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Ours is a traditional single sex school catering for the all round educational needs of young men. Our school ethos is formed on a desire to learn, to participate, to compete at the highest levels and fulfill one's potential. The young men at  Palmerston North Boys' High School are encouraged to achieve in the classroom and to combine this success with involvement in sporting and cultural activities. This balance enables them to be challenged, extended and motivated in many facets of real life, preparing them for their pathway beyond Palmerston North Boys' High School. The school roll is approximately 1630, allowing diversity in subjects and extra curricular activities. Our staff are committed professionals with a depth of knowledge and talent to educate students in a school with first class facilities. Do take the time to read and view exactly what our school is about. Read of coming events or check out our most recent news. Enjoy our website which is a snapshot of life at Palmerston North Boys' High School.  T M O'Connor RECTOR

Extract from June Newsletter

Together as a school we have shared a number of successes in school, Super 8, regional and international events in the past month.   On top of these competitions, the first Year 10 Tama Tu Tama Ora programme of the year was held at Makahika, the Dramafest and music concerts have been shared with the school community and national events like NZ Leadership Week and Maori Language week have been supported with verve. 

You will comprehend that we try and carefully manage our school calendar so young men are focused on earning a quality, recognised qualification while aspiring to be a man of outstanding character.

There have been many moments in this past month where we have congratulated young men for the way they have acted. Such moments build a real sense of pride in what young men can achieve.  Their actions endorse our collective vision for Palmerston North Boys’ High School.

An ability to make good decisions may well define the success or otherwise of a young man’s year. While we encourage young men to use common sense, that does sometimes elude them and one decision may well define their year or life.

The media have raised a number of pertinent issues for teenagers in the last month.  Each of these comes back to their ability to make sound decisions and to have the courage to fend off peer pressure to be the person they want to be.

Specifically, our young men should relish the opportunity to enjoy being young without the unnecessary distraction of alcohol and/or drugs. The pride they and we feel in their personal development, an outstanding performance or a very good decision should be the basis of their memories of their high school years, rather than feeling pressure or temptation to drink booze or try a legal or illegal high.

Our environment is well defined, our expectations and rules are clear. One of our primary purposes for functioning in this manner is to protect young men so they may reach their potential and so they can experience a natural high of hard work paying off; passing an internal assessment, overcoming a personal fear, winning or receiving a well-deserved report after half-year of hard graft, the list goes on… The rules and expectations are there to guide them, protect them and when tempted, deter them.

After a tragedy at King’s College, there has been much discussion about the expectations a school ball should have and where responsibility lies.  We have no problem spelling out our expectations. These are primarily unchanged from previous years and are non negotiable. As alcohol and drugs have become topical issues in the media in the last few weeks, I found the words of Dame Silvia Cartwright, an eminent New Zealander pertinent.  She noted the following in the Law Commission report on alcohol reform:

“The over consumption of alcohol particularly among the young, touches almost every part of our lives and certainly every one of our economic and social problems. It is one of the reasons that 20% of our population lives in poverty and far too many children and adults go hungry; it is a reason so many are on the DPB and other benefits; it accounts for much of our marital violence, murderous child abuse, violent crime, road deaths, drownings, suicides, unplanned pregnancies and venereal diseases, general health problems and homelessness.”

Unfortunately our government has not responded to the Law Commission’s recommendations as a package and, in the interim, our communities have been swamped by a poisonous yet legalized drug market. In my opinion, any procrastination by the government to stop such sales is heinous and an indictment on the New Zealand society we want for our young people.

As a school we feel duty bound to act in order to maintain our own standards and ironically to meet the requirements of the Education Act to provide a safe learning environment.

To make it plain to you as members of our school community, I have asked the Board of Trustees to amend the school’s drug policy to specifically reference the ‘legal highs’ that now target our teenage demographic.  The board has endorsed this amendment and, while it may be seen as playing with semantics, the message needs to be clear, that there will be zero tolerance for anything that compromises the safety of a young man in our care. Please read the amended rule and discuss this with your son.

I find it most disheartening that once again our school has to fine-tune our rules and moral code because the gap between what is acceptable in this country and our school is growing.  So too are the consequences.

These statements are not hyperbolic nor do they purport to scare. We do take our duties to protect young men under our authority seriously.  We also want and encourage our young men to make sensible decisions about their time at school, how they spend their recreational time and whom they spend it with. These are changing times and a poor decision in a teenager’s world today may have dire ramifications. It should not take a local tragedy to effect change.