault of their own, living or working in circumstances that are far from ideal. As I am attempting to help navigate that reality, I was often reminded - it was just a game.”

After officiating 70 test matches and travelling the world numerous times, Ben retired from refereeing at the end of 2019 with a deep sense of satisfaction and wanting to spend more time with his own family.

Ben and wife Hayley, along with family Grace (4), Zara (2) and Harrison, (13 weeks old) are incredibly excited about a brand-new chapter for them as a family unit at St Paul’s Collegiate School.

“I am humbled to be appointed to the position of Headmaster at St Paul’s. I am also in debt to Grant Lander for the tremendous way in which he has led the school and has developed people within the school’s network. Essentially, I now get to stand on his shoulders and continue to assist the school as it evolves,” says Ben.

What struck me immediately about St Paul’s is the real sense of community, where students and families feel proud of their school, they feel connected, and they feel like they truly belong. This was evident when I had the opportunity to speak with several people during my interview process.”

The next era of the school under Ben’s leadership is about continuing to explore ways in which the school’s programmes and systems provide students with state-of-the-art facilities and teaching practices.

“As a guardian of the school, if I do my job well, families with sons and daughters at St Paul’s who graduate at the conclusion of their five years, will look back at my time as headmaster, and the transition of headmasters and say, ‘this school has served me incredibly well, but equally is far greater than any individual’.”

Fun facts about Ben Skeen

• Ben’s fondest childhood memory was spending time at Matarangi during the summer school holidays. Ben’s Dad was a builder who worked long hours, so this was the one time of the year the family had his undivided attention. He enjoyed bike rides, playing tennis and long summer nights
• During his university years, Ben’s favourite extra-curricular activities were playing tennis and long-distance running
• Ben coached tennis as a means of income during his university years
• Hayley and Ben have been married seven years and were introduced by a family friend
• Ben was awarded a Woolf Fisher Fellowship, a scholarship to study for a PhD, rewarded for excellence in education and leadership. When he can access this, he wants to explore how schools around the world reflect on their practice of character formation. It is his desire to create a greater collaboration between schools and their programmes so all young people have the opportunity to learn these skills.