Westlake Boys’ High School

Love’s Labour’s Lost. The Winter’s Tale.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Much Ado About Nothing.

Socially distanced Shakespeare ‘Global’ hit with audiences

In 2021, and after the hiatus for the drama production in 2020, a new idea was executed to allow for the 'show to go on' during these Covid-19 times. In essence, the production allowed for six separate scenes in six different performance venues, with socially distanced audiences of no more than 30 people at each.

Six plays were chosen, all by Shakespeare. These were The Winter's Tale, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and Love’s Labour’s Lost.

The audiences were not only entertained by the cast of 65 but also by the Year 5 and 6 students from Sunnybrae Normal School, who guided the audiences from one venue to the next with help from Year 13 students from Westlake Girls.

Audiences thoroughly enjoyed themselves, with numerous emails of congratulations. "All the kids were amazing and so enthusiastic – they were so funny! And talented. Brilliant takes on Shakespeare that were so entertaining." As well as: "What a great concept. I loved how different each of the performance spaces was."

The experience of Covid is not hugely dissimilar to that of Shakespeare, who spent 78 months of his working life in various lockdowns due to the bubonic plague. In fact, in 1606, Shakespeare spent 10 months in lockdown, during which he wrote three of his greatest plays: King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. The great benefit of this way of producing the school show was that if

The Tempest. Romeo and Juliet.

Covid-19 alert levels had changed (to a 2) then the production could still have gone ahead. Furthermore, audiences got to see parts of the school that they might not ordinarily see and to enjoy six radically different spaces in both design and in the way that the audience seating was configured.

The school production does not happen without an army of student technicians and staff in numerous capacities, to whom we give enormous thanks for all their hard work and creativity.

Westlakers compete at the Tokyo Olympics

The 2020 Olympic Games, held in 2021, will be remembered like no other Games before it, and for New Zealand it is now one of our most successful Games to date.

Westlake Boys is proud to have had several Westlakers compete at the Tokyo Olympics, and we watched with keen interest as they progressed through their heats. We acknowledge the inspiring achievements of the following elite athletes who competed at the highest level on what is arguably the biggest sporting stage, in gruelling heat and under challenging circumstances: Michael Brake (2012) – gold in the rowing men's Eight, Misha Koudinov (2009) – competed in the men’s Artistic Gymnastics, Callum McCowatt (2017) – competed in the men's Football with Ben Old (2020) as reserve, and Steve Edwards (2002) and Nick Wilson (2008) - competed in the men's Hockey. Congratulations to everyone for representing their country with pride and honour, and a special shout out to Michael Brake for bringing home gold – we couldn’t be prouder!

NZ Men’s Eight winning gold!

Richie Hardcore with students at assembly. Speaker Richie Hardcore.

Wellbeing remains front of mind

At Westlake Boys we are committed to supporting student wellbeing so if a student is struggling to cope emotionally, we have a variety of pastoral services in place to help. Lockdowns create varying levels of uncertainty and anxiety, but how people respond to stressors around them may vary depending on their personal circumstances and mental fitness. For adolescents, stress levels can sometimes become overwhelming when so much is going on outside their control, so it is important they share their feelings and speak up when they’re not OK so help can be given to prevent their distress from escalating.

In August, Westlake Boys welcomed guest speaker Richie Hardcore who shared a wealth of information about mental health and conquering anxiety and depression, which he pointed out are not a permanent state of mind. Everyone has mental health, just like everyone has physical health, but problems can occur when poor mental health leads to mental illness. So, it is important for everyone to work on mental fitness: eat well, sleep well, keep active and be present, which means quality time away from the addictive influence of social media and devices.

This year Westlake Boys has introduced new wellbeing initiatives for students to use including e-books from the ePlatform’s Wellness Collection, and Stymie notifications alongside the existing online booking system to access counselling services. Life is complex, and quite often it doesn’t go the way we expect, so part of our school-wide Character Education programme teaches students about resilience and what that looks like, and that asking for help is not a sign of failure or weakness but instead displays courage and intelligence by wanting to move towards an improved state of wellbeing.