Hastings Boys' High School

Kia Ora Koutou

Term two sees the kick off of winter sport, and it is great to see the number of young men turning out representing the school. Sport as we know has significant importance in young people's lives. It teaches them how to work together as a team, to win graciously and lose with dignity. It teaches discipline and respect, respect for the opposition and officials, and a general love for the game.

This term has seen the continuation of individual disruption, with year groups being rostered home. As the Headmaster I am disappointed and frustrated that a solution and common ground has not been found. I know that it is creating distress for families and teachers.

The Super 8 Culture competition concluded last week, with our Pasifika group, Tama Akina second and our Kapa Haka men, Te Rōpu Manu Huia a very close third out of eight schools. The New Zealand Super 8 competition celebrated its 25th year and has come a long way from just rugby and cricket.

The Board of Trustees seek your feedback about our cellphone policy, which is included in this newsletter. Mobile phones as we know are a valuable part of our lives, but they are also the singularly most disruptive tool when used inappropriately in lessons. Students texting, and on social media platforms during class disrupts teaching and learning, nothing can be clearer than this. We ask you for your support so that our teachers and staff can maximize the learning time available.

Ngā mihi nui

Mr R G Sturch, M.Ed.Admin.(Hons).,B.Ed., Dip Ed.
Headmaster

Mr Robertson attended Hastings Boys’ High School from 1966 – 1969. He played 8A rugby in year 9 progressing to the 1st XV in year 11 and 12. Bruce excelled at cricket, playing 1st XI Cricket as a very useful fast medium bowler. He received the Sutton Memorial Cup for the best fielder in the 1st XI, and was a School Prefect in 1969.

Moving to Counties his rugby skills were quickly identified, as his pace, silky pass and swerve saw him tour with the All Blacks as a young 20 year old.

His playing career saw him notch up 135 games for Counties, playing 102 All Black matches, scoring a total of 34 tries. His debut game was in August 1972 against Australia, and his first test against Scotland in 1981.

Bruce Robertson was also a man of conscience, declaring himself unavailable for the 1981 South African tour. Bruce is described as a quiet man but has stayed connected to rugby, with the Auckland Blues and as a Secondary Schools Co-ordinator for the Northland Rugby Union.

Bruce Robertson is regarded as one of the best centres in New Zealand Rugby history and is recognised as one of the top 100 All Blacks and an inductee to the New Zealand Rugby Union Hall of Fame, and a worthy recipient to the Hastings Boys’ High School Wall of Fame.

We would like to acknowledge the time and effort put in by our two lovely volunteer readers. Amy Janes-Thomas and Anna Ormond.

Amy and Anna give up a morning of their busy week to come and assist the boys with their reading skills, This is such a valuable asset that we are pleased to offer some of our boys who need extra time put aside to gain reading miles and we could not do this without them.

• NO cell phones are permitted for use in class.

• All cell phones are to be put in either the students' bag or on a box in the 'cell phone' box on the teachers desk. No cell phones are to be visible in class. This includes the cell phone being placed on a desk or in a students' pocket.

• In unusual cases, the teacher may allow the use of a cell phone for academic purposes only.

• If a student has a cell phone visible or is using it inappropriately without teacher permission, then he may have the phone removed and if so, it will be handed to the Headmaster.

• If a cell phone is confiscated and handed to the Headmaster, then the following processes will be followed:

1st time confiscation - handed back at the end of the day, classroom teacher to Kamar incident

2nd time confiscation - 3 days confiscation and parents to collect phone from Headmaster, classroom teacher to Kamar incident.

3rd time confiscation - viewed as continual disobedience, referred to Dean/ SMT, classroom teacher and Dean/ SMT to Kamar incident

• If a student refuses to hand his phone over, the classroom teacher is to immediately contact SMT and he will be collected from class.

Please remind the students that bicycle helmets are a legal requirement and must be worn at ALL times while on their bikes. It has been noted that students are leaving the school grounds and are not wearing their helmets.

