Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
This morning I was talking to my electrician, a man who originally hales from Aberdeen in the North of  Scotland. We began to discuss the possibility of Scottish independence and he expressed the view that the same model could develop as in the Irish province of Ulster. The Catholics want to be independent, the Protestants want to remain a part of the United Kingdom. We discussed sectarian matters for a few minutes and then he expressed the thought that he was lucky to be from Aberdeen, a city with two universities but only one football team. The reason he gave was simply that the Universities welcomed everyone but when a Scottish town (e.g. Glasgow) had two football teams they tended to be exclusive. Only certain members of society were welcome!
As we move into holy week and our final preparations for Easter, it is a good time to focus on that key Christian value of inclusivity. Jesus right throughout his mission welcomed everyone to join with him. The poor, the ill, the unwanted.
Perhaps the idea of being inclusive is best shown in our Mercy value of ‘care for the poor and vulnerable’ and the story of the good Samaritan. Remember that a Samaritan was not just an unknown member of the public, he was a member of a group of people that the Jews did not get along with. Yet it was a member of this group of people who stopped to help the injured man.
It is easy to be nice and helpful to those who you see as friends or even those who you can relate to but to be a true follower of Christ you must be welcoming to those who you don’t get along with.
Have a happy and holy Easter break.
Mike Brosnahan

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
It is hard to believe that we are already in week ten of the term. As we come to the end of the season of  Lent it is perhaps a good time to focus on what we have and how lucky our lot is, especially when com-pared to those who live in other less hospitable parts of the world.
I am reading a book at the moment written by the British survival expert Bear Grylls. It is entitled ‘True Grit” and it looks at a number of amazing survival stories.
The underlying theme is that the strongest factor we have that helps people to survive from hazardous
situations is their determination and will to live. But the other key theme is that to survive we really need so little, yet we continually put pressure on ourselves by wanting newer and bigger and better consumer items.
Lent is a time for us to consider what is really important. What do we really need to not just survive but to be content. The old prayer the Desiderata says “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”
To be content, we need to know ourselves well and to know what we value and what we want to achieve.
We have to be guarded about people telling us what we want or need e.g. you simply must have a new car, a bigger T.V. and trip to London. While all of these things are nice, don’t let need be confused with want. In Genesis the serpent tempts Adam and Eve by offering not what they need but by telling them what they want. Our needs to survive are simple: food, water, clothing, shelter and warmth. Our wants are too numerous to list. The people in the Solomon Islands as they struggle to survive want very little but their needs are the same as ours.
So as we come to the end of Lent please remember the three pillars of lent: Prayer, alms giving and
fasting, and keep the people who are struggling to simply survive, in your hearts.
Have a great week
Mike Brosnahan

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
In Ecclesiastes (Chapter 3:1-9) we read “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven”. This is an important learning for us to remember when we think of our aspirations for our children.
It’s highly seductive as a parent to think that your child is seen as really talented and able to play at a
higher level at a younger age, or be the youngest in their class—but still be able to work at the same level or even higher than those of an older age. But research, anecdotal evidence and my own experiences urge caution when presented with the concept of promoting children either in sport or academia.
In physical sports, such as rugby, size is obviously important but so is maturity. When I was in the old Third form at St Kevin’s I was a member of an invincible under 48kg rugby team. The stars of our team were two Seventh formers (Year 13) boys who were the same weight as everybody else but were much stronger and more mature. Size even in a physical game like rugby, is not the only way to measure what is a fair match or an appropriate team for a player to be in.
In more skill focus sports such as cricket or hockey while the physical component is not so paramount it is still a key factor. I have seen young cricketers promoted early by their parents intimidated by bowling too fast and hostile for their skill set, put off the game, mainly due to their inability to succeed. Everybody be it child or adults need to experience success.
Continual failure tells us simply that we are in the wrong place doing the wrong thing. The same rules
apply to placement for academic purposes. NCEA is form adjudicated—that is you sit Level One in Year Eleven and Level Two in Year Twelve etc. Age is not a factor. Promoting a child means that they are sitting exams with less time to prepare than others. The social component also needs to be examined, do you want your child to be oldest or the youngest in their peer group as they become young adults?
Have a great week
Mike Brosnahan

