Principal’s Comment

Kia ora koutou. Talofa. Kia Orana. Malo e lelei. Bula Vinaka. Fakaalofa atu. Namaste. Kumusta. Haere mai ki Te Kura Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka. Warm greetings to the Hornby High School community.

What a full term this has been. The junior school Arts kete has been in flight, and the creativity we have seen has been wonderful. We have seen traditional arts creativity, but so too have we seen creativity in a really interesting area – the cross over between the arts and the sciences. ‘He puna auaha, a centre of creative excellence’!!!

We have just concluded two weeks of amazing cultural celebrations. First came Tongan Language Week, which ended with a fabulous feast. And then we celebrated Te wiki o te Reo Māori. Both of these events are notable because of the positive spirit, the great feel of the weeks, and the degree of student leadership we have seen. I was nearly brought to tears with the looks of pride on the faces of the students performing at the Tongan feast, and again as we held our first inter kāhui haka competition. Our rangatahi were proud and loud as we used to say, they were fully engaged, they were ‘present in the moment’. What great spirit.

And in the middle of all of this we managed to hold our first Pasifika Fia Fia evening in several Covid filled years. What an amazing evening within our auditorium nearly full with whānau watching performances from students from four of our kura. Ka mau te wehi!!

You know the future is in good hands when you see students who are proud of who they are, and who show inspiring leadership that brings people together in celebration of culture, language, and identity.

On a different note, we have experienced huge roll growth over the past five years, with more still to come. I have already mentioned the building work that will take place in 2023/2024 to add a fourth kāhui to our campus. To help our 2023 planning, if you have a child whom you expect to be attending Hornby High School in 2023, please get their enrolment completed now. You can still call in and get paper enrolment forms, but we also now have an online enrolment option which you can find here:

https://hornby.school.nz/enrolment/

Please get this done as soon as possible. It’s never too early.

Please make sure you follow us on Facebook for the latest and most up to date news https://www.facebook.com/hornbyhighschool/ , and on our website www.hornby.school.nz . You can also follow my thinking our education journey at Hornby High School, and more generally, on my blog at https://whakataukihewakaekenoa.blogspot.co.nz/

Kia tau te mauri

Robin Sutton