Auckland Grammar School headmaster Tim O'Connor. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Auckland Grammar School headmaster Tim O'Connor. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Opinion by Alwyn Poole
THREE KEY FACTS
Auckland Grammar headmaster Tim O’Connor says the buzzword ‘resilience’ has become a cliche and students need to be taught to toughen up, including coming to class five days a week.
The trial involves students doing three days of in-person learning at school — including 16 hours of English, maths, and science — and two days of learning through video calls.
Alwyn Poole founded the Mt Hobson Middle School and the Villa NCEA Academy in Newmarket and held support sport coaching roles at Hamilton Boys’ High School and St Cuthbert’s College (Epsom). He now heads Innovative Education Consultants, conducting research into the education system.
OPINION
In one ofthe more bizarre educational statements, Auckland Grammar headmaster Tim O’Connor felt he could pass judgment on a trial initiated with expert consultation by a mid-low-decile co-educational school in Christchurch.
It made me wonder where O’Connor has been for the past 20 years. Well, he has been 12 years at Auckland Grammar and 10 years before that at Palmerston North Boys’ High School. His present school prides itself on “The Grammar Way”. There is no doubt it has been – in the past – one of our leading schools.
Except Grammar is in decline.
Its website states it is “New Zealand’s leading academic school for boys”. Based on the valid measure of University Entrance (UE) for leavers Grammar is, in fact, the fifth boys’ school and is consistently behind neighbour St Peter’s (Epsom) by 10-20%.
The evidence from 2023 has Hutt International Boys’ as NZ’s top boys’ school (88% UE for leavers). St Peter’s was second on 85% and Grammar was fifth on 74% and declining. If we include girls and co-educational schools, Grammar was 47th with 19 higher EQI (lower decile) schools ahead of them (UE takes into account doing Cambridge – as St Peter’s and Grammar do).
Of equal concern is the ethnicity outcomes for progressing out of Auckland Grammar. For all ethnicities leaving the school, 62% go to degree-level study. The top school is Baradene on 86% and St Peter’s heads Grammar again with 71%. Dig deeper, though, and only 21% of Pasifika and 18% of Māori students leave Auckland Grammar to go to degree-level study. For St Peter’s it is 56% and 55% respectively.
In the sport it most prizes itself on, rugby, Grammar has not won the Top Four competition since 1992, and the Auckland 1A competition since 2014 – not as concerning as the academics of course, but the even-deeper concern may be the assertions of O’Connor when speaking on Newstalk ZB.
New Zealand is the leading OECD country for teen suicide.
Telling them to “front up” five days a week is not the solution – short or long term. ADHD, anxiety, autism, bipolar disorder, depression, eating disorders, intellectual disability and schizophrenia are not figments of a young person’s imagination and the prevalence isn’t “one or two” per school as O’Connor claimed.
In working to get truant children back into schools, John Tamihere told me his Waipareira Trust teams often found schools were the site of the trauma the child was attempting to deal with. Stuffing them back into a classroom can be deeply counterproductive.
An Auckland Grammar parent commented to me this week, “It’s surprising that O’Connor would criticise another school for trying to positively address mental and physical health concerns of students when Auckland Grammar has had to deal with a number of serious incidents of bullying and fighting at the school this year that have seriously affected some of his students.”
Even Act leader David Seymour – an old boy who does speak highly of aspects of the school – in his 2017 biography noted Grammar “is a ‘barbaric’ place for some students”.
It is a school that I have too frequently seen have a destructive influence on students – including some close to me – and most certainly not a place that, as O’Connor claims, teaches students to “cope with their feelings”.
O’Connor states that students need to be taught to toughen up.
Old boy David Seymour described Auckland Grammar as a "barbaric" place for some students. Photo / Marty Melville
Most of my life I have been reasonably tough. I came out of a poor home and an appalling high school to mosey my way through four tertiary qualifications. I played rugby against the 1987 Auckland side with 13 All Blacks as an undersized 20-year-old. I coached rugby to premier club level. I started teaching as a young and half-terrified teacher.
I spoke at funerals, including tragic situations for young people. I did triathlons while scared of sharks, although I chickened out once. All the time I was carrying a level of anxiety that I white-knuckled because I thought I was just supposed to “front up”.
The ultimate consequence was two periods of deep anxiety requiring high levels of intervention to keep me on the planet. For many people, repressing symptoms in their youth leads to all manner of deep and dangerous issues in adulthood.
I know from having worked with many students with anxiety, and even full-blown school aversion, that “The Grammar Way” is anachronistic.
The Hagley College trial is well worth paying attention to. For many, hybrid learning and online classrooms are a mode they can cope with until they are ready to face the “real world” again.
For many, that will never be a 1950s version of planet Earth.
