No images? Click here 26 February 2021Pinehurst School NewsletterOpening Words from the Executive Principal...Kia ora tatou, good afternoon, 你好, 안녕하세요It’s hard to believe, I know, as we reach the end of February, but this is the first full week we’ve had at school. Some Primary classes had their first physical Library or Music lessons on Monday; some sports practices and games kicked off for the first time; Waterwise finally got moving for Year 6 students on Wednesday; the whole College is at AUT Millennium today at our annual Athletics Day; Scholarship sessions got up and running; the Board of Governors met for the first time this year; and I started this year’s teacher observation programme. I mention the observation programme in particular because I thought it might be useful for parents to understand one of the ways we support each other as colleagues in school. All staff are formally appraised annually, and for teachers this involves a formal observation from their managers, a detailed discussion of their practice, some reflection on the year that has just passed, and some goal setting for the future. It’s a professional process designed to support all of our development. We also encourage teachers to be in and out of lessons all the time, watching and learning from each other, as we know that we have a huge amount of expertise amongst our staff. Syndicate leaders and Heads of Departments dip in and out of lessons to see what kind of learning is taking place in their areas; and senior leaders often wander around lessons too, as well as observe them for longer periods of time. It’s a collegial process that recognises we can all learn from each other. Nearly all of our classrooms have floor-to-ceiling windows: it’s a great feature of our school that we’re so open. This is one of the best parts of my job. I spend some time just about every day going into classes, seeing children, teachers and teacher aides in action. Sometimes I just pop in, chat to the kids and the teachers, and disappear again after a couple of minutes. And sometimes I have scheduled 15-20 minute observations, followed a couple of days later by a discussion with the teacher. This sometimes has a specific focus; more often, it’s a general conversation about the learning that takes place. Every lesson I see is full of amazing things and fabulous learning and there are often things I learn to help my own teaching. Occasionally I have ideas that I think will support the teacher I have just been watching, and I enjoy sharing these ideas with the teacher. I’ve been asked a few questions about class sizes recently, so I thought I’d share a few details with you. In the Primary School, our policy is to have between 66 and 69 students in each year group. In Year 0 and Year 1, we have a number of different class sizes to support students at different stages of their education; from Year 2, this means that classes have either 22 or 23 students in them. Our starting size is 22, but the policy allows us to go to 23 when there are siblings we need to include. At the moment, this means that we have 23 students in every class except for one class. This is because we have had siblings to accommodate. We actually have 13 siblings in Years 1-6 on our waiting list right now, so we haven’t been able to find spaces for everyone. When I arrived at the school, we had some Primary classes with 25 students in them, but we are committed to keeping sizes at 22 or 23. We think this is a good size, and that it enables teachers to give every student the attention they need. It also enables us to provide the teaching and resources to deliver an exceptional academic programme. In Years 7 and 8, we have 92 or 93 students split across 4 homerooms. This means that the maximum class size in nearly all lessons is 23. But in many subjects the class sizes are much smaller – usually below 20 - because we run 5 classes in Maths, English, Social Science and Science. In Years 9-13 the class sizes vary more, but no classes are ever more than 25 and many classes are much smaller. My Year 13 English Literature class has 12 students in it: a perfect size! I’ll talk next week, I think, about the individual support we offer our students as they move through our College. Our analysis of the outstanding examination results our students have achieved has shown that, as well as the high standard of teaching they have enjoyed, one of our strategies that has a big impact is the individual course and pathway guidance we offer our students. A couple of extra things for you. I will be reviving our Parent Consultation breakfasts this term: these are running at 7.30 am on March 18th and 9.00 am on March 25th. These are an opportunity for me to hear about your thoughts about a range of things. Look out for the notices. And a reminder that we are celebrating our 30th birthday next week! 30 years old! Just a couple of years younger than me... On Wednesday 3rd March, we celebrate our Foundation Day, and we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the afternoon on the back field. There will be food, entertainment and games for all. Our big birthday party for adults only is on Friday 5th March at 6.30 pm on the front lawn. There will be cocktails, nice wine, posh canapes, live music and (I hope) a few nice frocks and sharp suits. We are also offering childcare in the After School Care centre for those parents unable to source a babysitter. Tickets are available from school. Ka kite anō au i a koutou. Have a lovely weekend! Alex Reed 如需阅读校长的中文留言和重要事件日期,请点击此处 Dates for your Diary Kia Ora, Starting on a Monday this week and back to our normal timetable, and away from bubbles, has meant that we have been able to start our academic mentoring programme with students from Years 9-13. The programme involves goal setting and planning ahead for students, as well as a one-on-one conversation with either their POD teacher, or another member of staff. All