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
Last week on Thursday night I watched a film on Maori T.V. about the clashes that the great American basketball player Reggie Miller had with the New York Knicks team.
The focus on the film was the various levels of adversity that Reggie has to overcome to become a
superstar. His biggest hurdle was his sister Cheryl who for most of his life could “outshoot, out dribble and out fight him” (she is still looked upon as the greatest woman player ever). When he played, whole arenas of 35000 people would chant Cheryl at him to put him off.
But through overcoming these adversities he developed a level of resilience that enabled him to be a
champion in anyway that you define a champion. He always wanted to take the ’clutch shot’ and he only played for one professional team (the Indiana Pacers) leading them to be one of the very best.
He was a glass half full person, he looked at a situation and could see the positive possibilities. He would approach the foul line (and he shot 90% in his career) thinking I can get 2 points for my team here while other players approached thinking “please don’t let me miss”.
Our responsibility as parents and teachers is to encourage our kids to be half full people—approach the game wanting to score, when you go out to bat want to face the bowler. If a challenge is presented to you then seize the moment “Carpe Diem”!
We want our learners to be risk takers, people who challenge themselves. How we do that is by
highlighting the good– accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. My son is a cricketer, a good, not great batsman. He averages about 20 in men’s premier reserve cricket. He scores steadily but slowly, he accumulates. He faces the opening bowlers and like a matador takes them on. Mostly he wins but sometimes he is out. He got to where he is by being supported in his self belief, by ignoring the critics who want to slog a quick 12 and get out, but mostly by concentrating on what he does well and eliminating negative thoughts.
As Walt Whitman said “keep your face always towards the sunshine—shadows will fall behind you”.
Have a great week
Mike Brosnahan
Room 7
Yachting
Lessons

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
This week is Dyslexia awareness week. Dyslexia is an often misunderstood topic. Some famous people
who were/are dyslexic are Leonard da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Richard Branson and
F Scott Fitzgerald to name a few.
We live in a world where people who see things differently are not always valued as well as they should
be. The world we live in has been shaped not by the people who micro-manage the small things but by
those who see the ‘big picture’, those who are able to look outside the box to see solutions.
Often we become stuck in a mind set of only seeing a certain way to achieve a goal. Those who have the
gift of dyslexia have and continue to achieve some amazing feats. The number of entrepreneurs who
have the gift of dyslexia is as you would imagine large. Some of the most noteworthy of these (excluding
the afore mentioned Richard Branson) are: Henry Ford, William Hewlett (Hewlett -Packard), Ted Turner,
Frank M Woolworth and Ingvar Kamprad (Ikea). All of these are people who see problems in a new and
innovative way, many struggled early on at school, all are very resilient people.
This week as it is Dyslexia awareness week try to find out about the strengths that people with the gift of
Dyslexia have. Visit the website www.dyslexia.com/famous.htm. I leave you with words of that most
famous poet who has the gift of Dyslexia William Butler Yeats “I would be ignorant as the dawn that mere-ly stood, rocking the glittering coach. Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses; I would be for no
knowledge is worth a straw. Ignorant and wanton as the dawn”. William Butler Yeats (1865 -1939) Irish
Poet, playwright “the Dawn”.
Have a great week
Mike Brosnahan

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
What a great week last week was, Walk and Wheel week. Firstly let me start by thanking Mrs Matheson
for all of her hard work in planning and organizing the events.
Obviously the highlights were the Walk and Wheel to school together as a group along side the Mayor
and the Duathlon. Both of which were well supported by our parents.
I remember an old saying that my father (and his peers) liked to quote “do as I say not as I do”. It sounds
all very good when you say this to children but the reality is that it just doesn’t work, people respect you
for what you do not what you say. The reality is that as parents we are all role models for our children,
what they see us do they will do. I find myself still modelling some of my thinking on my fathers actions
even after all these years.
If children see us as active people then they will be active, if they see us read and write, then they will
read and write. We are all role models.
When our children are younger our actions have more impact because they don’t question as much and
their parents are the centre of their universe. Lets face it, teenagers are going to be more questioning,
but even they watch closely what the significant adults in their lives do and how they behave. Being a
role model is a big responsibility. However like all actions that we take with great effort they also bring
great rewards.
Have a great week
Mike Brosnahan

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,
As I look out the window this morning I am greeted by the type of dark steely grey sky that signals our
summer has ended and we are well into autumn. One of the interesting points to note about education is
that most if not all of the great universities in the world are located in the cooler temperate climates;
Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, The Sorbonne and of course Otago. Many theories have been
circulated as to why this occurs and one logical explanation is that the cooler climate encourages people
during the cooler seasons to stay inside and study. It must be hard to stay inside reading “War and
Peace” when you live in Hawaii.
Study is often a personal thing, people approach it in different ways to achieve different goals. I am the
kind of person who is able to study very intensively for short periods (cram), while other people like to
allow a longer period for their learning.
The new structure of NCEA of a mixture of internal and external assessment based over a year seems to
be a much fairer system then the old School Certificate model of a half pass and a half fail, all in one
exam.
One of our schools key phrases on our vision is the term ‘life long learners’.
Everybody is a life long learner—there is always something new that we desire to or simply need to learn.
A famous quote states “the more that I know then the more I want to know”.
This is a very true statement when you consider, that once you learn something new you will have
questions that occur to you. The broader your knowledge the more questions. The challenge for our
young people is to keep the base of their learning as broad as possible.
The broader the base of learning then the higher the possible apex because the student is more likely to
find a subject that truly interests them and we always study harder if we are interested.
Have a great week
Mike Brosnahan