School House Hostel Newsletter - Week 2 - Term 4

By Vai Mahutariki | Posted: Friday October 28, 2022

Welcome to the Week 2 School House Newsletter

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Term 4, Week 3

Monday 31
Skippers Feast

Tuesday 1
Senior prizegiving, Regent Theatre 7pm
All students to attend and to be seated by 6.45pm

Wednesday 2
Last day for senior students
Exam admission slips issued

Thursday 3

Friday 4

Term 4, Week 4

Monday 7
NCEA exams commence

Tuesday 8

Wednesday 9

Thursday 10

Friday 11
Year 8 Orientation morning

Important upcoming dates:

17/18 November
Junior exams

26 November
Leavers Dinner

2 December
Year 8 BBQ

9 December
Junior prizegiving and last day for junior students.

Tena tatou e te whanau whanui o Te Wharekura o Nga Tamatoa o Otakou. Greetings to all our families and the wider community of School House Hostel. We hope you have had a good couple of weeks of term and a good long weekend.

These two weeks have been busy with boys getting back into the swing of routines and final exam preparations. We have had some Awards Evenings and final school assemblies. We now look forward to sending our Year 13 Leavers off in style next week

Skippers Feast:

Skippers Feast this year will be next week on Monday 31st October starting from 6:00pm in the Dining Hall. Parents of our Year 13s to start arriving by 5:30pm so we are seated and ready to go for a 6:00pm start. Attached is our menu for Skippers Feast.

Senior Prizegiving:

Senior Prizegiving is next week on Tuesday 1st November in the Regent Theatre, in Dunedin from 7pm.

Seniors Last Day:

This will be on Wednesday 3rd November with the final Year 13 Assembly in the morning and the final March out of the Archway afterwards followed by the final school Haka in acknowledgement. This should be finished by about 12:30pm at the latest.

Seniors can stay in the hostel during study leave to get further support down at school but must inform hostel and each week day will be spent doing some study down at school.  

Senior Exams

Senior Exams start Monday 7th November - 2nd December.

Business Success

Pictured below is Head of Hostel, Thomas O’Connor with Richie McCaw, day boy Seb Kyle, and their business product ‘Accelerate Sports Journal’. Thomas and Seb are a part of a school business group called Accelerate. Their business group is made up of 4 other group members, of whom one is hostel boy Cody Campbell. Their business group partnered with Richie McCaw and Dan Carter’s charity iSPORT. As part of this partnership their business donates 20% of each sports journal sold to the charity to help get young kids into sport and physical activity. These boys made the most of their meet with Richie to get some high quality advertising at the Willows cricket club on Sunday last week where they played against him and a team of other well known names in a 50 over cricket match.

Rugby Acknowledgements

Well done to some of our senior hostel boys who had outstanding representative seasons with Otago Metro.

Junior Touch Tournament - 2nd Place

Well done to hostel junior boys, Te Ava-A-Katu Nicholas, Tom Wilson, and Will Nichol who represented the Junior A OBHS Touch Team in a recent Kings High School Invitational Tournament. They made it into the final but were not able to get the final result. A great effort by our hostel boys and the entire team.

With our 1st XI involved in Gillette Cup qualifying it was up to our Premier Colts team to enter the McCullum Cup this year. The boys brought the trophy home after 4 big wins against Logan Park, Waitaki Boys', St Kevins and Taieri College.

Losing only 6 wickets in total across the four games there were some impressive individual performances too. Jack Ussher grabbing a 5-wicket haul against Waitaki Boys', Hostel Boy, Ashton Hansen with 82 not out against Logan Park, Harry Bezett (tournament top wicket taker) and Hostel Boy Alfie Omelvena-Flame picking up 4 wickets each in the St Kevins game and Hostel Boy Charlie Ottrey's classy 91 against Taieri College. Pick of the bunch was Alfie Omelvena-Flame's 219 runs across his three innings, including 135 not out against Waitaki Boys', in a team total of 239.