college teachers, with the exception of homeroom teachers, have a group of ten students that they meet and guide throughout the year. Helping students to set goals and plan is one side of the mentoring, but equally important are the pastoral conversations about balance, school engagement, and wellbeing. I know that I personally enjoyed talking to the students that I met yesterday and valuable information would have been gathered by both students and teachers. Next week we will start to have a few more field trips heading out from school. These are great opportunities to expand student horizons and to put their learning into a real-world context. We run an array of excursions and an important one that is coming up for our Year 12 and 13 students is the RYDA Road Safety Day. This is a valuable event for our senior students as they have a range of seminars around various driving and road safety issues. They have an opportunity to hear from crash victims and the Police, and they are encouraged to find their voice to ensure that they are making informed decisions both as drivers of, and passengers in cars. The more routine week of school has also allowed us to get our full summer sports programme up and running. Our three golf teams, four tennis teams, boys and girls volleyball, and large orienteering teams have all enjoyed successful starts to their season. Alongside this, the orchestra has started rehearsing and our Drama Production is in full practice mode. Next week we host the first parent evening of the year for Year 9 families. This is a great opportunity to meet and learn about the opportunities in the college, the academic pathway, and the Year 9 Camp. Thank you to Year 9 parents for your swift response to the Year 9 camp. Everyone is signed up and we look forward to running you through the event on Tuesday evening. Nga mihi, Kieran Verryt Photography Club We are running a photography club on Thursday lunchtimes for college students interested in photography and graphic design. We will focus on producing resources for the School Production, sporting events and other things. This is an awesome opportunity to have some of your work professionally published in the form of posters, tickets, t-shirts, promotional materials and the Production programme. No prior knowledge needed, just enthusiasm! Meet in C6 on a Thursday at lunchtime. A2 Geography Fieldtrip Year 13 Geography students travelled west last Friday to study the erosional processes taking place at Muriwai beach. We were very lucky with the glorious weather and enjoyed a great day, learning about and witnessing many of the coastal features and processes we are currently learning about in class. The students will use this information to write their own engineer report evaluating the actions taken at Muriwai. They will also need to propose future sustainable solutions to reduce the amount of erosion taking place on this beautiful West Coast beach. Year 8 Digital Technology Year 8 students recently created Fitbits by programming Microbits to track their steps. They programmed button A to display the steps they have taken, button B to display their target and button A+B to calculate how many steps they still need to take to reach their target and display motivational messages. It was very rewarding for them to see the results of their programming skills. Orienteering – North Harbour Sprint Series A record number of Pinehurst students took part in the first event this week at Murray’s Bay Intermediate. 34 Pinehurst students from Y7-10 joined 350 other students from across all North Shore schools competing in the Northern Zone. The fact that there are the same number at four other zones each week across Auckland shows the interest in this sport. Congratulations to all our competitors – especially to those who are new to the sport for making it around the course. It is certainly not easy to run and navigate at the same time! Particular mention to the following who finished within the top 10 in their grade: Charlotte 1st in Year 9 Girls, Zachary 2nd in Year 8 Boys, Lucas 10th in Year 8 Boys, Claire 5th in Year 7 Girls and Sophie 6th in Year 7 Girls. A brief explanation of orienteering as a sport: orienteers navigate a set course between control points, usually marked by orange and white flags, using their skill in map reading to choose the best route and their running ability to get there as quickly as possible. Orienteering maps differ from conventional maps in that they show a great deal of detail. The challenge for the top competitors is to learn to navigate at speed! Pinehurst vs Police Basketball This week, an invitational Basketball team from Pinehurst took on the Auckland Avengers Police team. This was a fantastic pre-season runout for the Pinehurst boys, and an opportunity for the Avengers to have some game time ahead of their upcoming National Tournament. Although the score line was heavily in favour of the Police, our young team played some fantastic Basketball against the very athletic Avengers! We look forward to playing the Avengers again at the end of our 2021 Basketball season, in what will be our annual end of season Police vs Pinehurst match, and the Pinehurst team will be determined to close the score line for that next game! Physical Education in the College In PE this week students have been busy preparing for the College Athletics Day. The year 7 and 8 cohorts have been taking part in a mini Olympic games focusing on the values of the Olympics which are friendship, excellence and respect. Year 9 have taken a more analytical approach, using movement software on iPads to record and analyse their athletic technique in slow motion. In ASPE this week students have started to learn about the structures and function of the heart during rest and exercise. Here you will see students recapping the pulmonary circulation pathway of blood through the heart to the lungs and back to the heart.
