School House Newsletter - Term 1 - Week 3 & 4

By Vai Mahutariki | Posted: Tuesday February 21, 2023

Welcome to our School House Newsletter

Greetings and welcome to our School House Hostel families in week 3 and 4 of the School year. It has been another busy 10 days with a number of key events taking place over this time. We sent off our first group of Year 10 boys to camp, competed in our first Interschool for the year, boys entered term 1 sports teams and cultural groups.

150th Reunion this weekend - February 24-25 2023.

The 150th Reunion is finally upon us and we are excited to see many hostel old boys come through our doors and reconnect with old friends and enjoy time together on this momentous occasion. Thank you to all our hostel families out in the community who have donated items for this event and continue to support our boys at the same. Your contribution is absolutely fantastic and much appreciated.

We will have some boys and staff in place for the arrival of hostel old boys on Friday afternoon and many complete their registrations and pick up some goody bags as well as take a tour in the current School House Hostel. We excited to host events at Alhambra Union RFC, down at school and on our sports fields and courts, as well as at The Hub for our formal dinner.

To our Farming Families

To our many farming families, although we as a country see what is going on up in the north island, we know how hard our farming families are doing it with the weather and such a dry part of the year. You are in your thoughts and look forward to some favourable weather for you in the near future.

Wanaka Show

We will be holding a stall this year at the Wanaka Show from March 10th-11th for OBHS School House hostel. If you are in the area and at the event, we would love to see you pop in and say hello. Some of our hostel boys from the Wanaka area will be helping us host over the two day event and would love to catch up and have a chat.

Activities 

Our boys are enjoying weekend activities and looking forward to paintball this weekend on Sunday.

Man of the Week - Week 3

Congratulations to Year 12 Harvey Brown on a great start to the year with an outstanding effort in his studies, sports, and school events. Nominated by staff at school and in the hostel Harvey has been focused with a great attitude in all he has done this term so far. He also recently received a centurion award the week before for passing every assessment in 2022. Well done Harvey.

Man of the Week - Week 4

Congratulations to Year 10 Finlay Williamson who scored 74 runs for the Junior Cricket Team in the interschool last week against Timaru Boys High School.

Congratulations to Year 11 Te-Ava-A-Katu Nicholas who was named MVP of the Under 16 Boys Grade in a successful OBHS Rugby League U16 team who won the Under 16 Otago Rugby League Championship on Sunday last weekend.

Reminders: Thursday 16th March

We have a scheduled planned teacher strike on Thursday 16th March. Hostel boys will still continue to attend school as normal but in special supervised classes in their year groups.

Long Weekend - Weekend Out

Friday 17th March - Monday 20th March is a Long Weekend out of the hostel. It is Otago Anniversary weekend. Boys can leave from Friday after school and return on Monday 20th March, after 2pm onwards. No need to return in uniform.

Old Boys Golf Day - Friday March 17th

Reminder we have the OBHS Old Boys Golf Day on Friday 17th March which will be a great and well attended event which will be supported by the hostel.

Pastoral Changes: Vaping

We are making some changes to way in which we attend to stamp out the use of vaping in the hostel.  As many of you know it is an issue that is in every high school in our region and in our various hostels.  In the past we suspended boys immediately and sent them home a period of time before returning back to hostel.  This is not working and in many cases is more of a punishment to our parents rather than the boy. Therefore we are trying something different that targets the boys more and their behaviour and improvement.  This will involve restorative meetings with boys staff and some occasions parents, they will have to go through from training and up-skilling on the effects of vaping both socially and physically. There will be a number of community service tasks to complete and confiscation of devices and some privileges.  This process will take a period of time whilst having the boys more accountable.  We have chosen to make some changes here as the current process is not working.  Suspension in still on the table, but we also want to try and educate and develop change agents within our boys for the better. We will still consider current options like review of placement if necessary.

Upcoming Dates:

Friday 17th March - OBHS Old Boys Golf Day

Monday 20th March - Otago Anniversary Day

Name clothing items and towels.

Please ensure all boys clothes items and towels are named as alot of washing is piling up due to no name on them. After a period of time some items maybe donated to charity.

This weeks menu is attached

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