News and events for the week ending 6th December 2018 Thursday 6th December 2018 Opening words from the Executive PrincipalGood afternoon, Kia ora tatou, 你好 I’m going to be very brief today: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! This week has been wonderful. The Prizegivings were fantastic celebrations of achievement, the Christmas Picnic had a smile and a swing to it, and I have seen happy children and proud parents everywhere around me all week. You can view the photos from all 3 of our Prizegiving ceremonies at the link here: Pinehurst School Thank you to our whole Pinehurst community for all of your support this year: I feel privileged to work with such a great staff, such supportive parents, and, of course, such an amazing group of young people. Enjoy the holiday with your families, and I look forward to seeing you in January, tanned and ready for the new school year. If you are heading elsewhere, take our thoughts and best wishes with you. Ngā mihi, Alex Reed Alex Reed WEEK 1 - 2019 Tuesday 29 January TERM 1 BEGINS
Kia Ora, Our final week of school for 2018 allows us to focus on all that has been achieved. On Wednesday we celebrated our College Prizegiving’s. They were fantastic events that allow us to acknowledge the many outstanding achievements of our students this year, and also enjoy some outstanding performances from our Orchestra and Jazz Band. Congratulations to all of the students that received awards. A full set of the results will be published in the school yearbook. A special congratulations to the following students;
Yesterday also concluded the student leadership roles of William Montague Brown, Breanna Lee, Daria Perevoztchikova and Louie Holgate Simpson. They have led the two areas of the College well this year and all spoke brilliantly at the Prizegiving ceremonies. Finally, we would like to say thank you to our whole community for your support and work this year. For those students graduating and others that are moving on we wish you all the very best. For those students and families returning we wish you a Merry Christmas and a safe holiday. We look forward to seeing you in the new year. Ngā mihi, Chris Wiggin and Kieran Verryt Principals of College Student Leaders 2019We are delighted to announce the following Student Leaders for 2019; Great Barrier CampOn Sunday 25th November, 60 Year 11/12 Pinehurst students embarked on their journey from Sandspit Harbour on the 'mainland', to Karaka Bay on Great Barrier Island. The Senior Camp compromises 6 days and 5 nights of some of the best outdoor education instructors in New Zealand putting the final year students through their paces and is aimed at enhancing and developing both their team-working and leadership skills. The programme is not prescribed and is tailored to the individual students. Many of the activities on the island are challenging and aimed at bringing the students out of their comfort zones and giving them leadership skills that can be used both at school, the work place and in future life. All of the 6 groups experienced sea kayaking, surf kayaking, tramping, rock climbing, navigating, high-rope courses, bush-whacking and coasteering. After the 6 grueling and challenging days the 60 students and 6 Pinehurst teachers arrived back at Leigh Harbour safely. Many were, 'well-sunned', windswept and tired, however all students had the opportunity to learn a great deal about leadership skills and ways in which to maximise their abilities whilst working in groups. SC ESOL Students Debate against KristinMobile phones should be banned during school time. This was the moot for the inaugural ESOL debate between Pinehurst and Kristin last Thursday at Pinehurst. Two teams, one from Year 9 and one from Year 10, had a few days to prepare their arguments and their strategies against Kristin. A support team from Kristin and friends and classmates from Pinehurst watched on with interest as both teams battled to be the winners. Despite their initial nerves, the Year 10 team of Arianna Yang, Iris Lu and Tony Wang spoke with conviction and passion and delivered arguments that entertained and left many forgetting that English is in fact their second language. While all three speakers were deserving winners of the Best Speaker prize, the award was given to the second speaker, Arianna Yang. Our Year 9 team of Hanmo Feng, Leo Dong and Joey Wang also performed admirably, but were unable to overcome their nerves to present arguments and rebuttal that were strong enough to beat a determined Kristin team. There was also a social aspect to the debate with time before and after to get to know each other. The students and teachers from Kristin enjoyed their time at Pinehurst and look forward to hosting our teams at their school in the new year. A big thank you to English teachers, Mr Zimmerman and Ms Morfett for adjudicating the debates and giving valuable feedback to all the students. The ESOL students are looking forward to continuing their debating next year and extending the invitation to other schools in the area. Year 9 TechnologyThis term students designed and made a portable speaker. The project required considerable challenges to personal