We have had a very exciting and busy fortnight here at St Thomas, from celebrating Tongan Language week, welcoming all of our new enrolments for 2024 on site, our annual St Kevins winter exchange, to the exciting news of a National Championship in Senior Rugby League.

I would like to offer all of the players and staff involved in the Rugby League National title winning team a massive congratulations on your achievement - the first South Island team in 23 years to win the much-coveted Rugby League national title. A wonderful achievement that has been a decade in the making. The leadership of Andrew Auimatagi throughout this time has been unwavering and resilient - a wonderful reward for an ongoing commitment to offering our young men an opportunity to test themselves against the best rugby league players in the country.

I would also like to acknowledge all of the teams - both players, coaches and management - who took part in winter tournament week. We had eight teams at a variety of tournaments around the country. These trips take a lot of organising, fundraising, and planning, and without the support of parents and teachers, our young men wouldn’t have the opportunities they have.

Sport and success are often spoken of in the wrong context. While we participate in sport to win, it is important we learn to win and lose with dignity and pride. In society, and in school communities, we often celebrate the winning, but the true victory is in the many experiences that our young men have through participating in sport. These many experiences aren’t always positive and most of them involve the ability to work with different people within team environments. The hundreds and thousands of positive and negative experiences our young men have built up a large bank of interpersonal skills, it is in these skills we prepare our young men for the future. For me, success isn’t measured in the winning and losing of a match. Success is truly measured when we see our boys as men later in life and see what sort of husbands, partners, fathers, and leaders within our society they have become - that is when we will truly know if we succeeded at school.

The video above shows Steve Hart addressing the students on the Rugby League Nationals win and the process of "winning".