The New Zealand team called Black Star will travel to the Performing Arts Championship in the US, with dancers, singers, actors models and musicians from over 60 countries invited to compete at the two-week event. Read more

The diocese sponsored a combined parent evening for Sacred Heart College and St John's College earlier this month.

The move follows generous contributions from people around the country who donated to the Diocese's Cyclone Gabriel appeal.

Palmerston North Diocese Chaplain and Young Catholics Team Leader Nick Wilson says the diocese is committed to supporting the community.

Michael Hempseed was a guest speaker at the evening.

He spoke on ‘Understanding and Healing the Impact of Disasters'.

Hempseed helped after both the Christchurch earthquakes and the March 15 mosque attacks.

A disaster's psychological impact is often seen only three to five years later, he told parents and teachers.

"What we know is when a disaster strikes, there is a strong sense of community and it's thought that's a protective factor."

Keep them going, he says. Have community events and keep having them.

Volunteering is an important tool in healing, he adds.

"This has a massive impact on wellbeing. First, you make a good group of friends, you're doing something positive for your community, and you aren't sitting at home feeling sorry for yourselves."

Sacred Heart College Principal Maria Neville-Foster said the evening was timely.

Thanking Hempseed and the Diocese, she said: "It helps us to understand ourselves, but it also helps us to work with the young people we are with.

"They are doing really well when they are connected with their community, and we see wonderful, solid examples of that at school all the time.

"My take home is to try and have more social community events, so when you see those being advertised, you'll know why, and we welcome you into our community space as much as possible to try and create that going forward."

She has a lot of hope for the Sacred Heart and St John's pupils' future.

"But it is about being aware and being able to support them on that journey, alongside their whanau."

Another Sacred Heart College teacher, Juliana Collier, said it was valuable to hear Hempseed's advice.

"Having the permission to just be able to listen is important. It also gives affected people the opportunity to hear stories from other people and know they are not alone."

St John's College Principal George Rogers said it is important to unite and support one another in this time of need.

He said we cannot underestimate the Cyclone's mental and emotional toll on the community.

Source

• Community Scoop

Both students were part of a young enterprise team at their school that had delved into the subject. Read more

Year 9 and 10 students from the college spent about a term and a half exploring national poverty, in a student-driven exercise. Continue reading

Five youth prisoners at Hawke's Bay Regional Prison are working with boys from St John's College, Hastings, to complete Level 4 qualifications, and in doing so, have established a company.

For the last six months, the students from St John's have made regular visits to the Tirohanga Unit inside the Hawke's Bay Regional Prison meeting with their business partners, inmates aged between 17-19 years.

All students involved meet for lessons, with some further instruction work done via email in pursuit of credits for the New Zealand Institute of Management paper.

The Scheme requires students to form real businesses and sell real products and services to the market.

What resulted from the partnership is a company called BRUTHAS, through which the students work together to design, test, craft, market and sell 'Just Boards' - handcrafted bread boards.

The BRUTHAS is the brainchild of St John's College student Jake Dunn.

Dunn said he came across the appalling fact that 80 per cent of young offenders reoffend.

"So I thought what better way to enter into the enterprise project than to have a product which lowers that statistic and brings the values from our school into it."

The business venture is the first of its kind and has given a new perspective to the inmates on what their future could look like when they leave prison.

"I want to be a young entrepreneur. I'll probably be the first one from my whanau so yeah that's my ultimate goal," says one of the inmates who is part of BRUTHAS.

St John's College principal Paul Melloy is impressed with the joint project.

"I think the whole concept is outstanding - we're very proud that the two groups of students can work together like this on an equal basis," he says.

"A project like this ticks all our boxes - we're fortunate that we're able to do something like this, and the students involved are excited and proud too."

Sources

• St John's College
• New Zealand Herald
• Maori Television
• Young Enterprise
• Image: Young Enterprise

After "deliberately" waiting for "things to settle down in the papers", the ruling said, Mr Melloy had held a parental questionnaire on Thursday that gave parents an opportunity to vote on the proposed new hair rule. Two hundred and ten parents had gone to the evening, including Lucan's parents. "93.84 per cent were in full support for the school and the new hair rule ...Continue reading

But I am wondering why this skirmish between Lucan Battison and St John's College over hair length caused such a stir?

