The Kiwiwatch Group has had a strong start to the season with lots of students attending the monthly trips, including many new junior students. We have been catching less stoats than expected, given that we had a big mast event this year. Although we have not done any kiwi work this year, we are eagerly awaiting the results of a study by DOC and Lincoln Uni that has used remote listening devices to monitor kiwi abundance in the Nina. Despite the lack of kiwi work, we were happy to have a number of recent airings of a pair of whio (blue duck) below the Nina Hut at the Duchess confluence. Whio are nationally endangered, more so than the kiwi, and we had not seen any for a couple of years prior. Also of note is that the Kea Conservation Trust has undertaken kea banding in the Nina; we are hopeful that the Trust will involve our students in this work. Thank you to all the students and their parents who work hard to make the Nina Valley a safe place for our native toanga.
Preparations are well underway for our whole school musical production of Shrek Jr which has an opening night of Wednesday 19 June. The cast have been busily rehearsing their songs and speaking parts on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons. Primary classes are preparing for their chorus items. Meanwhile in the technology rooms Year 9 and 10 students are designing and constructing costumes and props. It's wonderful to see the whole school on board!
Kikorangi have been cooking up a storm this term. Our first bake was homemade pizzas. After studying the recipe we realised it would take awhile for the dough to rise. Luckily we had plenty of school work to do in the meantime. We each made individual pizzas with cheese and spaghetti on. They tasted delicious. The following week we made pancakes to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday when Lent starts. It was really fun and we got to bring our own toppings. After we went outside and had a pancake race where you have to run and flip the pancake before passing it onto the next person. Needless to say the pancakes were not edible afterwards! We also baked a variety of snacks for our end of term movie treat. We made chocolate chip cookies, anzac biscuits, chocolate fudge slice, potato wedges and pizza! We spent all morning baking and then relaxed in the afternoon watching the movie Wonder and eating delicious homemade snacks.
Throughout Semester 1 the Outdoor Education class were given the option to complete snorkel skills or a PADI Open Water Dive course. We had 5 students opt in to the PADI course which meant they were going to complete an internationally recognised SCUBA Diving qualification. Over the duration of Semester 1 these students completed online learning, a day of skills in school pool, then they had to complete 4 dives in the sea. We were lucky enough to get involved with Dive Kaikoura so headed up there late in Term 1 to complete the course. Unfortunately we only managed to get one day in due to weather so went back on the 1st of May to get fully certified. With a water temperature of about 12 degrees the students got set and took on their final 2 dives and had their paper work signed off. Congratulations to Mackenzie, Briar, Georgia, Caleb, and Luke who are now officially Open Water Certified Divers.
During the school holidays I (Matthew Stackhouse) went to Indiana, U.S.A for Wrestling as part of a New Zealand Cultural Development team with other wrestlers my age.
We stayed with three different host families. The first was in Carmel, the second in Jeffersonville and the third was in South Bend. These schools ranged in size from 2500 students to 5000. The competition was tough; we trained and wrestled with the school teams. We went down town Indianapolis to the malls. On another day we had a tour around the Notre Dame University. We went to several museums, and also a Indiana Pacers vs Boston Celtics basketball game. We got a bus tour around the Indy race track. During our stay we went to Chicago to see the Navy Pier and go on a ferris wheel. The Indiana coach shouted us pizza that was deep dish. I would like to thank Hurunui College for the grant that helped to make this trip possible and to my coaches Steve Hill and Dean Smith at Rangiora Wrestling club. Whero Class is full of Number Agents. We solve maths problems through role play and maths in a authentic context. This term we have met the villains Sum Snake and Knight Adder. We get problems from Clients who need our help to solve them. They can come through the portal or by video and email.
Over Term 1, the Year 8 class worked on a self-inquiry unit called "Passion Projects". This involved the students choosing one of their life passions and sharing it with the class through a Power Point presentation. The passions included a wide range of academic, sport, and musical activities with some students even including interactive activities or quizzes. All projects were done to an excellent standard that all students can be proud of.
On Thursday 4 April Kowhai Class sent away an exciting package to our buddy class, Room 9 Paerata school near Pukekohe. The package consisted of poetry postcards that when put together make a up a mystery jigsaw, a class poster, a class colour poem, information about our school and our district, and some Easter treats! The poems were about some items in a special tin, e.g an ancient key, a compass, a tiny ship in a bottle. We had to find out about the item, choose some wonderful describing words, and then use the dictionary, thesaurus, google translate, and an anagram maker to discover more fabulous words. In return, we were very excited to receive a similar package from Paerata school. We loved finding out about each other's lives and schools. Now we are writing stories about some of the items in the tin and we will send them to our buddy class and stay in touch with them this year.
After a false start due to some intense rain on Tuesday. We headed over to the Scargill Domain on Wednesday morning. We arrived early with lots of energy and nervous. We were able to have morning tea and a play on the playground to help us prepare for the big day ahead. The day was a big learning experience for our students. For some it is their first out of school sports outing. But after the first few games our students really got into the swing of it. They were loading up bases, hitting home runs and getting the other team out as they came to 3rd base. They also learned that throwing the ball is faster than running it to a base when fielding. We were really lucky to have the support of lots of amazing parents. The children had lots of fun, worked on their tee ball skills, all showed exceptional RISE values throughout the whole day and loved the sausages sizzle for lunch. Thank you to all the parent support. It would not have been possible without their help. A group of students went into Christchurch to their pay respects to the people who died at the Deans Ave and Linwood mosques. We took our banner, that our school had made, to the memorial at the Botanic Gardens and attached it to the fence, along with the hundreds of other messages of love and support. It was heartbreaking to see all the flowers but to see everyone come together to pay their respects showed us how New Zealanders support each other. Words by Zahra Pengelly, Year 12 |
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September 2020
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