Feedback from students and staff re: Tim Tipene’s visit to Kaitaia College 2 April 2008. The following extracts were taken from students’ written responses for a unit standard.

He made a point about his anger-management. He would rather take the classes on his own than let someone in power send him. This encouraged me to talk to my family about their issues in their households.

His dad was a man with an anger problem and that reminded me of one of my mates from school. He thinks he’s solid and hard, even though something hurts … he acts like it didn’t hurt a bit.

When he was talking about his books I felt inspired to do what I wanted to be. He told us, ‘Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do anything.’ I took that into mind and now I’m really focusing on my sporting career … One day I would like to have kids and the talk he gave made me think about my actions in the future. I would hate to hit my kids or my wife.

No one is helping those who go through family abuse and ill education. Also, I felt that he related to a lot of the people that were sitting in the room with me … I liked how he stamped down what would happen if you abused your children. I hope it scared the students into not doing the wrong thing … I felt touched by his speech because I don’t want to become abusive to my children.

Tim read this story aloud to us. I liked this story as it is about a time in life when life can get hard and we also start to dream of a different life.

Organising Teacher: Ellender Wilson

Tim’s novels are a real hit with the English Department (and some staff outside of it), so we were understandably excited to have the opportunity to meet him. The hour he spent with the year 11 students was well worth it as you can see from the comments above. The bell went for the lunch break before Tim was finished. The students sat and listened patiently – which proves they were engaged!

We also sent several teachers to listen to Tim at REAP that afternoon. He was inspirational and his Warrior Kids programme exciting.