Talofa lava, Malo e leilei, Kia orana, and warm Kavanagh greetings

What a stunning start to 2022. Your children have begun the year in a respectful, organised and settled way, ready to learn and ready to make the most of the new school year. Thank you for your support in making this happen. Masks have not been an issue and we have been very pleased with the way our young people are ensuring these are being worn inside throughout the day. Staff, too, are doing this of course, and we are all feeling for those employees who have been wearing masks for so many months now! Although it feels far from natural, we know that we are doing it to protect those around us who have health concerns and worries in the face of covid. The advice we continue to receive is that for PE and dance, which are essential curriculum learning, these can take place inside with masks on if breathing is not impeded, or masks off where this is not possible, with plenty of ventilation and spacing. Depending on the activity, PE classes will be outside as much as possible. Please remember that we are working with both vaccinated and unvaccinated children and we need to practice caution as a result.

No doubt you heard or read the media coverage of OBHS and removing cellphones at breaks so students would begin to talk to one another again. I am pleased that our students continue to comply with our mobile phone rules; our years 7&8 hand in their phones in period one and their ako teacher looks after these for the day, while our years 9-13 take more responsibility for themselves and keep their phones in their bags. On duty yesterday, I was very pleased to see everyone running around, communicating and socialising, playing games, and generally gathering in a healthy way together, without the need for phones – even though they have access to them in their bags. It is important that teenagers can live well and positively in the ‘real world’ with those around them and, on the whole at school, this happens on a daily basis.

During the last seven or eight years, the line between home and school behaviours in the online world has become very blurred. Schools are often asked to, and expected to, fix the issues that are occurring in your living area or in your child’s bedroom at home, simply because the students involved all gather at school together for 6 out of 24 hours a day. Parental responsibility is often overlooked, and our jobs have become bigger and more complicated as a result. Our wifi system blocks all social media. If students are accessing social media during school hour, then they are either bypassing our systems knowingly and against our rules by using VPNs, or they are using their own data. Schools are often on the receiving end of complaints and grizzles because we haven’t done anything about online bullying that has happened outside of school hours in your homes and, more often than not, we are also very unaware of this unless asked for help to sort it out by a student. Snapchat issues are hard to sort out because of the lack of evidence unless someone screenshots it. We can’t bring about discipline or restorative responses on hearsay only – especially when there are different stories from different students. If you have concerns about online safety for your child, we are very happy to support you, but it is important that we have a record of evidence to help us do this. Your child’s kaiārahi should be your first point of contact for concerns, and others in the pastoral team will step in to help as needed. 0800NETSAFE is an excellent resource for parents if you need advice about concerning online behaviours – they do an excellent job of supporting parents to know what steps to take. This year we plan to again offer parent education sessions to talk about the online lives of teenagers and look at strategies to support you and your children as everyone navigates this tricky part of life. In the meantime, please be assured that we continue to encourage, teach, and expect respectful relationships between students that align with our college values of Respect, Service, Justice and Truth – just like Jesus Christ modelled.

Mā te atua e manaaki – God Bless