Tuesday afternoon was one of those full-circle moments I have come to recognise and enjoy during my two terms at John McGlashan College. The 1st XV rugby squad played a preseason trial game against Mount Aspiring College at the Roxburgh Rugby Club. I journeyed up to the Teviot on Tuesday afternoon to watch the game and to connect with our McGlashan community there.
Growing up in the Teviot Valley from the age of seven to fourteen was an incredibly formative time in my life, and it brings about a real connection to that whenua today. This is enhanced by my wife’s connection to the Teviot, which stems from her father growing up on a farm on the Knobbie Range behind the Roxburgh Dam. I always feel a sense of peace when we reenter the valley close to Miller’s Flat, particularly when that first glimpse of the turquoise Mata-Au/Clutha comes into view.
The sporting options in Roxburgh in the late 80s were rather narrow and certainly not of the range that we have at John McGlashan today. I played rugby for the Roxburgh Rugby Club and have memories of frosty mornings playing away at Lawrence and the crackling of ice on the ground at tackles and rucks. usually followed by the uncomfortable feeling of thawing numb hands in a bucket of warm water at halftime. I also have memories of crisp late autumn days playing at the Roxburgh ground, against the contrasting autumnal reds and yellows and the grey schist rock and dull thyme-tinged hue of the surrounding hills. We would also have our school athletic days at the same rugby grounds. At the time, as it was for many rural communities, clubs were a focal point of activities, connection, and belonging.
Over the Christmas break, we spent time in Roxburgh for a reunion on my wife’s family farm, now run by her cousin Jeremy and his wife Dinah. Jeremy sees himself as the steward of a farm that has been in the family since the 1920s, spanning three generations. It’s a special place to be up there on the Knobbies. Neighbours gathered at the farm on one of the days to ferry everyone to the top of the Knobby Range, where we scattered the ashes of my wife’s two uncles, one having passed recently. The McNeishes were there from the neighbouring farm, and I had attended Roxburgh Area School with their twin sons, Hamish and Angus. Their dad, Richie, was our rugby coach when we played in the under-10s. It was nice to reconnect with people I had not seen for some 35 years, and experience a warming moment of reminisce when they pulled from their car a photo of our under-10 rugby team.
Connections via place stay with us and are reawakened at points in time. This is something I have experienced on several occasions since starting at McGlashan in October. I thought about these moments when I arrived at the Roxburgh Rugby Club grounds on Tuesday. Sometimes an artefact remains as a physical reminder of presence and experiences. On Tuesday, I saw that there were two team photos from the mid-80s still hung on the wall in the clubrooms, along with myriad other photos of teams across the years. Given the young people we have drawn from the Teviot over the years, some McGlashan families are also represented in those artefacts. I was reminded of this when Drew Campbell, our Director of Boarding and Rugby, arrived at the ground and commented about the chat amongst the boys, reminiscing about games played against each other at Roxburgh and other grounds in the area. I appreciated that I was sharing that reconnection to place with many of the boys. Owen Eastwood talks about each line of his ancestors as its own stream, with different points of origin and bends in their journeys, coming together to form a powerful river. I feel that way about our school, and it becomes something quite tangible and real wherever our young people and whānau gather.
It was warming to see so many locals and McGlashan families at the game, with some having travelled from Dunedin, Gore, and others from Wānaka and the Māniatoto/Maniototo. We’re grateful to our McGlashan parents, Tony and Jenna Stevens, who, by a quirk of connection, now farm the old Eckhoff farm above the hydro village, where I spent many happy summer days with my good friend Sam.
I have enjoyed reconnecting with a region I have been away from for some time, and a whenua that resonates strongly in my origin story. I look back over the term and think about the field days at Waimumu, the A & P Shows at Omakau and Wānaka, and the daily connections with Dunedin-based parents at school. It’s a privilege to be back here and walking alongside the young people and their whānau.
As a community, we’ve made an exceptional start to the year. We launched our refreshed values at the start of the term and have been working hard to embed them and show our young people how to live them. They look amazing on the posters and assorted collateral we’ve created, but they need to be lived, and not just by the students, but by everyone in our community. The values are all of ours and bond us together. They are the non-negotiables by which we make decisions, behave, and interact with one another.
A key sphere in which we talk about our values is the weekly assembly, where most of my talks have focused on unpacking the value of Excellence, particularly as it relates to how we learn. We set the theme of 100% Every Day, and I have been pleased to see the students lean into this during the term. We’re big on the adage, ‘you can’t be what you can’t see, and I’m sure that when you were visiting the ELC for parent-teacher meetings, you would have seen the visuals related to our effort-focused theme and Ivan Cleary’s quote of, ‘Not everything counts, but everything matters.’ You would also have seen drop-downs in the entry area of the ELC with our new tagline of ‘Nurturing Character since 1918.’ This has always been our core business.
Connected to the theme of 100% Every Day and as shared in recent posts, we’re also working hard as a staff to strengthen classroom practices that are rooted in the science of learning, alongside a reset of our approaches to behaviour management. We look forward to sharing more here as we move into Term Two.
As we reach the end of the term, it is an important time to pause and reflect. The holidays also offer a valuable opportunity to rest, reconnect, and refill our cups, so that we return with renewed energy and clarity for the term ahead. We’re excited to get back to the good work with our young people later in April.
Dr. Aaron Columbus
Principal | Tumuaki
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