A warm welcome back to Term 3. This is the term where we hope to reach high performance both in and outside the classroom. We see the first two terms as setting the foundation for this term where our students have a clear understanding of expectations and have built the appropriate knowledge and experience to forge ahead and achieve.

It was fantastic to see so many parents at our parent teacher interviews on Wednesday. It is a key relationship in the learning experience for our young men. The more adults in their lives that have an interest and understanding in how important learning is, the better the outcomes.

I spoke at assembly about the importance of habits and routines - the most basic routines can have the most powerful impacts on the wellbeing and success of our students. Sleep, nutrition, and connection all work together to help our young people perform at their best. We have habits and routines here at St Thomas that we believe, while basic, have a major impact on performance, attendance, uniform and relationships. When our students attend regularly (more than 90%), wear their full uniform with pride and are connected with teachers and fellow students, the outcomes are always positive. The key relationship between student and teacher is very important - we spend a lot of time as a staff speaking and building initiatives based on a paradigm of high care and high demand. I expect our staff to be honest with our students about performance, about their values and character and also their achievement. We link this with a high level of care where we are here to support our young people in their lifelong journey - we do this via our restorative practices, pastoral team, mentoring programmes, counselling services and the many relationships that our students have with key staff here at St Thomas.

The best of luck to the many sports teams entering into the play off part of the season, in particular, both the 1st and 2nd XV that play semi-finals this weekend against CBHS. Play hard, play fair and display plenty of manawa.