Thank you to all of our Hastings Boys' and Staff who made our Interschool Cross Country a huge success in 2023.

Congratulations to all boys for competing, and below are our top 3 placings per year group.

Year 9: 1st Isaiah Cooper, 2nd Carter Scannell, 3rd Harlem Bartlett

Year 10: 1st Alfie Jones, 2nd Tye Engelk, 3rd Kobie Bartling

Year 11: 1st Alexander Wilson, 2nd Troy Kronfeld, 3rd Kingston Byrne

Y12-13: 1st Thomas Watts, 2nd Patrick Doole, 3rd Izaiah Kairau Mainini

The 2023 Kī o Rahi Nationals were held in Rotorua during the first week of the school holidays, April 11-13. Our team, Ākina, representing Hastings Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools, represented themselves, their whānau and their kura with pride.

Out of the 32 teams that qualified from regional competitions, we finished the tournament 16th in the country. While this was not the result that we would have hoped for, we took a lot of learnings from this that will help us to improve in the future. Mokau Lambert was named as team MVP for the tournament. Congratulations to all our fine young men who represented us.

We have junior nationals coming up in November, and will start preparations for this after the winter season is finished. Similarly, we are in the process of qualifying for the 2024 NZSS nationals in Christchurch to be held in April 2024.

Any players who are interested in being involved in Kī o Rahi please see Miss Ferrick, or email to paulaf@hastingsboys.school.nz

On the 9th of May students from Hastings Boys’ High School attended Futureopoly. Futureopoly is a careers-based event that is aimed at vocational training and employment after high school for those who have chosen not to go to university. Futureopoly covers many different industries such as manufacturing, customer service, child care and trades with companies such as Kiwibank, Unison and Mr Apple attending.

The event was very interesting especially as it was incentivised through the use of prizes making the students ask questions they would normally not ask and explore options they never would have.

Overall I enjoyed the event as it allowed me to explore careers I would never have considered while also being able to talk to someone who actually does the job which can give insight on what we should expect going into these jobs.

A special thanks to the Careers advisors Mr Hill and Mrs Waite for organising and taking us as well as Ms Ferrick and Mr Wilson for taking students to the event.

Matthew Hall 13Fe

The Hastings Boys' High School golf team travelled to New Plymouth for this year's Super 8 tournament. Nine young men took up the challenge of an extremely tough Ngamotu Golf course over 54 holes in two days. The top team, captained by Blair Hastie, performed admirably, with Blair shooting an 80 on the final day. The team, comprising of Austin Powell, Henry Massingham and Freddie Ives, finished 7th after edging Gisborne out on the last day. The development team of Taylor Guthrie, Ezra Morton, Bryce Simpson, Wills Moroney and Brodie Lewis also produced some good golf, with Taylor coming home with an 85 on the last day. A memorable couple of days were had by all and the future of golf is looking healthy at Hastings Boys' High School.

Kī-o-rahi is a ball sport played in New Zealand with a small round ball called a 'kī'. It is a fast-paced game incorporating skills similar to rugby union, netball, tag rugby, and touch. Two teams of eight players play on a circular field divided into zones, and score points by touching the 'pou' (boundary markers) and hitting a central 'tupu' or target. The game is played with varying rules (e.g. number of people, size of field, tag ripping rules etc.) depending on the geographic area it is played in. A process called Tatu, before the game, determines which rules the two teams will use.

This tournament has no hiding places. All teams are in the top half of Rankin Cup every year and any weaknesses are immediately exposed. We are always up against it but we always learn a lot.

Performances were awesome and the team has improved out of sight over the last two weeks. With a lot of the team sick and others not travelling, and already having played five games thew week before at the WAICOL Tournament, we really did outperform expectations.

• Game 1 v Whangarei Boys HS
  4-1 loss after being 1-0 up after only 20 seconds thanks to a deflection from Bryce Simpson. Some erratic umpiring decisions went against us and we lost the momentum. With two boys at home unwell and another four here that went down sick overnight it left us a little short through the middle and up front. The performance however wasn’t too bad.
  
