As we approach the term 3 break I thought readers would enjoy the time lapse photographs below of the re-build progress to date.  Now that Downers have been confirmed as the main contractor progress will speed up during the next term, and as soon as senior exams have finished enabling works at Waiorea will begin along with foundation works for the main three storey building.

Here is the link to the video https://vimeo.com/199259361

A message to all students to enjoy their break as well as for senior students to give attention to their revision programmes for the up-coming external exams.  Note too, above in the Calendar, our prizegivings coming up.

Ivan Davis  

Student Protection Policy Consultation

Western Springs College - Ngā Puna o Waiōrea is required to have a Student Protection Policy which outlines our commitment to student protection. As part of the process of ratifying this, we would like to provide an opportunity for our community to provide feedback.

It is a short two page document which you will find here. Consultation will be open for two weeks, closing on Thursday, 12 October, and you can provide feedback via a Google Form here. 

Once the policy has been ratified it will be translated into Te Reo Maori, and will be available on our website.

Paris

Paris, the city of love and what a lovely city it is. After a grueling 24 hours airborne we finally arrived, the first step of our european adventure. Within 2 hours of landing, we were walking, a tour of the city. Everywhere you look tall stone buildings no two quite the same line either side of the road. As we trek around the city lead by a mother duck, we found ourselves at the Notre Dame. A gargantuan and yet beautiful monument, from every angle the masterpiece retains a profound intricacy. No picture nor story does justice to the sheer magnitude and beauty of the work. The next day we were traversing the labyrinth of The Louvre. I found that with the slightest of distractions you may find yourself venturing around the mammoth structure, captured by the huge walls teeming with vibrant colours and ancient gold trimmings. We spent all of 3 hours in the Louvre, and yet when departing, felt as though we hadn't even reached the surface of what's to see, let alone scratch it. Finally, the Eiffel tower, the heart of Paris - the picture card backdrop we all long to see in person... in person. The tower was so grand, simple in structure and yet so impressive. A long day's walking found the group lazily, lying in the grass. Sheltered from the sun's relentless battering, underneath a small tree peering up at the clear blue. What a lovely view. 

As I conclude my short summary of Paris, I wish to extend my thanks. Not only to the the awesome teachers I had the privilege of getting to know over the trip, but also to everyone else. These amazing places are made that much better with such amazing people.

Thomas Parekowhai

                                                                                                                     Above: American Cemetery, Normandy

Below: Home away from home (Chateau)

Rome

Rome - you are beautiful. With every turn, at every corner, down each street, there is always a pretty building there to surprise you. Rome greeted us with a beautiful sunset, we arrived late in the evening to an amazing hotel that had a beautiful ancient wall right outside of it. On our first full day in Rome we caught the metro - which had great air conditioning - to the magnificent Flavian amphitheatre, aka the Colosseum. What a hot day it was, not a single cloud in the sky! I felt like an ant next to the Colosseum, for a second while I was there, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what the place would have been like all those years ago, with the bloody gladiatorial battles, the many crucifixions and the animal murders, what a horrific sight that would have been! 50,000 people from all different social classes screaming with excitement throughout the whole of the amphitheatre - the things people enjoyed back then, thank god it's not the same today. For the rest of the afternoon we had a walking tour of Rome. The next day we headed to the Vatican bright and early. The Vatican is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church. It's home to the Pope and a trove of iconic art and architecture, it's also the smallest country in the world! I loved all the ancient buildings throughout the whole city. The heat however was super duper hot, I would like to come back in winter.  Kiriataahua Te Maapi Pene

In term four 2016 we took all year nine students on camp to Motutapu Island. This year, camp will be help at Wenderholm Regional Park and campground. Wenderholm is a stunning regional park located 45 minutes north of Western Springs.

The dates are as follows:
Atea - 20th - 22nd November
Moana and Whenua: 22nd-24th November
Kapura and Oranga: 29th November - 1st December

A letter will be sent home to all year nine students at the beginning of Term four with further details, including a gear list. The cost of the camp will be $100.

If you have further questions please feel free to get in contact with your student’s Head of House:

Atea: Amy Dennis - dennisa@wsc.school.nz
Kapura: Helen Long - longh@wsc.school.nz
Moana: Rachel Allwood - allwoodr@wsc.school.nz
Oranga: Bella Pomare - pomareb@wsc.school.nz or Naomi Cusack - cusackn@wsc.school.nz

Whenua: Sophie Lenehan - lenehans@wsc.school.nz

Daffodils – congratulations! Daffodils have again achieved an incredible result being placed 2nd at the RockQuest National Finals 2017. We look forward to seeing your award-winning performance at Talent Quest this week. Below: Daffodils - Theo Salmon, Isaac Keating, Louis Graham.

