Ngā mihi,

Alex Reed
Executive Principal 

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Claire Pirini, College Teacher

Claire is in her 5th year teaching at Pinehurst. She first came to Pinehurst when she was at teachers college for her final teaching placement. Claire loved her experience and was absolutely stoked when she was successful in her application to be an English and Drama teacher. Half-way through her first year, she was offered a permanent position teaching Spanish for which she is so grateful, she is a passionate languages teacher and working at Pinehurst is a dream for her as it truly feels like students and staff alike are part of her family. 

Claire grew up in a small coastal town called Ōhope Beach in the Bay of Plenty. She loves the beach and can often be found by the water. Claire has always wanted to be a teacher and throughout high school she developed a deep love for English and Drama, was constantly writing stories and poems and was a regular in every school production. When Claire was 15, an AFS exchange ambassador came to her school and spoke about studying internationally for a year...before she knew it, she was off to live in Uruguay for 11 months. It was throughout this experience that her passion for travel flourished, where she learnt Spanish and developed a special interest in languages and other cultures.

She has since lived and worked in Spain as well as travelled Central and South America. To this day Claire is fascinated with travelling and takes every opportunity to have new experiences overseas.

Kia Ora,

Yesterday I really enjoyed getting up to the Northern Arena swimming complex to watch our Year 7 and Year 8 students participating in their annual swimming sports. It was great to see the talent of our top young swimmers as several school records were broken. Equally significant was getting to watch the students who are not strong swimmers have a go and gain vital points for their House with the aim of winning the swimming shield. It was these students who received the biggest cheers from the crowd, and it was great to see the House spirit and camaraderie generated at the event.

Next Friday we have our annual college athletics day. This is one of the highlights of the school calendar for me as we get to come together as a full college with all students and staff present. Again, we will see some outstanding athletics performances and some great competition, but equally we will see students who are not particularly fond of sport giving it their all to gain House points. They will be vocally supported by all present I am sure. These events are so important to the school as they build House spirit and connection. They are vital school experiences that I believe add to school culture and the student experience.

Last night I enjoyed attending the Cambridge Outstanding Learner Awards dinner with our students and staff. Again, the dinner was about acknowledging the outstanding achievements of the top academic students, but it also acknowledged the success of students across all the grade thresholds. It was with great pride that I watched our students walk across the stage to receive their awards. What also made me very proud though was the other qualities that our students demonstrated on the night. They were engaging throughout the meal and I watched as they chatted with staff from other schools with confidence. They also thanked their Pinehurst teachers for being there to celebrate with them and thanked them for helping them to be so successful. The final note I made about our students was that they are not just very good academically, they also engaged in other school activities such Basketball, Table Tennis, Golf or the Orchestra. I am sure that the balance they have established is a factor in them being so successful.

Nga Mihi,

Kieran Verryt, Principal of College

Inter-school Golf

The Inter-school golf season teed off on Monday. This year Pinehurst has entered two teams in the Premier Grade. Our top team is exceptionally strong with Yeonsoo Son, Eujin Kang, Jaewoo Son and a new student to Pinehurst, Eun-seo Chen. Our second team comprises of Towa Usui, Alan Chen, Jax Liang, Luna Cui and Kitty Qu.

Our top team comfortably beat Westlake Boys and our second team unfortunately were not quite good enough on the day for Wentworth. Congratulations to Towa Usui for scoring a 35 over 9 holes. He was narrowly pipped at the post by Eun-seon Chen who needed only 34 strokes to complete her round.

Next week both Pinehurst teams will play off against each other.

Year 8 Music 

Since the start of the term, the Year 8 music classes have been working on a research project examining the Benefits of Music, the focus of which they chose themselves. Some students went above and beyond just research – they also conducted experiments on their plants and pets.  Over the next couple of weeks students will present their findings to their peers. The students researched a wide range of topics:

• Music and its benefits to pets/animals
• Music and its benefits to sport performances
• The Health Benefits of music – body and mind
• The Benefits of Music on Studying etc.

This criteria for success was determined collectively by the students and agreed upon before the research project begun.

