News and events for the week ending 31st January 2020 No images? Click here Friday 31st January 2020Opening Words from the Executive PrincipalKia ora tatou, good afternoon, 你好, 안녕하세요 Welcome to the start of 2020 at Pinehurst School. It’s obviously been a rather unusual start to the school year, and there are many children I’ve yet to see and say ‘hello!’ to, but it’s also been a very good start to the school year for the children who have been at school, and it’s been a pleasure to see their smiling faces and hear their enthusiastic voices. Schools are for children, and it’s wonderful to see them again. I’ll start with a quick update on the coronavirus before moving onto other items. We have had, as you know, around 300 absences from school this week. To put that in perspective, we generally have between 50 and 100 absences in the first week of school, so that figure represents around 200 students who have either travelled to China within the last 2 weeks, or been in contact with people who have been in China. We have gathered a large amount of data from parents about their movements, and we will see many of the students back in school this Monday, with more returning each day until February 24th. I am very grateful to our whole Pinehurst community for the way they have acted at this very difficult time: to the parents who have held their students at home until they have been back in New Zealand for two weeks; and to the rest of our community who have been supportive and understanding, and who have trusted that we are doing everything possible to keep our children safe. Those measures include the additional cleaning and hand washing routines: these will continue until the potential for infection has passed. We are also maintaining our record of students affected, and following up daily, so please continue to have faith in us. I have an additional comment to make here: as we take all these precautions, it can be easy to forget that some of our families are directly affected by what is happening in Wuhan, Hubei Province and around China. To our community who have family and friends in Wuhan especially, and in other parts of China: I hope they are safe and are coping. Our very best wishes are with you, we are thinking of you, and we are ready to support you in any way we can. On other matters: school has started very well, and I have been delighted by the commitment and enthusiasm of all of the students. Our younger children have of course been delighted by the wonderful new Junior Primary playground, the Library is finally complete and in full use, and I’d like to thank Jon Horne, our Business Manager, and his team for all their hard work over the holidays. We have completed some additional planting too, and will be spending more time on our grounds from now on to make them even more beautiful, trees swaying in the wind above blankets of sudden, bright colours. Parents can now come in and use the Library any day after school, using their child’s ID number. It’s our Library as a community, so please come in and see a Librarian, who will be able to help you. We are also expecting to start opening until 5 pm daily from Monday 10th February (we will confirm next week). This means that we will be open to all College students who wish to study or read after school has finished. Finally for this week, a word on our examination results, which we were very pleased with. Underneath my message today, you will see the Cambridge Award winners: our students won 14 of these awards, around twice as many as they have achieved in the past. Huge congratulations to you all, and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the Awards Dinner next month. I’ve also included a summary of Checkpoint, IGCSE, AS Level and A Level results. All were good, which shows that we are continuing to improve academic attainment. I was probably most pleased, though, with our A Level results, taken by our Year 13s: these were outstanding. Well done to all of our talented, hard-working young people; thank you to all parents for your support of your children; and a huge thank you to the teachers and staff of the school who enabled the students to do so well. I’ll finish by repeating that we are right now thinking of all those who have families in China. Please let me know if there is anything we can do to support you. Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards 2019Cambridge International Examinations congratulates Pinehurst School on producing some of the best-performing learners in New Zealand, and around the world, in the June 2019 and November 2019 examination series. A short explanation of the categories is detailed below:
Details of the winning students and the awards they have achieved are in the table below. The students’ success is extremely impressive. Last year more than 1 million students sat Cambridge examinations in more than 10 000 schools in countries around the world, including the United Kingdom, United States, China, India and Singapore, as well as throughout Europe, South America and the Middle East. Examination Results: 2019Pinehurst School students take Cambridge external examinations in five different year levels. For most students, it works like this:
In 2019, our students continued to achieve excellent results, and I have detailed some of the most outstanding sets of results below. I want to add, though, that just about all of our students achieved results they should be proud of. I am just as pleased to hear that a student who has worked incredibly hard has achieved a 2.5 in a Checkpoint exam as I am when I hear about one who has a 6.0, for example. And one student’s “C” can be as big an achievement as another student’s “A”. Well done to all! AS Level and A Level Results Of our 42 graduating Year 13 students, 38 (90%) achieved New Zealand University Entrance. Five of our 76 Year 12 students also left us to go to university. Of those students who left Pinehurst in 2019, most will be attending Auckland or Victoria University, Wellington; a number of students, though, will be attending universities overseas, and we will let you know which universities they have gone to in a couple of weeks. Of particular note, Subin Wui, Roger Liu, Logan Cho and Cory Peters all had average marks of well above 90%. Roger and Subin also achieved 100% in A Level Mathematics. Elise Callagher, Ayden Dickins, YJ Ren and Aimee Fletcher also achieved 3 or 4 A* and A grades. At AS Level too, where students take a broader range of subjects and often find the leap quite hard, our results have continued to improve. Note there is no ‘A*’ awarded at AS Level. Many students achieved at least 3 ‘A’ grades at AS Level, including Daisy Cai, James Corles, Yuyi Li, Jessica Ma, Nikkita Murray, Linda Tang, Isabella Abbott-Wheeler, Sofia Cradwick, Irene Fang, Shuan Liu, Alina Liu, Cynthia Wu and Danielle Yong. IGCSE Results The following students were among many who achieved outstanding results.