Recently, we all enjoyed the dances of ‘Absence’, Y13 Dance Showcase. If you missed it, make sure you get along to see Spring! showcasing the best of senior choreography across L1-3 Dance. Shows are this week - Wednesday 3.30pm and 7pm - Thursday 9.15am, TAPAC Theatre.

Coming up next term we have the Art Portfolio Exhibition on Friday 27th October in the School Library. For one day only please join us in celebrating the work of our seniors finishing Level 1 Practical Art, Level 2 and 3 Art Design, Painting and Photography. The Library will showcase work from 10am-6pm with a special celebration between 3.30pm-6pm to mark the occasion. Please join us for a special preview of the external submissions for 2017. Special thanks to PAG for their support of the event. Also another calendar date to mark is the annual Junior Arts Festival – Friday 17th November which always showcases fine talent coming through in all junior areas of the Arts.

Finally, good luck to all involved in Talent Quest on Friday 29th September. Talent Quest has always showcased an incredible range of performance and is a marvellous way for students to celebrate with their peers and their successes with performance.

Thanks to Khue Chu – 13Art Design – for the ArtsNews Heading in this issue.

arts@wsc.school.nz                                                                              Kirsty Britton – Arts Coordinator

13Dance presents Absence

In Week 5 in the TAPAC Theatre the Year 13 Dance class presented Absence, a collection of fresh student choreography exploring aspects of the impact World War One had on men and women in Aotearoa and their relationships.

At Level 3, NCEA Dance students conceptualise, choreograph and realise a complete dance work worth 8 credits.  Students have studied The New Zealand Dance Company's Rotunda by Shona McCullagh as an example of professional choreography. They researched a topic inspired by Rotunda and World War One, choreographed a dance and designed lighting, music and costumes to support their concept. Thanks to Year 12 Dance students Christophe Bate and Georgia Menhennet who danced in three of the dances.

HOD Dance – Chloe Davison

Congratulations Daffodils!

Huge congratulations to Daffodils!

This fabulous band of Theo Salmon, Louis Graham, and Isaac Keating (and Jade from Kristin school) came 2nd in New Zealand in the recent Smokefree Rockquest National Final.

There was much excitement about this result although also some twinges of sadness. They came 2nd last year too and they would have loved to have taken out first place this year. As a totally unbiased audience member I was sure they were the best band on the night! Daffodils once again also received the award for Best Song for "Staring at the Sun"

As part of Daffodil day our own Daffodils played on the village green. Thanks to Bickio for the superb work at the mixing desk - it was so good to be able to hear the lyrics clearly.

Next on the music calendar is our annual Talent Quest. This will be held on the last day of term, Friday September 29th. There will be two shows during the day, a junior and a senior. When students are not watching their respective year groups performing they will be in regular classes. Entries cover dance, solo voice, poi, band and lip sync so it promises to be good!

Thank you to the families who have come along and supported our senior music performance evenings during the year. It is so good to have you there to share in these superb musical experiences which are made that much more exciting by having a real audience.

Margaret Robertson – HOD Music

Term 3 - Finishing the External Folio!

Greetings from the Art Department

With the holidays just around the corner students are encouraged to take advantage of holiday workshop times being offered by teachers of Painting, Photography and Art Design – especially those who have more than one practical subject and particularly for the scholarship students.  Students have been told in classes when teachers are available and these times will be repeated on GoogleClassroom prior to the Term 3 holidays beginning.

Finally, a reminder of the dates students are working towards;

Level 1 due;                          Friday 29th September – last day of Term 3.
Level 2 due;                          Friday 20th October – end of Week 1, Term 4
Level 3 due;                          Thursday 26th October – end of Week 2, Term 4
Level 1, 2, 3 Display;           Friday 27th October, 10am-6pm, School Library – end of Week 3
Level 3/Scholarship due;   Tuesday 31st October – midday
 

Tautai – Fresh Horizons Workshops 2018

We’d like to acknowledge the efforts of Aria Toilolo-Ite who recently participated in the 2018 Tautai Fresh Horizons AUT Pasifika Workshops.

Aria was to attend the Tautai workshops at AUT based on exceptional creativity demonstrated over her time at Springs.  The Tautai workshops are also dedicated to students of Pacific ethnicity, designed to offer a taste of studying Art at University.  The workshops are spread across 3 days and consisted of three workshops by leading artists; Edith Amituanai, Julian Hooper and Siliga Setonga.  Students worked with an artist, creating art inspired by their own culture and identity. Congratulations to Aria on her efforts and with her work in Art.

