Kia ora, boys and staff e noho please be seated. Welcome to our first formal Assembly for the year. 

I’d like to invite Assistant Rector Mrs Duncan forward to deliver today’s reading. 

For the benefit of new students, when a student or staff member delivers a bible reading in chapel or assembly, he or she will finish with the words “This is the word of the Lord” and then all together we reply with “Thanks be to God”. 

Mrs Duncan 

Today’s reading comes from Joshua 1: Verses 16 to 18 

Then they answered Joshua, “Whatever you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.  Just as we fully obeyed Moses, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your word and does not obey it, whatever you may command them, will be put to death. Only be strong and courageous!” 

This is the word of the Lord (Thanks be to God) 

Rectors Comments:    

Thank you, Mrs Duncan.  

Today we present to you the 20 Lindisfarne Prefects for 2024. In doing so, we formally welcome them into their new roles, and announce to you the specific positions they will hold this year. Our prefects have already taken on some responsibilities at the start to the year, including assisting staff with the first day for Yr 7-9 students, helping with our Blazer Presentations and setting up for the Full school lunch yesterday. I know many have been providing leadership in the hostel along with our other Yr 13 Boarding prefects and thank you all for the outstanding service you are providing there.  

To be named a Lindisfarne prefect is a huge honour. It demonstrates, first of all, that these young men have offered to serve and to lead their college. Secondly it speaks to all that they have achieved up to this point in their Lindisfarne journey, and thirdly it demonstrates that they have the support of their own Yr 13 peer group, the rest of the student body and the staff. 

At this point I do wish to acknowledge all Yr 13s students who applied for a prefect position. It was a difficult choice and many excellent students missed out. I know I can rely on your support to give of your best and to continue to look for opportunities to serve and lead in all areas of college life and you are already proving that this year. Every Year 13 student has a significant leadership role to play this, and I guarantee that we will see some outstanding leaders flourish in our Year 13 in 2024, whether they wear a kilt and badge or not. 

When chosen for a Prefect role, students have to be ready to sacrifice much of their own time in the service of you, the students of Lindisfarne. At this Sunday’s Chapel service, which I encourage you all to attend, Reverend Dunnett will ask our Prefects to make their promises to the College with respect to the prefect roles they have taken on. Those promises are not just made to made to me and the staff, they are made to you as well, so as please come along to show respect and support for our 2024 Prefects. 

Before I ask Mr Howlett to read out the names of the 20 Prefects for 2024, I want to update you boys on some refreshing changes we’ve made to our college values this year.  

Boys who are not new to the school this year will have heard staff and students talking about the six values at Lindisfarne and those are the words on those flags outside the Chapel/Assembly hall. Courage, humility, respect, integrity, service and kindness. They’re fantastic words and human qualities, but, and here’s the change, because we want to encourage you to be the very best version of yourself during your time at Lindisfarne, and because as staff we also want to be the best we can be, we’ve expanded on those six words and added in a few really important values that are going to encourage and support us all to go even further this year. 

On the screen you can see our new Lindisfarne College Values. From now on, when we talk about living according to our college values we mean that we will be Caring & Connected, Honest & Respectful, Resilient & Self-managing. It means that we will be continually Striving & Achieving (in all cornerstones) and finally we will be leaders and we will be innovative in how we go about our work.  

I’m not going to explain any of those terms today – that’s for another day, but from now on these are our Lindisfarne College values and out there on the top of those poles are our Christian Character Flags. 

I’ll finish, by linking the main item of today’s assembly to our new College Values. Our 2024 Prefects will need to lead, they will need to be respectful, they will need to care for you and be connected to you. Throughout this year you will hear staff relating the things you are doing in the cornerstones to these words. Start doing that now yourselves because they are awesome words that will take you far in life. 

Please support your prefects this year. You can help them by also upholding the college values. And don’t forget, you don’t have to be a prefect to lead and serve your community here at Lindisfarne. 

I wish our 2024 prefects all the very best for the year ahead. 

It’s now my pleasure to invite Deputy Rector Mr Howlett forward to announce the 2024 Prefects. Each student will be presented with his prefect badge. 

