On Monday, we celebrated our first school mass of the year. As part of our celebration we acknowledged and “badged” our student leaders for 2019. Our badging ceremony symbolises the partnership school, parents and faith have in developing our young people. During our ceremony our student leadership badges are blessed, then passed from myself representing our school community, to the parents who place the badge on our student leaders' blazers.

I wish our leaders all the best as they lead our student body in 2019. We have every confidence in the leadership that they have already displayed as young men, as well as their potential.

On Wednesday, we celebrated and acknowledged as a country, the importance of Te Tiriti O Waitangi. As a school we are continually developing our practice to ensure we acknowledge and teach our young men the importance of this founding document. We look forward to continually upskilling our teaching staff in this area.

Today, we were blessed with wonderful weather to come together for our swimming sports. It was fantastic to watch the house spirit alive and well, as well as celebrate our students who have clearly worked very hard in developing their swimming talents. We will acknowledge the individual winners in next week’s newsletter. The Inaugural Swimming Sports trophy (donated by the current Year 13) was won this year by Marlow. I would like to thank our staff for putting together a well-run day, in particular our sports department consisting of Mr Nev Brooker, Mr Alex Coulthard, Mr Daniel Kahura and led by our Sports Director, Mr Daniel O'Brien.

I would like to wish Cormack Tarrant, Cameron Brewitt and Josh Grosvenor, who are competing in the Coast to Coast this weekend, all the very best. Good luck, men.

I would also like to acknowledge Mr Paul McCarthy (Coach of the 1st XI) and Fraser Buckley (Captain 1st XI) as well as all team members on an outstanding outright victory over SBHS 1st XI last weekend. A great start to the new season.