HOD Art – Lily Laita

Library Week

Our aim this year was to host a range of activities to engage as many students and staff as possible.

Blind Date a book - students were attracted to the display of books wrapped in brown paper with only a hint of the content written on the front.  Borrowing of these was higher than expected.

The ‘Daily Question’ -  each day a question about a feature in the library was displayed and the winner of the draw received a $5 canteen voucher. Congratulations to the following students:

Tiger Fong- Fitzpatrick
Alex Purushothman
Peachez Vetenibua
Reimarie George-Mcrae
Archie Lee-Cooper

The Form Class Quiz which was eligible for House Points was  well-supported. For the final question groups of students had to come to the library, select 4 titles and create a SPINE POEM.  The following were some of the amazing poems received. Marking was quite challenging and the overwhelming feedback was very positive. Students were engaged and were exposed to books in a different way.

Inter House Lit Quiz - a group of enthusiastic monitors decided to prepare a quiz. The teams made up of keen readers who thoroughly enjoyed the experience, testing their knowledge of popular titles. On the basis of the success of this event the overwhelming response was ‘let’s make this a permanent feature of Library Week’  A huge thanks to the amazing monitors who made this event happen.

Wear a book - the following images show staff  and students who made an effort to wear the front cover of their favourite book  for a day

Character Dress-Up
 I was delighted to see some staff and students make the effort to dress up even though this year it was not one of the formal activities.

Sharda Patel
Library Manager

Year 10 field trips to our stream

Year 10 students are currently learning about water. We have been working with the freshwater community conservation education programme, Whitebait Connection, to monitor & learn more about our stream that runs between us & Pasadena. We found one inanga in the stream, a pregnant female. Sophie from WBC told us that she would not release her eggs though, likely because the water quality still isn’t good enough.

Year 10 students have been planning and taking action on a water issue as part of the unit, and we have students planning cleanups at the stream, as well as planting/weeding bees, and writing to local politicians with their data. Some students are studying water in surrounding areas - one group are monitoring the nocturnal fauna at Western Springs park using chew cards, and another group want to make Cox’s Bay Creek swimmable again. We are so proud of what these students are doing!

ICAS Results

Congratulations to the students who put themselves forward to sit the external International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) science competition. Adrian Bull was awarded a Credit Certificate, and Felix Lim was awarded a Distinction Certificate. Well done!

Exam preparation for seniors

As we are near the end of the academic year, it is time that we keep a focus on developing exam technique with our senior science classes. The best resource for this, after the teacher, is the relevant AME Revision book. It is a write-on book that summarises the exam content for each topic within a standard, then gives old exam questions for students to practice. It is highly recommended that students buy one. When payment is made to the school office, the student’s teacher can then supply it. All senior students who have paid their course fees will have already paid for the revision book.

Level 1 Exams & Workshops

Students have been advised to sit one science external exam only in November this year. There are three options, Science (“Acids and Bases”) Biology (“Microbes”) and Physics (“Electricity & Magnetism”).
There are a few exceptions - where students particularly enjoy exams they may choose to sit more than one external, after consultation with their science teacher and whanau.

Acids & Bases
Science (S1.5)
Wed 15 Nov at 9.30am

Microbes
Biology (B1.3)
Thurs 16 Nov at 9.30am

Electricity & Magnetism
Physics (P1.3)
Tues 28 Nov at 9:30am

There will be workshops covering all three external exams in week four of next term. Timetables will be published on the relevant google classrooms.

Year 12 Tough Guy and Gal Event

On the 29th June all of us year 12 Pe students participated in the Tough Guy and Gal challenge out in Helensville. This was a 6km run through mud and obstacles up and through the massive hills and valleys.

For a few weeks in advance we had been learning and training different aspects of training methods and had been running lessons for our peers to prepare for this event. Some involving interval exercises or continuous like the runs we did during class around western springs football club to train up our endurance. We all completed training logs for the four weeks running up to this event to track down and show what we had been doing at school and in our own time to get our best time possible and the higher grades. Come the day we all caught a bus and set up on the courts with all the other schools participating on the very cold bright morning.

Ended out to be a very successful day with many good efforts paying off as we had a few top ten finishers across the board including Troy Bannan 2nd for his age group and Parehuia Delamere 3rd for her age group.

Wheelchair Basketball

Over in PE the students were given an awesome opportunity to try out some wheelchair basketball at the end of this term. It was a challenge for all but a lot of fun too and something that noone had ever tried before. Keegan Pitcher from Auckland University was here as a student teacher and plays the sport himself so was able to teach the students (and staff) some skills and drills and insight into how the game is played. All classes that were able to participate in the lessons commented on how hard it was physically and just how much skill was required to be successful. We are all very grateful for the opportunity to try this out and thank Keegan for allowing it to happen!