Mr Howlett. 

It’s my pleasure to announce the 2024 Prefects. 

Armaan Kumar 
Academic Prefect 

Harry Cassidy 
Academic Prefect 

Philip Larkin 
Academic Prefect 

Tom Speers 
Head of Aidan House 

Jack Sunckell 
Head of Cuthbert House 

Gordy Chatfield 
Head of Durham House 

Taniora Puketapu-Kingi 
Head of Oswald House 

Ronan Brier 
Chapel Prefect 

Sam Young 
Service Prefect 

Frederick Hoggard 
Wellbeing Prefect 

George Ladbrook 
Yr 7/8 Prefect 

Charlie Ross 
Yr 7/8 Prefect 

Te A Kruger-Taylor 
Cultural Prefect 

Ryan Palmer 
Cultural Prefect 

Finn Reid 
Sports Prefect 

Tom Cassidy 
Sports Prefect 

Will Foster 

Sports Prefect 

William Turner 
Head of Boarding 

Jett Varcoe 
Deputy Head Prefect 

Fergus Morunga 
College Head Prefect 

Congratulations boys. I now invite Head Prefect Fergus Morunga forward to give his opening address to the College. 

Fergus delivers speech 

Rector speaks: 

Thank you, Fergus. You will be an outstanding Head Prefect and we all wish you well. 

We are now going to stand for the School song Highways in the Heart. New students please do your best and everyone else lead the way and show our boys how we sing at Lindisfarne. 

And again just for the benefit of our new boys, when we are invited to sing one of our songs or hymns in assembly or chapel, we stand as one when the band begins to play.  

School song – Highways in the heart 

Thank you school please be seated. 

Yesterday we had our College powhiri and not only did our new students cross over to the tangata whenua side, but our new staff did too. We’ve been extremely blessed to have these outstanding teachers join our College whanau and I’d like to introduce them to you now. I’ll ask them to stand as I call their names.  

• Mr Kevin Atkinson: Assistant Rector – Teaching and Learning. Economics 

• Mr Andre Bell: Director of Rugby & Head Coach of 1st XV. PE 

• Mr Brien: Teacher of DVC & Jnr Technology 

• Mr Harper: Director of Sport, Teacher of Phyd Ed 

• Mr Hay: Teacher of Accounting 

• Mr Lennox: Director of Boarding, Teacher of Maths and R.S. 

• Mrs Morris: Teacher of Art 

• Mr Nicoll: Teacher of Biology & Science 

• Mr Watson: Head of Faculty Physical Education 

Please make our new staff feel welcome. (applause) 

Thank you for the really positive start you’ve made to the year. As I said yesterday there have been a few changes to life at Lindisfarne such as the cell phone policy, homework diaries, year level tutor groups and the new and refreshed College values. 

If you’ve been given a task to sort out a hair or uniform issue, please make sure you do that over the weekend. We don’t want you sitting in the homestead reception waiting for your parents to pick you up or for a ride to the barbers because you didn’t bother to get it sorted when you were asked. 

The final word is for Rory Stewart who Matua Pomare and I referred to yesterday during the powhiri. Rory’s mum and dad came in to the school today to discuss his funeral plans on Tuesday. As you can imagine boys, they are pretty broken people right now but they are doing incredibly well, showing amazing courage. Mr Howlett, Reverend Dunnett and I sat with them for half an hour and I was humbled not only by their bravery, but I was also humbled when they said to me “Mr Hakeney I know this is a great college for so many reasons, but I don’t know if you realise just how amazing your boys are. How caring and thoughtful and loyal they are. So that means that there are boys in this room today who have reached out to the Stewarts over this week and shown them the love and care that they need. You know who you are. And so we all say thank you to you. I understand Rory is coming home to his family today and on the weekend many of you boys are heading to his place to be with him and his family. I hope you get to share lots of stories and yes, have some laughs and I think Rory’s mum and dad are hoping that happens to. And next Tuesday we’ll give Rory the send off he deserves. 

Thank you all once again boys, have a restful and peaceful weekend and I’ll now invite Reverend Dunnett to close our assembly in prayer. 

Article added: Monday 12 February 2024