A Blind Date in the Library

Some lucky students who had their library period on Friday 14th Feb, Valentines Day, got more than they bargained for.  They got to have a ‘blind date’ … with a book.  A very brief description on the covered book was all they had to go by and once they had made their choice they had to wait to open it at home. 

As with a typical blind date it may not always be a match, but you never know until you try.  A number of students were thrilled with their books and it proved to be a great match.  If not, there is always next year… or why wait?

Young Enterprise 2020

Young Enterprise have started their 2020 journey this week by attending the Young Enterprise Kickstarter Day at AUT. We have two groups this year, who will create a product or service, and run a business to compete in a national competition. Sneha Balia is one of the CEO’s for who says “I have learnt various aspects and requirements for running a business enterprise."

The Kickstarter Day consisted of various workshops with a number of business owners and entrepreneurs. Their insight in managing a successful business was a great help in understanding how to set up a business. While the whole day was a wonderful opportunity for learning, the best experience of the day for our students was the discussions with a number of leading business people. Their knowledge helped to broaden their ideas. Young Enterprise is an excellent learning opportunity. This experience will improve business knowledge, ability to lead a team and eventually create a successful business enterprise. We are very excited about the year ahead for all of our entrepreneurs!

DoE Bronze Practice Reflections...

I really enjoyed the camp this year. I really enjoyed abseiling down the rope and walking through the bush. Although the sleeping conditions were a bit rough (sleeping in a tent) as the temperature was quite high and it was hot. I thought bringing our own food was a good idea because each person would be responsible if they didn't bring enough. For the next tramp I would like to spend more time at the campsite because it felt rushed only being there for such a short time. Overall it was an awesome camp. - Olivia Frame

Although challenging at times, this tramp was more rewarding and exciting than we could’ve imagined. Upon hearing the previous students’ adventures of the tiring hills and steep declines we expected for a lengthy, slow trek through the bush but what we got was far better – breathtaking sightseeing spots, gorgeous beaches and an open bush were only a small fraction of the whole experience. It was also extremely pleasing to see everyone band together to push through the difficult parts of the tramp with words of encouragement for one another, sharing resources and even distributing the load of heavy bags. A lot of us had never done anything like this before and we’re very glad it was a positive experience. - Gabriella Beecroft

At the beginning of the Year 10 DoE practice tramp, it was hot, sticky and muggy. You could really tell that all your energy would be drained by the end of the day. Originally our group had planned to beat the Matai and Kauri time, but we had a few hiccups early on. Once we had properly started, the tramp was amazing! The forests offered welcome shade against the beating sun, and with the right rhythm our group was flying through. In the end I wouldn’t have had half as good a time without such a great and helpful group. This was a great experience and I would love to do it again! - Gryffon Flew

Netball Have a Go Day

Two action packed days of Netball skills and drills took place this week to give all of our students the opportunity to give Netball a go. Following on from a very successful Winter and Spring netball season in 2019 we have been approached by many students in the first few weeks of school wanting to know when the Netball season begins again for the Winter.

Our National Netball side ‘The Silver Ferns’ scooped six awards at the recent Halberg Awards with New Zealand’s favourite sporting moment of 2019..... when they won the Netball World Cup. Our Pinehurst Silver Ferns in the making are keen to get on the court.

The Year 0-6 classes were invited to attend a fun-filled session to introduce the skills that are developed when playing netball. We were very lucky to have our Year 6 netball players to assist in all the fun.

We focussed on driving forward to receive a pass, zig-zagging our way across a court and of course shooting a goal. Our students displayed a range of shooting, defending and attacking skills that would be ideal to transfer into a game of netball.

We are looking for existing and new players to join us in the Winter League. Those players new to netball will be supported through our school netball training sessions. You can join a team at any year level and do not need to have played previously.

Do boys play netball? YES, they do. Many schools enter mixed teams into the netball league and we welcome any boys who would like to play in one of our teams.

We look forward to working alongside your child to help them develop their ball skills and provide them with a fun way to interact in a team sport.

Don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions: anina.botes@pinehurst.school.nz or catherine.joneshill@pinehurst.school.nz

Year 4 Robotics

The Year 4 Robotic students are really enjoying exploring and working with the WeDo 2.0 Lego sets. They have quickly learnt to connect their smarthubs to their devices and have begun writing programmes/ coding their projects to complete commands. The first two “Getting Started” projects completed were the “Glowing Snail" and the “Cooling Fan”.