Why is it that a disagreement between a school and one of its students in a provincial town in a tiny country at the bottom of the world should cause such a tidal wave of chatter?

It featured all week on the front page of several of New Zealand's metropolitan newspapers.

It filled the talkback chat and the blogosphere. It even sent ripples out to England, Japan, the USA and elsewhere.

Of course the haircut war is an eternal warfare. There is no end in sight.

When I was a schoolboy the school sent students home because their hair was too short. Crew cuts were the fashion statement of the day. One fortunate guy who shaved his head earned himself a holiday until his hair grew again.

Later, I became a schoolteacher and we sent people home because their hair was too long. As we morphed into the austere 90s short was again the problem.

Now the possibilities are endless. Hair can be too short. It can be too long. It can be green, red or rainbow. It can have names or designs carved into it. You can make it took like a rooster's comb and add a safety pin through your nose for good measure.

It is easy to blame a cynical media by saying this kind of story sells papers. But we the readers are the real culprits. The story would not sell if we did not want to read about it.

And yes, I did want to read about it, I became fascinated by it, but why?

Well there is the Tiananmen Square syndrome, the lonely individual standing in front of the mighty tank. We do love the little kiwi battler.

The student was already a minor celeb. He had featured in a good news story after saving someone from drowning. Now here he is standing alone in front of the mighty educational institution.

Then there were the delightful incongruities: the photo of the board chairman as a school boy sporting long locks; the student and his dad all dressed up in suits and ties with their hair neatly groomed for the appearance in court.

But beyond that there remains something more primal - hair "censored and shaved, controlled and suppressed" as the Australian poet and cartoonist Michael Leunig wrote in his prayer "Giving thank for the mystery of hair."

Hair, says Leunig, is

"Complex and wild; Reminding us softly

That we might be animals.

Growing and growing

‘Til the day that we die.

And the day after so they say"

Becoming an adult requires a rite of passage, a journey from dependence to autonomy. And on that journey you have to challenge the rules.

A wise old teacher once told me we need a few unimportant rules for people to rebel against. He suggested we make smoking compulsory and forbid the eating of broccoli.

Then, he said, we would be picking up broccoli stalks rather than cigarette butts behind the gym.

Hair is so primal, it is not surprising that it became the battleground on which we wage our personal war of independence.

The school was right; it is the school's job to require compliance.

The student was right; it is a young man's job to test the boundaries. This is the way a human being finds a healthy balance between independence and belonging.

Conflict and tension are not always bad things. They can help us to learn and to change.

You can have peace only if one side wins and the other loses.

If the institutions always win we have a political dictatorship.

If the institutions never win we have another kind of dictatorship called chaos.

When chaos rules there is just one rule - the survival of the fittest; the powerful prevail and gentle people go under.

So long may the hairy battle continue.

Denis O'Hagan is a Marist priest. He is the editor of CathNews New Zealand, and former schoolteacher. He began his teaching career with a one-term stint at St John's College Hastings. At the time he had long hair, now he hasn't got any hair. It's neither here nor there.

Brother Patrick Lynch said the recent court decision had ramifications for all schools when it came to student grooming.

He said a law change may be needed to ensure schools retained the ability to set rules and govern behaviour.

On Friday a High Court Judge ruled that the suspension of Lucan Battison from St John's college in Hasting was unlawful because suspension should be used only for serious matters.

Justice Collins also found the college's hair rule was unlawful because it was open to interpretation.

On Friday St. John's principal Paul Melloy said: "Naturally we are disappointed of the decision made in Wellington today."

"The Board of Trustees are taking time to consider the judgment made by Justice Collins in terms of its impact, both on our school and on other schools."

Secondary Principals' Association president Tom Parsons said schools now faced the prospect of "lawyering up" simply to ensure rules that might already be clear to students and parents passed the legal test set by the High Court.

School Trustees' Association president Lorraine Kerr said although the ruling set a precedent, she hoped common sense would prevail.

She said other schools may need to look over their own rules as a result of the judgement, to ensure the intent of their policy is clear.

Principals' Federation president Philip Harding says principals shouldn't expect a rush of lawyers arguing against their rules.

However, he says they do need to take care in how they apply their rules.

