School House Newsletter - Term 2 - Week 4

By Vai Mahutariki | Posted: Sunday May 21, 2023

Welcome to our School House Newsletter for Week 4

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Term 2, Week 5

Monday 22

Tuesday 23
12BIO trip

Wednesday 24
Year 9 Hostel v TBHS Thomas House rugby game

Thursday 25
PPTA action - rostering home Year 11 students
Caversham Relays
Senior French camp

Friday 26
Senior French camp

Term 2, Week 6

Monday 29

Tuesday 30
TBHS Interschool (home)
PPTA action - rostering home Year 13 students

Wednesday 31
OBHS Mini Careers Expo
Milton Relay

Thursday 1
PPTA action - rostering home Year 12 students

Friday 2

Monday 5
King's Birthday - school closed

Greetings to our School House hostel families. We have had a good couple of weeks with lots of learning, lots of extracurricular activities, and some fun along the way. Here are some updates and happenings.

Men of the Week

Congratulations to Year 13 Joshua Allison who recently completed the Outward Bounds Camp surviving all the challenges and gaining valuable experience.

Congratulations to Year 9 George West for demonstrating brotherhood and always putting his hand up to help others and being good mate to everyone.

Congratulations to Year 12 Shamus Young who won second place in the recent Southern Region Young Farmer of the Year Competition. He now turns his attention to Nationals.

Special Acknowledgments

Congratulations to Year 12 William Tisdall who has been selected for the New Zealand Secondary Schools Rodeo Team. He will travel to Australia in August and September to compete representing New Zealand in bull riding. We are proud of you.

Activities

Our boys have enjoyed a number of activities over the past couple of weeks, with Highlanders games, Otago Nuggets games, special education seminar, hiking and much much more.

Pre-Formal for Year 13s and their partners and their families

It was great to host our Year 13s in School House hostel for some special time together before they headed to the main function on Saturday.

Country Visits and Year 8 Hostel Open Day

Thank you to all our current School House hostel families who supported our country visits two weeks ago.  Especially to our Year 9 boys who represented us and spoke very well to our potential new families.  We also hosted our Year 8 Open Day at School House and at School on Friday just gone.  It was well attended and great to see some current families as well with a new sibling joining us next year.

Leave:

Please male sure you get Leave in for your son/s well in advance. We have recently had some near misses of rides and transport as families have not leave in and therefore we have not planned for drop offs and on a couple of occasions recently when boys have almost missed their buses or transport as our vehicles we already out and about doing other jobs when boys have said they needed to be dropped off to go home but no leave was put in and so we were unaware of them departing or going home etc.

Impact of Covid & sickness:

Thankfully we have been able to manage the above issues reasonably well like most places.  However at times this may affect certain parts of our hostel.  Currently we have one staff member home with covid from last week in our kitchen and another kitchen staff member not feeling too well.  We are able to continue operating as usual although we will have a couple of slightly different menu options this week to help with the workload of our other staff.  We will be having Pizza ordered in on one night for dinner this week.

Introducing our Staff to new families this year:

Director of Boarding & Assistant Principal - Vai Mahutariki

Senior Director - Pita Sinamoni, Matron - Janis Shaw, Head Chef & Kitchen Manager - Donna Cooper

As well as Donna, Chef - Glen Hutchinson, Chef - Nicola Pryde

Housekeeping Team - Kim Cramond, Mandy Grant, Kerry Latta.

Laundry & Housekeeping - Carolyn Bowen

Head of Hostel Property & Maintenance - Howard Nixon and his sidekicks Berty and Sammy.

Van Driver - Stephen Alexander.

Important Dates:

Wednesday 24th May - Year 9 Hostel Rugby Match, 1:30pm kick off

This week coming our Year 9 School House hostel boys will travel to Oamaru to meet Thomas House hostel Year 9s from Timaru Boys High School in the inaugural Year 9 hostel rugby match. This is a great opportunity for both cohorts from their respective hostels to come together as one for a common purpose, compete together in an event and support each other along the way. We will also have some Year 13 hostel boys to help coach the year 9 team along the way, with an aftermatch for both hostels and their families to join in on together. Its been a long time planning but we will finally see this event happen which is great. Kick off is now at 1:30pm

Kings Birthday Weekend - Friday 2nd June - Monday 5th June - Weekend Out!

Just a reminder that we have a long weekend coming up in two weeks across New Zealand in honour of the King of England,s birthday. This is a weekend out for all except the International students. There is no exception as there is no weekend sport or activities for our students. Please make sure you get your Leave in well in advance.

Follow us on our social media platforms Instagram: @obhshostel and Facebook Otago Boys’ High School Hostel for information and activities our boys are doing.

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