Kia ora everyone and welcome back to term two of the school year. I hope you have all had an enjoyable and relaxing two week holiday and that your sons are ready to tackle term two. For all the new parents in the STC community, safety is paramount when it comes to your son’s time at St Thomas’ and as a pastoral team, we have been working extremely hard and will continue to when it comes to identifying and eliminating bullying at the school.

Starting on Monday, 13th of May, along with many other schools in New Zealand, we are holding the Annual Anti – Bullying Week. This will involve a big push at assembly and mentoring around education on bullying behaviors and what to do. This will culminate with the annual Pink Shirt Day on Friday, 17th of May to raise awareness around anti – bullying behavior.

For our younger and new students at St Thomas’ who have come into a new and different environment the elements of social media and digital citizenship have only enhanced the possibility of being exposed to incidents of physical, verbal, social and cyberbullying. The complexity of this is huge and so are the consequences for all that are involved in a bullying incident.

When it comes to preventing and reporting bullying there is a clear process to follow. It is incredibly important for a student to report bullying straight away to the dean, mentor teacher or school councilor so that the issue can be understood by all parties and solved with outcomes met. If we could push this message to our young men, it would make for a more effective process and outcome.

As previously mentioned, at St Thomas’ we want to ensure the safety and security of your sons is the most important aspect of their time. This will ensure engaged, fun and respectful behaviour and learning across the whole school. We have a wonderful team of caring staff who continually do and want to make this school a safe and enjoyable environment for your boys, so they can flourish in the academic and extracurricular environment that is in front of them.

The following websites can provide some more insight into understand bullying and services to help those involved:

 http://www.police.govt.nz/about-site/other-sites/no-bully-website

 https://www.bullyingfree.nz/about-bullying/cyberbullying/

 http://www.cyberbullying.org.nz/downloads/parents_cyberbullying_advice.pdf

 https://www.hrc.co.nz/enquiries-and-complaints/faqs/bullying-school/

 https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/

Kind Regards,

Chris Leader

Year 7 and 8 Dean