BADMINTON

Entering the last few weeks of the Term 3 ABA competition, our two Springs badminton mixed teams
are unbeaten and comfortably lead their respective grades. Trainings are fully attended and the boys and girls train just as hard as they play on Wednesdays. They need to as both mixed teams usually play against all boys teams, making for mostly close, intense games.
The badminton programme has had a very impressive year already with three teams winning their Term 2 competitions and two other teams finishing 4th overall. Hopefully by term break, we will be able to celebrate the addition of two more titles….

Mixed Gold – Vikram Setty, Matt Dao, Kelly Shi, Kate Hutcheson and Justin Lee

Mixed Green – Theo Habberfield-Short, Mikayla Stokes, Harrison Cooke, Logan Park,
                             Khushee Jain and Lily Raukawa-Heslin

CYCLING

It has been a phenomenal year for Western Springs College. Building from five riders last year, Springs managed to have up to 3 teams represented at the Team Time Trial Series which was brilliant and we also had double the turn out at the North Island Road Champs, ending with some impressive results too.
With our current strength in Mountain Biking, this improved exponentially too with 3 students stepping onto the podium through the Auckland series, two finishing on the podium for the series overall and of course everyone’s contribution leading to Springs finishing as the 3rd ranked school overall - and not forgetting Jack with his brilliant ride at the Secondary Schools Nationals where he finished 2nd.

They have all grown as a team and have learnt how to deal with challenges and disappointments. The team have developed their ability with impressive results and commitment.  One cannot ask
for more so well done to each of them.

Keep riding and aim for bigger next year!!       Coach Ben Eitelberg

EQUESTRIAN

On the 8th of September, Springs had a team of four girls, Sian Azariah, Sadie Azariah,
Claudia Alchin and Melanie McKenzie, compete in the Secondary Schools Equestrian Cup.
Each rider entered in two classes and in a very competitive show of over 40 teams, we came away with some very impressive results. Claudia was placed in both her classes; second in the pony show hunter 60cm and fourth in the pony show hunter, Sian placed third in the pony show jumping 80cm, and Sadie placed fourth in the pony show jumping 70cm.

Overall it was a fabulous day where all the girls and their horses performed exceptionally well. 
Jessica Dallas

Liya Yang Nightingill in Year 9 has qualified to compete in the New Zealand Gymnastics Nationals Competition in Nelson in October 5-8.

Liya will compete on Friday 6th October on Floor, Beam, Bars and Vault . We wish Liya all the best for her National Competition as she is training hard towards this. Liya will be representing Auckland with her Club, Waitakere Gymnastics.

Orewa Surf Club - Northern Regional Surf Life Saving Pool Champs held 2/3rd Sept at Owen Glen Pool

Western Springs College
U16 Boys 4 x 50 Obstacle relay 2nd - Angus Kirkman
U16 Boys 4 x 25 Manikin relay 2nd - Angus Kirkman

This year has provided opportunities for the further development of the Year 9 GAT Programme, in particular the introduction of project-based learning earlier in the programme. In Term 2, this year’s group were inspired by presentations given by some of last year’s cohort. They heard from Frances Bingham, who presented her findings on the effect that childhood experiences have on the development of fictional heroes and villains, and Nina Quinn and Sylvie Frater, who talked about the research they did into the impact of microplastics on local waterways. Both presentations ended with lively Q&A sessions. This year’s students have gone on to develop a variety of projects, which are listed below.

If any parents or other members of the wider Springs community have expertise in these areas, and would like to provide some advice and feedback to students on their projects, then please contact David Larsen, GAT Coordinator, at larsend@wsc.school.nz

Breast Cancer Foundation NZ’s annual Pink Star Walk is a fundraising walk in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch for men, women, children of all ages and fitness levels. The walking courses are a mix of 5km, 10km or half marathon (21km) with walkers encouraged to dress in pink.

Every day, 8 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in New Zealand. It is our mission to raise awareness, provide education and support, and fund vital clinical research to prevent New Zealanders from developing breast cancer, and reducing the number of those diagnosed. The Pink Star Walk is a fun filled event and it’s a fantastic way to make a difference. 100% of the money raise helps us reach our vision of zero deaths from breast cancer.

The Pink Star Walk is a great reason to gather your friends, family and work colleagues and get active for such a great cause. We encourage participants to fundraise for the event, individually or as a team to help provide the best possible care and research for New Zealanders.

Be a star this October and join us for the Auckland Pink Star Walk.

Register now https://pinkstarwalk.co.nz/