comfort levels, aspects of design and manufacturing with the results being testament to some incredible effort and hard work and in some cases exceeding their wildest expectations of what they thought was possible. Each student followed the design process; identifying the broad context of speakers, product research and design analysis, creative thinking, drawing the final solution full size, making sure the amplifier circuit and speakers and producing a parts list. Then into the workshop to learn basic practical skills from cutting joints, to assembly and finishing. When the finished product was plugged in and tested the workshop rang out with a diversity of musical tastes just as wide as the range of ideas each student had applied to their design. Year 8 Design TechnologyStudents had a challenging term designing and making acrylic nightlights. Finding out about plastics and some of their qualities they then came up with their own ideas, considering the size of components and functional issues, turning their ideas into a full size net drawing. In the workshop they cut the shape out of acrylic plastic with the scroll saw, filed and polished the edges accurately to a detailed shape, drilled holes for the LED bulbs, heated and bent the plastic to shape. Then came the hard part, soldering all the components together in a parallel circuit and in many cases figuring out why it would not work. Finally, the circuit was set into the plastic shape and big smiles all-round as they saw their ideas transformed into reality. The project proved a great success working within constraints of time, resources and skill to produce some very individual and creative results, a sense of teamwork and of course learning a wide range of technical, practical, creative and life skills. Chess Club spreads to the Junior CollegeThis term at lunchtime the Chess Club was introduced to Year 7 & 8 and it’s been a hit. For our last session this year the room was full of students hunched over the boards looking for a way to out-wit their opponent! We are really looking forward to starting up again at the beginning of next year so that we can get the competition ladder in full swing. Beach Volleyball Zone DaysLast week, seven Junior College teams took part in the NH Zone Day Beach Volleyball days - playing on the sand at the Mairangi Bay purpose built beach courts. The teams had a great time, many of the students playing this format of Volleyball for the first time. Special mention to our Boys Year 8 team (Freddie, William, Anthony, Harry & Jake), who made the final for the Division 3 competition, going down narrowly to be runners up to Rosmini. A huge thank you to Emily, Darius, Jan, Kelly, Claire, Lisa & Claire B for supporting the teams. Social at SoljansThe Year 7 & 8 students celebrated 2018 this Monday evening at Soljans. The persistent rain did not dampen their spirits as they dined, danced and socialised the night away. What a great way to end the year! 8AS Lolly Wreaths8AS and a proud Mrs Smith celebrate a successful year with lolly wreaths. Kia Ora, What a wonderful final week we have had, busy but a perfect way to end the school year. Our prizegiving on Tuesday started with a bang literally, as we attempted to rehearse after torrential rain and a major thunderstorm. We were initially without sound as a power surge had blown some of the sound equipment but the wonderful team from Stage It got us back on track and ready to roll at 1pm. Commenting after the prizegiving we all said how proud we felt to be part of the event. Our students were amazing, not only in their achievements but in their singing, their performing and most of all in the way that they congratulated each other when their classmates received awards. Special Awards
We will say goodbye to our Year 6 students with a fair amount of sadness, they have been an amazing group, intelligent, funny, kind and fabulous role models for their younger peers. We wish them well in the Junior College and know that they will be fantastic as Year 7’s. You will receive your child’s end of year report today, please see my email for instructions on how to access and how to fully understand the grading system. If your child is in Year 6 they will receive their Cambridge Checkpoint results in the mail in late January. All Primary parents will be notified of their child’s new class in the week beginning 7th of January and also be given a conference time on either the 24th or 25th of January to meet the new teacher and get stationery. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you on behalf of all of the Primary team for your support this year, we are very grateful for all of the work that you do to ensure that your child comes to school each day ready to learn. Hopefully you will be able to spend some time with family over the break and come back refreshed and ready for the new term in 2019. Nga Mihi, Sian Coxon, Principal of Primary Primary BasketballSemester 2 Basketball at the NZ Breakers League finished up last week for all Year 3-6 teams. A huge thank you to all players, parents, coaches and managers for their support of our teams in 2018. Four of our six teams in this age group made their grade semi-final, with the Pinehurst Hawks (Year 3-4) going on to WIN the C Grade final 12-6 over Upper Harbour last Wednesday – CONGRATULATIONS! Spring Netball in the PrimaryWe began the Spring Netball season with a ‘netball fun day’ at school. Our Year 6 and 7 netballers helped to make this an exciting, action packed netball day.We were thrilled to have so many students go home and ask their parents if they could play in the Spring Netball league. We entered six teams with a total of 43 players into the six-week season. The Spring weather arrived and delivered blazing sun, torrential showers and enormous puddles that proved to be extremely inviting to jump in. Great fun was had by all! It was amazing to see the enormous improvement of throwing and catching skills by our youngest netball players. They never fail to amaze us at how quickly they can pick up the fundamentals of the game of netball. In such a short time we were passing, catching, pivoting and when everything went our way – shooting a goal or two. We hope to see our netballers join us in the winter season of 2019. Mid Bays Super Cluster AthleticsLast week, 36 of our top Year 4, 5 and 6 athletics students headed to Millennium Stadium for the first ever Mid Bays Super Cluster Athletics event. Competing against 7 other schools, Pinehurst students threw, ran and jumped their very best to earn points for the school. Although we didn’t take away the inaugural overall win, we were really proud of how well our students competed on the day! Notable podium finishes (top 3) for individuals in the events were: Nina Munro (3rd Year 6 Girls High Jump) and Bailey Benshaw (3rd Year 6 Girls Shotput) – well done! A huge thank you to our parent support – Eun Hee, Jessica, Lola, Ning, Holly, Tarnya and Winnie (who took lots of amazing photos) - to Mrs Heighton who did a fabulous job of looking after the team on the day of the event, and to Mrs Lindsay & Mrs Augustin who assisted in the running of the event! To see all the photos, please see Pinehurst Sport Facebook Page Rainbows EndAs a way of saying thank you to the students who do crossing duty, they have a trip to Rainbows End for the day. Luckily the weather was fairly kind and the students had a great time. I hear that some of them went on the roller coaster 14 times! Thank you to all those on road patrol who stood out there in the rain, cold and heat during the year. A well deserved trip. ESOL in the PrimaryThis year in ESOL all of the students have made incredible progress. We had some students start the year with little or no English and they are now speaking and writing amazing stories. This term some students have been looking at the vocabulary of time, others have been developing stories around things that move and some have been describing their favourite celebrations. Well done to you all! Play Acting in P9In P9 we love performing and watching plays. This week we have been working in small groups getting ready to perform a play to the class on Thursday. When performing a play, there are lots of things we have to think about- making sure we are reading confidently and clearly, using expression to convey what emotions are characters might be feeling and thinking about what actions our characters might be doing. Working in a group also teaches us cooperation and in order for the play to be successful we have to work together. Once we have practiced our play, the next step is deciding what props we need. This requires us to use our imaginations- chairs can be used as horses and spaceships, tablecloths as hills and whiteboard dusters as microphones. We look forward to performing our plays on Thursday. I Spy in the PrimaryI Spy....beautiful stained glass window painting in P1. I Spy....Term 1 New Entrants visiting their new class mates last Friday. I Spy....Xmas decorations being made in in P2 and P8. Christmas PicnicA big thank you to everyone who came along to our Christmas Picnic, hope you enjoyed the evening. It was great to see market stalls this year, thank you to all our vendors. In Music this weekABRSM Merit Diploma for Polly Xing Congratulations to Polly Xing (Year 9) who recently sat her ABRSM diploma examination on the flute and was awarded with a Merit. She is one of our youngest students to sit this exam and this qualification places her at above the technical performance level required of our Year 13 Music students. Christmas Picnic Thank you to all the musicians and J’Aimee Hawkins for performing at the Christmas Picnic on Wednesday night. They braved the scorching sun, wind and rain to perform their items and experiencing a life of a busker. Thank you to all the parents and teachers for their support. Co-curricular Music Groups – looking for new members in 2019 If you were wowed by the musical items in the recent Prize Giving Ceremonies and Christmas Concert and your child is yet to join our many groups, next year we will be offering the following to our students:
Joining a co-curricular music group is free, but all students are expected to honour their commitment to the groups they join and attend practices regularly. Golf Day 2019Save the date! Friday 8th March 2019. More information to follow next year... |