The World of Boarding /
Less than half a percent of the world population attends boarding school and only a tiny percentage of New Zealanders have this opportunity. Those who do, typically spend around five years in this unique environment. And then there’s Richard Taylor. He
Adams House Hostel Manager Richard Taylor bids farewell after 21 years
Raised in Ashburton, Richard Taylor’s childhood was sports-focused with a large group of diverse mates, and he thinks he would’ve loved boarding at Adams House. With a long list of annual applicants bidding for a home away from home, Richard and his assistant manager spend hours ensuring they get the right mix of students for Adams House. While day boys are accepted into the state school by zone or ballot, Richard’s boarders have met application criteria not necessarily linked to their sporting prowess, intellectual nous or cultural accolades, but rather their personality and ability to relate to others, something Richard says is of most importance when living 24/7 with 135 other teenage boys.
From the outside, it seems Richard ‘gets’ boys. However, this isn’t accidental. Richard has chosen residential care as his career and has expanded his formal qualifications to reflect this. A late starter to university, Richard began his Physical Education degree at the University of Otago as a 22-year-old. While other first-year students were partying hard, Richard had already spent four years grafting and he thought it was normal to work just as hard at university. After graduating with a PE degree he progressed to the Christchurch College of Education where he added a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching to his academic record. By this stage, he was a teacher, a commercial pilot, a farm labourer, a freezing worker, a ski patroller and even a carpet layer!
After teaching at Shirley Boys’ High School, Richard joined Christchurch Boys’ High School in 1993 as the Head of Department for Physical Education and has since proved himself to be a dedicated sports coach. He holds a remarkable coaching record with the 1st XI cricket team and the 1st XV rugby team. A former New Zealand Universities cricket representative himself, Richard has coached the school’s 1st XI cricket team to three national titles, the Under 15 cricket team to a national title and the 1st XV rugby team to five Press Cups, a national title and a world title! He has also been the Master in Charge of Rowing, assisting the school to unprecedented South Island and National success.
While Richard credits his PE degree with his skill-base knowledge, it would seem it’s his attitude to sporting success that sets him apart as a coach. ‘I don’t play with the sole intention to win,’ he says. ‘I prefer to win but the goal is to play as well as you possibly can, play to your potential and at every single training and game play better than before.’ In fact, a major focus of Richard’s coaching style is fun and friendship for his players. That, alongside an equitable attitude towards substitutions and game time has seen vast numbers of boys grow in confidence and ability under his guidance. ‘Your ability as a junior is no indication of your skills as an 18-yearold,’ he states. In fact, regardless of age, stage or ability, Richard’s sessions are all about time on task, lack of queues,
skills under fatigue and practice under pressure, as well as developing the skill and mindset to adjust in the heat of a game from disaster to order, a life skill that can apply beyond the sports field.
In 1998 the opportunity arose for Richard to extend his professional career and move into boarding. Together with his wife, Toni, and their elder children who were just two years old and three months old at the time, the young family moved to Adams House. Their third child would later be born there. Richard quickly became immersed in the world of boarding, all the while parenting, teaching, coaching the 1st XV rugby team and onsite project managing the rebuild of Adams House, a workload he laughs about now, tinged with slight disbelief that they managed the overhaul of Adams House with all 130 boys remaining on site amongst the construction, mud and machinery.
Richard was offered the opportunity to take a sabbatical for six months in 2010 to complete a degree in Social Science (Residential Care) from the Australian Catholic University, majoring in Adolescent Mental Health. ‘I found this area fascinating,’ he says. ‘It was relevant to my everyday work.’ While his expertise is extensive, Richard has kept things simple for the boarders, believing it is important they develop a rich repertoire of friends, have charismatic adults in their lives and receive positive feedback and praise. According to Richard, the teenage brain loves feedback, good or bad, and humour (although never sarcasm), describing their brains as ‘a work in progress’.
It’s fitting that in 2014 he was awarded the inaugural Exceptional Service to New Zealand Boarding Schools Award (New Zealand Boarding Schools’ Association). For Richard, effective duty of care is about walking a tightrope and he draws on his experience as a parent as much as his qualifications, often asking himself ‘What would a good parent do?’ He strives to provide an environment where there’s a sense of belonging, physical activity, pride, routine and rituals.
That’s not to say the boys haven’t left him shaking his head on occasion and he laughs that ‘they’ve done some very funny stuff ’. There was the boy who dragged his mattress onto the roof one winter’s night to ‘teach his cold a lesson’. Another autographed his own graffiti in a former ablution block leaving Richard a direct path to identifying the culprit. And then there was the boy who tried to hide a pig dog in the hostel, one he’d acquired when he’d knocked on the door of the Mongrel Mob and asked for a dog! The dog’s whining
While his expertise is extensive, Richard kept things simple
for his boarders, focusing on a rich repertoire of friends, charismatic adults in their lives as well as feedback and praise.
gave it away but Fiddy Scent, named after the gangster rapper 50 Cent, was rehomed with a housemaster.
Richard left Adams House at the end of Term 3 2019 to take up the role of Principal at College House (an independent residential hall at the University of Canterbury), and although he was excited about the challenge, he says he loved his 21 years at Adams House. He has watched ‘students develop from boys into young men’ and enjoyed the success stories of Old Boys and his interactions with the parent body and a staff body who are ‘hard-working, caring and great fun’. For Richard, Adams House has been vibrant, exciting and unpredictable, a career path that he never expected but one that he has loved. But, after 21 years, it was finally ‘the perfect time’ to leave his boarding school.