They had great fun building and programming the “Glowing Snail” to show a flash of light, then challenging themselves to modify their programme by adding multiple flashes of light using a selection of colours and finally adding sound.

The “Cooling Fan” involved the addition of a motor where the students needed to code the Cooling Fan allowing it to change speed and direction. They modified their programme again adding sounds and flashes of light and colour.

They have enjoyed both challenges and modifying their programmes to extend their learning. We are looking forward to completing the next two projects and seeing the “Moving Satellite” and the “Spy Robot” challenges in action. 

What a great start in P11!

We have had a fantastic start to the year in P11, Year 3. We are learning how to become both independent and collaborative learners, setting ourselves goals to work towards, and identifying what we need to do to achieve them.

We have Reading and Maths rotations where we get to practice what we have learned during guided lessons with the teacher. There are lots of ways to do this – completing activities in our books, using materials and whiteboards, choosing fun literacy cards, playing Maths and Reading games, and iPad apps. All these activities help us with our learning goals and are a mix of collaborative and independent learning, so we have the opportunity to discuss our ideas with each other as well as working on being focused and self-managing learners during independent work.

In Reading we have been practising our fluency by reading out loud to a buddy, and listening to good examples of fluent reading in the Reading Eggs library online. In Maths we have been exploring Geometry and identifying where it is in our everyday lives. We used the Geoboard app to create a range of interlocking shapes and tried to see if we could turn them into 3-D shapes. We also used ice-block sticks and Blu-tack to make 3-D models.

Thursday afternoons are a great opportunity to get together with the other Year 3 classes for our Sport rotation. Last week we practised our ball skills, using both small and large balls. It was hot but so much fun!

We are loving getting to know our new classmates, and working together to create a supportive and collaborative environment where we get to share our ideas and challenge ourselves to reach our goals. What an exciting year ahead!

A busy week in P19

There have been many opportunities for P19 students to use and develop their teamwork skills this week. Jerry commented that they had been using teamwork to make the range of nets to ascertain which would make a cube.

Shuntaro, Mikey and Callum pictured with their range of nets, commented: “We drew multiple nets and cut them out to discover if they form a cube. Our results were this: everything except for L worked. We learnt that there are lots more nets of cubes than we could ever imagine.”

On Netball 'Have a go' Day, Callum wrote: “It was really fun and energetic, a nice way to start the day. We all came back huffing and puffing and were really glad when we got back inside the air-conditioned classroom."

Brodie said: “Have A Go Day! I really enjoyed playing the netball activities with my group. It took a lot of teamwork and skills. We won every game we played.”

Joanna mentioned:  "I felt very hot when we finished netball. I like how the helpers were very encouraging. I had a great time with my teammates.”

Maisy exclaimed: “I was encouraged by my teammates to accomplish more in netball. It was exciting but immensely hot and sticky."

In Social Studies the students completed a “Bus Stop” activity. There were six questions for them to discuss and write their comments on. Each group rotated around all six bus stops, adding their thoughts.

ESOL in the Primary

During the holidays the ESOL room moved to P3, right in the middle of the Junior Primary. It has been lovely to meet many of our new ESOL students and their families. If you haven’t had a chance to meet Ms Playfair yet, please do pop in and say hello! (she teaches Mon-Thurs).

This week in ESOL was the first week of full classes of students. We have had some groups asking and answering questions about their favourite activities and things. Some groups have been differentiating between present simple and past simple tenses. Another group have been focusing on using the correct article. While other groups have been focusing on the subject-verb-object rule to structure their beginning sentences correctly.  

Music Groups off to a roaring start

The Jazz Band and the Orchestra have already started preparing for the KBB Competition, held in August this year. We are very excited to see the large number of students joining these groups and the potential their talents bring.

We highlight the student’s talents with solos and provide a wide range of repertoire to continue developing their performance skills.

Many students who are already completing their IGCSE, AS or A level music courses use their performances within these groups for their performance portfolio. Both groups meet on a weekly basis.