A powhiri and haka welcomed the new rector of Otago Boys' High School yesterday.
Richard Hall told the hundreds of people gathered in the Dunedin school's open air theatre he took on the new role with ''humility and purpose''.
''As an old boy and a Dunedin boy, I'm proud to say this is my turangawaewae [place to stand] ... There is no other place in the world I would rather be.''
Mr Hall, who attended the school in 1987 and 1988, was previously deputy principal at Tauranga Boys' College.
Among the mostly traditional Maori welcome yesterday, Mr Hall peppered British literary references, including Rudyard Kipling's poem If and the Scottish proverb ''many a mickle makes a muckle''.
''Sweat the small stuff and the bigger stuff will take care of itself. We will be a school that sweats the small stuff,'' he told pupils.
Mr Hall said the house system, in its third year, would foster ''brotherhood and competition - the two virtues of men'' and help deliver an improved academic coaching programme.
''Where we raise the standards for all, we don't bring the top to the middle. In this school we celebrate all tall poppies.''
He would be looking to strengthen the ties with the school's ''old boys'' and would call on them to be involved with the school curriculum.
''It takes a village to raise a child.''
He thanked his mother and father for sending him to Otago Boys' and thanked his wife, Fran, and children, Lucy and Lachlan, ''for affording me the opportunity to return''.
Tauranga Boys' College deputy principal Johnson Davis was among those present during the powhiri with Mr Hall's family, including his wife and children, mother, brothers, sister, nieces and nephews, and Tauranga Boys' College board chairman and some Tauranga staff and pupils.
Mr Davis told the Otago Boys' pupils Mr Hall was ''an innovator, an academic, a thinker, a man with high expectations and standards, driven and hard working, who will expect nothing less from you''.
Mr Hall's departure from Tauranga Boys' College had left a monumental gap, he said.
''Our loss is your considerable gain.''
Otago Boys' board of trustees chairman Geoff Bates said Mr Hall would lead the school into a ''new and exciting era''.
''We have no doubt he will preserve and enhance our school's special character.''
The appointment followed the retirement of Clive Rennie, who left after 14 years at the school.
The Otago Boys' High School roll is made up of 798 pupils, including 139 year 9 pupils, and 58 teaching staff.
