Week 6 Term 1: Totara House: Reflecting on 2024 and Looking forward to 2025 (March 03 - March 07)

Totara House 2024

Since the reintroduction of the House system in 2021, our school whanau has created four spaces for our students and staff to connect and create a sense of belonging, family and community. Over the last four years Totara House has and continues to create and establish a strong sense of identity through our focus on our core values. Values that the all students in Totara House decide on and values that the Totara House Leadership use in their service to their whanau group. Every year the Totara House Leadership team meets all the students in the House (from Year 9 to Year 13) and asks them what they want Totara House to represent? They collect the feedback and then come together as a leadership team to find the common themes and values that have echoed throughout the feedback from the students. From here they identify THREE values (inspired and influenced from the feedback) as the core values for Totara House for the year. In 2024 the Totara House values were Commitment, Passion and Confidence.

Commitment: the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc.

Totara House Student Leaders @ Senior Prizegiving 2024

‘Finishing what you start’ was a common theme throughout the student feedback. The House Leadership team decided that the value that best represented this was ‘commitment’. Throughout the year the House Leaders spoke about ‘commitment’ at our House assemblies, they also encouraged the students to commit to our House by getting involved in the House events throughout the year. In Term 2, the messaging around commitment was heavily focussed on and centered around the commitment to academic excellence where the leaders encouraged our NCEA Level 1, 2 and 3 students to commit and to stay the course with their NCEA journey. This messaging continued throughout Term 3 as well.

Passion: having, showing, or caused by strong feelings or beliefs.

Totara House @ Athletics Day 2024

Totara House has established a certain standard when it comes to performance. During the course of 2024 there were a number of occasions where the students came together to perform for specific House events in particular the celebration assemblies for Samoan Language Week and Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori Language Week. We encouraged all students to get involved and we were so pleased to have a strong reputation from the house for both performances. The students understand the standard we want to maintain and immediately understand the passion and commitment required whenever Totara House comes together.

Confidence: the feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something.

Totara House 10TKr 2024

‘Belief in myself’ was another common theme from the student feedback. The House Leaders wanted to capitalize on this and decided that ‘confidence’ was the best way to create a strong concept and value that resonated with the students. Specifically with our junior students, the leadership team spent time with the Year 9 and Year 10 students during the House events, helped with the new students to the house and even spent time with students who were in trouble - in an effort to help build confidence. If students knew that they had a good support system (in the leadership team) to look to and lean in on, their confidence at school would grow.

I would like to acknowledge the Totara House Mentorship team of 2024 - Ms Ferguson (9TFn), Mrs Rani (9TRn), Mr Krishna (10TKr), Mrs Nguyen (11TNg), Mr Niko (11TNi), Ms Kolo (12TKl), Mr Koch (13TKh) and Ms Tuitupou (13TTt) and the Totara House Leadership Team (Stephney, Daliz, Anaysha, Feao and Troy). Without the team, these values and the spirit of Totara House would not thrive. I thank you all and celebrate you all for your love, service, commitment and passion that you poured into Totara House 2024. Thank you to Mr Koch and Ms Tuitupou for the 5 years that you dedicated to 13TKh and 13TTt.

Looking forward to 2025

As we enter 2025, I want to acknowledge and celebrate the team who will be carrying Totara House this year.

Ms Tuitupou - 9TTt

Ms Ferguson - 10TFn

Mrs Rani - 10TRn

Mr Krishna - 11TKr

Mrs Ahokovi - 12TAo

Mr Niko - 12TNi

Ms Kolo - 13TKl 

Some of the Totara House Leaders for 2025

As well as our support staff: Mr Koch and Mrs Nyguen. I am also excited about our Totara House Leadership team for 2025 - Aaliyah, Louvina, Mamarei, Viliami, Raymond, Etuate, Tupou and Paula. I am excited to work alongside our awesome staff and student team this year.

The priority for Term 1 is:

Sharing our data: Our weekly Attendance/Uniform/Pastoral Notes spreadsheet that will be updated and shared every Thursday. I ask that we continue to share our notes here and update it accordingly. This will be shared at our first Dean and Mentor meeting this term (day/date and time to be confirmed).
Connecting with our Attendance Officers: We will continue to work with our Attendance Officers who will work with our students with low and concerning attendance percentages.
Identifying students who have not shown to school: We will identify the students who have not shown up to school in the first 20 consecutive days of school and refer them immediately to the Attendance Officers (please update the spreadsheet when we start identifying the students).
Connecting with the parents and families: Contact home via phone call, letter, text or email to introduce yourself as the mentor teacher to the students so we can build and reconnect with our families. This relationship is important so that we can wrap around our akonga.
Totara House Values 2025: Find our House Values this term with the Student Leadership Team coming to meet with your mentor classes to discuss what they want Totara House to represent this year.

I look forward to journeying with you all this year. I am grateful for what we have built together with Totara House and I am excited to see a year where we continue to strive for excellence in and out of the classroom, togetherness and creating a safe and welcoming space for our students in Totara House.