  
• Game 2 v Hutt International Boys
  2-0 loss to HIBS. Down 2-0 at half time this was skill, a much-improved performance from this morning against Wellington’s top Rankin Cup team. We had more than enough chances to score but with our top scorer from WAICOL Dylan Nel home sick we need to find other goal solutions.
  
  
• Game 3 v Hutt International Boys
  2-0 loss to New Plymouth who have won the last six Super 8 tournaments and are among the countries best school hockey teams. The boys are learning to play expansive hockey and learning fast host to scramble in defence. We are creating chances but are not taking them when they come along. That will come as we go over the video.
  
  
• Game 4 v St Kentigans
  We Lost 2-1 against a very good side with a lot of resources coached by an Olympic Gold Medallist! really took it to them and the difference was simply speed of thought in our defensive 25 area. Auckland Hockey is played at much faster pace, and from dead ball set pieces we reacted too slowly. It was pretty even otherwise.
  
  
• Game 5 v St Pauls Collegiate
  Finally! The first game when most of our team had recovered enough from the flu or heavy colds to become more effective! We beat the home side St Pauls', who only last year finished 3rd at Rankin Cup and won it a couple of years before that. A huge scalp to add to the wins over multiple Rankin Cup teams last week at the WAICOL Tournament.
  

At the Hawke’s Bay Secondary Schools Sports Council, students from 11 schools came together to talk about sport amongst the youth in Hawke’s Bay. We carried out exercises where we had to talk about good and bad sporting moments we have each experienced and why these moments were memorable. We then had to explain some barriers that hold young people back from getting involved in sport. Finally we were tasked to fill out a form where we had to choose an activity for the whole school to compete in to overcome some of the barriers that we identified.

We then ended with a couple questions to work through as a group. The first question was ‘what did you take away from this lesson’? Our response was that we communicated with other schools to get ideas of what sports means to them and the impact it has on their lives. We also learnt about sports we aren't particularly familiar with. The second question was, what does sport mean to your school? We responded by saying that sport builds character and mana in our boys and it shows the Ākina Man values on the playing field.

This meeting gave us the understanding of what sport really means to the youth of Hawkes' bay and gives us an opportunity to get people within the region to get involved and stay active. We are looking forward to planning some events within our school to develop student involvement in sport.

Logan Timmons

Jonah Cooper

Cameron McKay

On Saturday 6 May Old Boy and 1955 HBHS player Mr Ernie Trask visited his old school. It was the day of our Tranzit 1st XV game against Wellington College. Mr Trask's grandson Sam was playing for Wellington College and so it was easy to "kill two birds with one stone" and make the trip from Tauranga to watch. Mr Trask was welcomed up to the Craig Hickson Lounge which is the home of the HBHS Old Boys Association, and enjoyed looking at some archived publications of the years he attended. Mr Sturch and Mr Trask then went and met the two teams on the field at the end of the game. We enjoy meeting our Old Boys and hearing their stories. It was heart-warming to hear Mr Trask sing the school song up in the pavilion just before heading home.

Hastings Boys' High School Junior A Basketball team travelled to Whakatane for the first time to compete in their annual Trident High School Classic. Congratulations to Tyler Mcdonald, Tamaiakina Edwards - Butler, Kaea Wharemate, Southon Spooner, Maraki Edwards, Luke Payne, Koby Houlton, Varden Beets, and Emmanuel Isaako for being undefeated and playing all four games. They manage to top their pool and played John Paul College in the Grand Final winning 70 - 54. We wish them the best for their season.

This event went well with some very enthusiastic Year 8's attending. It was an occasion to showcase all our Sports Academies as well as our Technology Department and Canoe Polo. The Year 8's were given three choices of which academies they would like to try and these were on a planned circuit. It gave them a taste of what it would be like to attend Hastings Boys' High School and be part of one of our academies.

800 Karamu Road South

Hastings 4120

Ph: +64 6 873 0365
email: paoffice@hastingsboys.school.nz

http://www.hastingsboys.school.nz