Pinehurst Golf This year Pinehurst entered three teams in the North Harbour Premier Golf Competition. For many of the students it was their first match for Pinehurst on Monday night. Our top team of Yeonsoo, Nicole, Jaewoo and Towa won comfortably against Wentworth. Our second team of Yicheng, Luna, Sophia and Oliver were able to play well enough to beat our 3rd team of Annie, Milly, Raymond and Harrison. Congratulations to Year 7 student Yicheng who had a round of 38 in the 9 hole competition. Kia Ora, This has been the first full week since we started the year and our Primary students have really made the most of it. We love to enjoy outdoor learning spaces but these can of course be weather dependant. After having to cancel the first three days of Waterwise this week our Year 6 were finally able to get out on the water on Thursday and Friday and they had an amazing time. I remember my first week of teaching in New Zealand, going out on an IRB sailing around Murrays Bay whilst my class learned to sail optimists. After working in a school built next to a motorway I couldn’t believe what an amazing experience this was to give to young children as part of their classroom programme. Some of Mrs Donald’s class had never been sailing before but loved it so much they now want to join a sailing club. What a wonderful way to inspire children to develop a passion for sport and the benefits of being outdoors. We held our first New Entrant open day of the year this week for children wanting to join our school from Term 4 this year. Walking around Y0-3 our visitors were so impressed with the work going on in classrooms. There were maths groups, reading activities, hockey skills, science and music as you would expect but also everywhere there were extremely engaged children who either volunteered or when asked could tell the adults what they were learning and how they would know if they were successful. All of the tour guides were very proud to take people into classes. We have been talking about leadership too this week as students have been preparing their speeches in a bid to become class councillors. They had to think what leadership is about and how they might help their classmates and the Primary school as a whole. We have councillors from Year 3 to Year 5 being appointed and very soon will announce the Year 6 positions on the council along with various monitors, peer mediators and house captains. Year 6 made their applications at the end of last year and we have been watching how they take the lead in a variety of situations including at camp and Waterwise. It will be a very difficult choice this year with so many students demonstrating that they are capable of rising to the challenge of leadership and we are really excited to see what they will achieve. I watched a number of art lessons this week and reflected once again on the power of creativity to teach skills that are essential for learning such as responsible risk taking, focus and confidence. The Arts are an essential part of a broad and balanced education and give children time to explore their world whether that be through art, music, drama, performance or movement. Art lessons especially in older Primary classes have a stillness that is peaceful, focussed and relaxing, maybe not so much in the New to 2 syndicate but it certainly is creative and fun during art time in the juniors! Have a lovely weekend. Nga Mihi, Sian Coxon, Principal of Primary P11 have been very busy this week! We are thrilled to be back in school after a brief but successful period of online learning. We have enjoyed this week learning and having fun together. The children have been working very hard in Maths. We are learning how to construct 3D shapes using colourful sticks. The children used their knowledge of the properties of 3D shapes to build models of them. Constructing our models has helped the children to extend their understanding in recognising 3D shapes in our environment. The students worked well in pairs together, sharing their knowledge and helping each other. In Writing, we have been looking at reports. The children are able to recognise features of a report and list the places where we might find one. We also can identify our target reader. We are learning how to separate our ideas into paragraphs. We have been working together to add subheadings and pictures to make our reports more interesting and appealing to the target reader. In Reading, we have been learning how to make predictions. We analyse the title and picture on the cover of a book. We use our observations to make a prediction about what the story may be about. The children have become both skilled and creative in making their predictions. Sometimes, our predictions for a story can be very different. After we make a prediction, we read the story to see if our prediction comes true! We are very proud of all that we have learned so far in P11. We are looking forward to the rest of the term together. We know that we are going to work hard and always try our best. GATE Reading in Year 4 This term, the focus for our Year 4 GATE reading students is on learning various strategies to deepen their comprehension of text. The students have been introduced to the 6 key strategies that engage a reader and lead to a deep understanding of what they are reading. The 6 strategies are: Making Connections, Questioning, Determining Important Ideas, Inferring, Visualizing and Synthesizing. This week, our focus in the class has been on how as readers we can make rich connections with text. Students have explored various nonfiction texts and identified text-to-text, text-to-world and text-to-self-connections. The students have become aware of the fact that the more relatable a text is to their own experience, the greater their engagement will be and ultimately their comprehension. We have had fun discussing the various connections that the students have with text and noting how different these connections can be from one other depending on background knowledge and experience. Year 6 have started the year with a hiss and a roar! We had four days in Week 1 to meet new teachers and classmates. Then Monday of Week 2, while most of NZ enjoyed a day off, Year 6 boarded buses and went off to camp. Week 3 of course saw a few days of on-line learning. Then this week we have been lucky enough to have two classes make it to Murrays Bay for Waterwise. As you can see it has been a busy and varied start to the year. Here are some comments from some P19 students about being in Year 6.