Cricket Acknowledgements

Congratulations to Head of Hostel Thomas O'Connor on being selected as Captain for the Otago U19s Cricket Team

Term 3 Students of the Term

Year 11
Congratulations Hostel Boy, Freddie Hore

With outstanding effort and an equally outstanding attitude, Freddie sees the positive in everything and is always thinking of others. He is extremely hardworking which has resulted in excellent achievements. Freddie was part of a group that won the national Geography competition. He is a Centurion and has passed NCEA Level 1. 

The Last Word

THOMAS O'CONNOR — OCT 17, 2022 (Head of Hostel)

I was heading to the food court in the Meridian the other day when I noticed a man out the front of his house, making his way towards his wheelie bin.

It was a modest house, and the man was elderly. He had a walking stick in one hand and a rubbish bag in the other. His movements were awkwardly slow and deliberate, almost painful looking.

As I watched the man carry out this basic task of putting the rubbish out, I couldn’t help wondering, what did he do with his life? Was he a hard worker or was he lazy? Did he live day to day, or did he have a vision that he pursued throughout his life? Was he a ratbag, or did he try to influence others for the better? Was he successful, and what is success to him? When he looks back on his life, is he happy with what he sees, or does he think he could’ve done better?

Of course, then I couldn’t help seeing myself at that stage, looking back over my life and judging it, the same as I am now with my high school life.

I’ll never forget how big this school seemed when I first arrived here, and how small it seems now. How important it seemed to my life as a Year 9, and how trivial it seems as a Year 13 moving on.

It’s amazing how as I’ve grown, the school seems to have shrunk. How the teachers and leaders are now just people with fears and failings, who make mistakes, the same as the rest of us. These people who can potentially have such an influence on our lives while we’re under their tutelage at such a crucial time, who have no influence once we’re gone.

Just like the teachers and leaders of the school, we all turn up here with different motivations and aspirations. While we as students have a finite time here, the staff are here forging the careers they chose, a career of fostering and influencing our young lives.

I’m sure we all agree, some teachers you get on with and respect more than others. Some care and some don’t. Some you care about, and some you don’t. They are the same when it comes to us. What I’m saying is, this is perhaps as good a learning as any of the lessons we get in the classrooms. If we don’t get on with people, then life is going to be even tougher than they tell me it already is out in the real world.

I’m told the best business people are the best at building relationships with their customers and suppliers. Relationships are multidirectional, they have to go several ways to be successful.

I know from my limited experience that the best teams to be a part of are not just the ones that are successful all the time, they’re the ones where everyone gets on the best.

Yes, it is up to us, the boys in this school to be the students and learn what we are taught in class, to take responsibility for our destiny. It is up to the teachers as well. I’m not here to talk about your or my learning at OB’s. I want to challenge you not only as the students but also as the teachers and leaders of this school. Do you create relationships with people that you will be remembered for? Do you influence those around you for the better?

With this in mind, we flow through this school, as much as it is for us to be the ones to tow the line and make the effort to get on with you, the teachers and leaders. I challenge you all, teachers and students alike, to reflect on your motivations and aspirations. At the end of the day, we are all here on a learning journey. Are you achieving what it is you wished by coming to this school? When you are that elderly person labouring towards your wheelie bin, how will you judge the job that you did getting on with, and influencing people for the better?

In my final last word at this school, I will finish in true Otago Boys’ fashion, with a quotation from Arthur Foreman. “Not everyone thinks the way you think, knows the things you know, believes the things you believe, nor acts the way you act. Remember this, and you’ll go a long way in getting along with people.”

Year 7 Hostel Open Day

This will be held on Friday 18th November.  Thank you to all those parents who have registered.  We look forward to seeing you all then.  Attached to this newsletter is the schedule for the day.  We start at 9am in the Dome and finish by 2pm at the hostel.

Any inquiries can be emailed to [email protected] 

Stymie - Anonymous notification tool

This is for our parents who are not sure of what "stymie" is in OBHS and the hostel. Stymie is an anonymous harm reporting tool that we are proactively using to support our students to say something without fear. We aim to connect students with their empathy and conscience so that they can, in an empowered and courageous way, enhance or change the culture of care in our school. Stymie has been built to support our existing student well-being/pastoral care frameworks in OBHS.  It is used around New Zealand and internationally in many schools.  We have been part of this journey for just over 12 months now.  All notifications are sent to senior management in school.

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