A Message From The Rector
By Richard Hall | Posted: Monday March 6, 2017
Usually I am against this statement, but evidence is proving me wrong.
'When it comes to boys behaviour it is bad behaviour' - especially online.
This week as you may have seen two North Island boys' schools have received the kind of negative publicity we all hate. This publicity has been generated by a minority of immature students and their social media usage. We also have had an issue with inappropriate texting this week.
In regards to social media, it does seem that boys' behaviour is bad behaviour.
I am no expert in social media, I don't even have any accounts, but I think that the group who are most vulnerable to stupidity are our more immature boys. They could be in Year 9 or Year 13, age has nothing to do with maturity. The rule of thumb needs to be - if you would not say it to her face, why would you say it online?As a school a large part of our health education and good man lessons are taken up with social media, there can be no thought that we do not educate boys on what is or is not appropriate. But still, with amazing regularity they still get it wrong and they do significant damage.
Especially when it comes to girls. I don't buy that this is a by-product of single sex education, because I know for a fact boys in co-ed schools are behaving poorly too.
Rather, I think it is because we have such a monkey see monkey do approach to social media. If someone famous does it, it must be ok.
As a school and as parents I think we need to have a united front, as a school we will not tolerate any of this behaviour and as families of our school I expect your total support in that.
As a parent I expect you to look at what he is posting on social media - check his accounts, much the same as if we believe it is an issue we will expect the right to search his phone. That is the bottom line for us keeping our students safe.
As we go forward, we will as a school be trying to find solutions, but I think this is one issue we cannot go alone on.