Why Maths-Whizz? Digital programmes in Maths, such as Maths-Whizz, provide a dynamic opportunity for instruction. It enhances the learning process by making concepts come alive through engaging and interactive media. A key aspect of Maths-Whizz is its ability to be adaptive. It uses the data from the learners’ performance to determine what the next learning step should be. The aim is to make numbers meaningful for the student. Making Maths visual goes beyond student engagement. It provides opportunities for students to see and interact with mathematical concepts. Our students love Maths-Whizz as it helps explain new maths concepts with colourful animations, interactive exercises, and a whole world of exciting rewards for learning. “It explains the lesson really well. You can hear the explanations while you see it happening.” - Ollie Moseby, Year 6 As parents you can reinforce the language of Maths by using it at every opportunity. Playing board games is the perfect way to sneak in some basic facts practice. Use 2 dice during Snakes and Ladders. To start with you can ask them to add two dice together before making a move. Next time ask them to subtract the smaller number shown from the larger number. Then move onto multiplying the two numbers together. We appreciate your support in encouraging our students to keep working towards their Maths-Whizz progressions. I Spy... Rainbow Readers.... I Spy...fun and games with drawing in P13... I Spy... writing about Roald Dahl's 'The Twits' in P12... I Spy... Edward being a creator... I Spy...P4 doing an amazing job on their Math worksheets... I Spy…the Primary Learner Support Team... The Pinehurst Orchestra This Thursday lunchtime’s Orchestra rehearsal was well attended by its members and they are already sounding impressive, despite only meeting for the second time. We are currently working on the themes of Scheherazade by Rimsky Korsakov, a Russian romantic composer, who was inspired by the story collections of 1001 Arabian nights to create a 45 minute symphonic suite, depicting some of the key characters with his themes. We are learning a six minute rendition, highlighting the best moments within the original work. Next week we will be dipping our toes into a bit of classical repertoire, featuring Yu Zhang Wu as a piano soloist. Dance Sport for College Students Dance Sport launched this week on Wednesday lunchtimes in the Drama room, run by our very own alumni, Jemma Goeldner who has extensive experience in Dance Sport, having actively competed in the New Zealand dance circuit the past few years. Jemma coached our primary students and we are lucky to secure her mentoring skills into the College, after successfully choreographing last year’s Addams Family College Musical. Dance Sport is free for students at Pinehurst and will resume from March the 10th. Flute Choir Flute choir had its second rehearsal this Tuesday lunchtime in C2. The group meets on regular basis and our more senior members will be branching off into a chamber music group, which will enter and compete in the upcoming June-held Chamber Music Group competition, as they have in the past few years. Flute Choir is open to any students who can play the flute from Grade 2 and above and new members are always welcome. If you would like to enrol into any of the above mentioned co-curricular groups, please complete the enrolment form found at the bottom of this page. Breakfast with Alex ReedParent consultation meetings are back! Join Alex for breakfast at Caffe E Cucina, 265 Albany Highway to discuss the below topics: 7:30am on Thursday 18th March
9am on Thursday 25th March
Please RSVP to judy.wallace@pinehurst.school.nz with your preferred date. Weightlifting Congratulations to Kaius in Year 13 who last year competed in the Olympic Weightlifting NZ – National Secondary School Championships in Auckland and came away with a Bronze Medal for 2 lifts - 'Snatch' and 'Clean & Jerk' in the Under 73kg category. Sir Graeme Douglas International With just over a week to go until the Sir Graeme Douglas International returns to the Douglas Track & Field, we are delighted to announce that we are now offering FREE entry to this top-class event. Sir Graeme Douglas International 2021 NNH YEAR 6, 7 & 8 PRE-SEASON TRAINING PROGRAMME An opportunity for players to receive pre-season skill and game play training in preparation for school trials and the netball season.
For more information and REGISTRATIONS please click this link. Netball North Harbour Any queries for this programme contact Michele Wallace: michele@netballnorthharbour.co.nz |