Principal’s Report
T h i n k
Leadership
BIGGER
Kite ingoa o te Matua, o te Tamaiti, o te Wairua Tapu. Amene.
Nau mai, haere mai, mihi mai. O te whanau o te kura tuarua
ō Hato Perenara, tena koutou.
D
istinguished guests,
trustees, students,
staff, parents and
friends – greetings
and welcome to you all. Tena
koe Jim Moriarty. Afio mai,
Malo e lava mai, Ulu tonu
mai, Ni sa bula vinaka, Kia
orana, Kumusta, Namaste,
Bien venu, Dobro dosli, Tena
koutou katoa.
required openness to listen,
attentiveness, acceptance,
strength, perseverance, patience,
and a belief in prayer. You had to
learn to forgive yourself when you
made a mistake and to pick yourself up to give it another go. You
had to learn to be compassionate
and understanding when your
classmates did not get it. And, like
Mary, in humility, you would have
offered a helping hand.
I am thrilled to be here to
celebrate the success of those
students who are receiving
awards this evening. They have
demonstrated the very best attitudes in achievement. Let them
be a light to the rest
of the students,
let them be your
motivation in the
belief that next year
your names will
be called out and
honoured. You can
do this with the right
attitude.
The attitude one brings to study
is more important than the
knowledge that has to be learnt,
analysed and memorised. The
right attitude is more important
“Every successful
that other people will act in a
certain way. The only thing we can
do is change ourselves and that
involves our attitude. When everyone in class, at school, at home
starts believing that everything
is possible, then we (teachers,
students and parents) can get
the results that we all want. The
question is not can we achieve,
but HOW are we going to achieve.
Our sports heroes have long
visualised improving their form,
achieving the goal and winning
the medal, long before they have
actioned it. Imagine for a minute
Valerie Adams, Olympic gold
medallist and world champion.
She is totally focused; she
is well prepared mentally,
physically and technically
well before she steps onto
the pad. This is what attitude is all about. BELIEF
in ourselves is where we
start. SUCCESS is where
we finish.
person LOVES what
they do. My passion is
to see every boy doing
his very best.
At the start of the
year I challenged
you all to dream
big, to think bigger.
I pushed you to go
for merit when you knew that an
achieved grade would not be that
hard, and the same for excellence grades. Never settle for
silver, when you can go for gold.
Many of you have taken up the
wero, have run the full distance
and completed the race and we
congratulate you for your success.
You have also followed Mary’s
way. Your academic success
St Bernard’s College 2013
”
than what you have learnt in
class; than your money or family
circumstances, than failures, than
success, than what other people
think or say or do. Attitude is
more important than appearance,
giftedness or skill. It will make
or break you. The remarkable
thing is we have a choice, every
day, regarding which attitude we
embrace. We cannot change our
past. We cannot change the fact
There are a few steps that
can change words into
fact. We have well scripted
plans and we are good at
putting them into action.
We have made some radical curriculum delivery changes,
and we have to
back our instincts
and be confident
that they are going
to give the boys
better results.
We know where
we are going; we
are very specific
with what has to
happen to continue
to lift performance. We have to
be consistent, upskill ourselves
where necessary, be focused
and stay the distance. Every little
thing helps, one step at a time.
We can all be winners, inspiring
everyone around us. Do not tell
me “I cannot do it”, but work out
“how to do it!”
Every successful person LOVES
what they do. My passion is to
see every boy doing his very best.
I expect everyone to commit to
this, no “ifs or buts”, no exceptions, because it is the dedication
and the passion for wanting to be
the best that gets us far. We may
not be successful with everyone
or everything; we will take this
into our stride and reflect on how
we can improve things next time.
Graham Stoop, the ex-CEO of ERO
commented: “You don’t have to
be bad to get better!” We must
keep that very much in mind. We
are better. And we will continue
to be better still. Importantly, we
must embrace our successes
openly as the indicators of what
we are doing well. I am amazed
that we still do not have an Honours Board that acknowledges the
successes of our Old Boys. There
are so many of them, extraordi-
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