Mt Albert Grammar headmaster Dale Burden said Lucan Battison's parents should have supported the school's judgment. "It should never have gone to court ... You back the school, you don't back your belly-aching teenager on everything.

"These judges don't make it easy for schools, they really don't."

Nigel Latta, a clinical psychologist and parenting expert , says,"There are implications for the rest of us, for our schools, for our kids now."

"It's not a small point that now schools will have to spend money on lawyers to vet rules."

"What it means for all of us is schools will be spending money on lawyers when they could be spending that money on textbooks or technology or professional development - that is where that money should go."

Latta said while he supported young people pushing limits, he didn't support the argument ending up in court.

Legal expert Dr Bill Hodge said the costs associated with having school rules scrutinised and drafted by lawyers would run into thousands of dollars.

Hodge said the ruling meant that amateur administrators serving on boards of trustees were effectively being held to the standard of professional law makers.

The Battison family's lawyer, Jol Bates, said when asked if he thought the college would appeal against the decision, "The judgment makes it very hard for the school to appeal."

Source

• Radio New Zealand
• 3News
• New Zealand Herald
• The Telegraph
• New Zealand Herald

St John's College, a Catholic boys' secondary school in Hastings, New Zealand, suspended Lucan Battison for being in breach of a hair rule requiring hair to be "off the collar and out of the eyes".

"This is an unfortunate incident, in which our school is simply following the upkeep of school standards, as set down by school policy," said the principal of St John, Paul Melloy.

Other principals agree that students who repeatedly break uniform rules should be punished.

Secondary Schools Principals Association president Tom Parsons said that, in the case of St John's College, it was the parents depriving Battison of an education, not the school.

Ken Mcleod, the rector of another Hawke's Bay state-integrated school, Lindisfarne College, said the school ensures that students and parents sign a contract agreeing to the rules and culture of the school when they enrol.

"We have checks and we have consequences if the boys don't have a haircut," he said.

Wellington College headmaster, Roger Moses, said schools had the right to set standards around the uniform, providing it was explained to students.

Peter Leggat the principal of Onslow College, which does not have a uniform, said the college still had standards and expectations.

Robert Sturch , the principal of Hasting Boys' High School said uniforms are inspected every Friday as the boys left assembly and, if their hair was getting close to the collar, they were told to get it sorted by Monday.

Katrina Casey, the Ministry of Education's head of sector enablement and support, said that "while long hair isn't grounds to stand down or suspend a student, challenging behaviour can have a negative impact on the student, their peers and the overall culture of a school".

"When we're made aware of inconsistencies in decision-making regarding stand-downs and suspensions, we work alongside the school concerned to ensure that appropriate practices are followed.

"If a student had been asked to cut their hair a number of times and had chosen to ignore it, then a school could suspend them for continued disobedience, she said.

Battison is one of four teens to be recognised by the Royal Humane Society in April for their rescue of two women at Waipatiki Beach, near Napier, in January last year.

He and a friend ran into a 1.5-metre swell and swam out to the women, who were being dragged out to sea in a rip.

Battison isn't the only teenager in trouble for their hair. Last week, Campbell Live reported on Demetric Blank, a student from Tararua College in Pahiatua, who had also been suspended for his hair which has a pattern shaved into it.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Hawkesbay.co.nz
• 3News

St John's Principal, Neal Swindells, says one of the several factors that have allowed Maori students at St John's to flourish has been the Marist Youth Leader Programme which is run each year for senior students from a network of eight Marist schools in New Zealand.

"About 100 students meet for one week with 20 mentors for a principle-centred leadership. Effectively they learn to be a leader and practise leadership styles," he said.

The course is usually held at St Bede's in Christchurch but, because of the earthquakes, it was held at Hato Paora in Feilding this year.

Source

• Hawkes Bay Today
• Image: Caritas

350 students from 15 Catholic secondary schools in the Wellington Archdiocese and the Diocese of Palmerston North took part in the O'Shea Shield, which this year was held in Wanganui.

In the competition, which has been held every year for more than 50 years, students participate in seven different events: debating, religious questions, impromptu speeches, religious drama, scripture reading and oratory.

Source

• The Wanganui Chronicle
• Hawke's Bay Today
• Image: Screenshot Youtube