Checkpoint in Year 6 and Year 9 Checkpoint examinations help us check how a student is progressing in English, Mathematics and Science. They are not the same as IGCSEs, AS and A Level examinations, which are qualifications students will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Instead, we see them as advising us on how we are doing, and as supporting us to help students learn. They are marked out of 6. A 6.0 is a prefect mark; a mark above 4.0 is very good indeed. Congratulations to all the students who took exams in 2019. Elyse Heslop, College TeacherElyse is originally from Central California. She recently relocated from Hong Kong with her family where she taught Art at Kellett School. Over the past 16 years she has lived and taught in a range of places including California, Hong Kong and the Middle East. She loves being part of an international community and is very thankful to be settled in New Zealand. At Pinehurst, Elyse is loving teaching Art & Design in the college. She is excited to be starting in the position of Matai Dean this year and working with all the students in that House. Elyse feels Pinehurst has provided her the opportunity to be part of a great Arts department as well as strong community of Deans. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring the outdoors of New Zealand with her family. They love to hike and camp when they can and the sun is shining. Kia Ora, I would like to start by welcoming the 134 new students and their families to the College. We look forward to engaging with you and sharing your child’s journey through our school. The new families are joined by 8 new teachers in the college bringing our teaching staff number to 55. Welcome back to our existing families as you transition into a new year of your child’s school journey. We start 2020 with 578 students in the College and we look forward to challenging every one of them and supporting them to grow as we embark on a new decade. I hope that you enjoyed the festive season and the sun of the recent long weekend. We welcomed back most of the student body this week and students and staff have settled into the groove that is school life. The new school year is always exciting as we welcome many new faces and enjoy the building of new relationships in our community. Our senior student leaders are excited about the year ahead as they embark on their final year of school with aspirations to leave their own legacy in our community. Last week 29 Year 13 students spent the day at Action Matakana taking on their leadership training day. They have made grand plans for how they want the student body to be led this year and we look forward to the impact that they will make. As you will have noted from Mr Reed’s opening remarks, we are delighted with our students’ performances in the 2019 CAIE examinations. There were many outstanding performances that students should be proud of. We have received our most ever CAIE Outstanding Learners Awards and we look forward celebrating with these students and their families at the awards dinner at Eden Park in a few weeks’ time. You will be starting to receive communication from your child’s teachers. In addition, we will host parent evenings in the coming weeks for all Year 7 and Year 9 families. If you have any queries about the start of the year, please do contact us. Nga Mihi, Kieran Verryt, Principal of College Basketball Open DayOur next session is 7:30am – 8:30am on Friday 7th February in the Gym. Open to Year 7 & Year 8. Space CampPartnering with Actura New Zealand, Year 8, 9 & 10 Pinehurst students along with Mr Johansen were lucky enough to be to be involved in our school's expedition to the United States Space & Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, and the Johnson Rocket Centre, NASA & various science museums in Houston, Texas. In the 2 weeks leading up to Christmas the group were immersed in an amazing, motivating and inspiring STEAM education programme. Students learnt about the development of space-related technology and were led through several simulated missions where they worked together to overcome challenges. To sum up... As Mr Johansen said, "With the right approach, human beings can achieve the unimaginable. Exploring space to make new discoveries is shaping the future of our human race. Our future is in the right hands." Busy Bean CaféDuring the final week of the holidays, 7 students took up the opportunity to train as our 2020 Busy Bean café baristas. These students will join the existing team who ran the café in 2019. The course was run onsite at our student café in College 4 over a two day period. The students really enjoyed the experience and are looking forward to mastering the craft of coffee making as the café opens to students and staff next week. Leadership Training Day at Action Matakana"Year 13 leaders participated in a leadership training day at Action Matakana. Throughout the day we participated in various challenges and puzzles that required teamwork and leadership. We refreshed our knowledge of what makes an effective leader, by identifying good and bad qualities. We learnt some core values of previously successful leaders by studying their messages. However, the day was most effective for the leadership team to connect and collaborate after the long holidays. These challenges allowed us to work together which will help us organise activities and events for the school year. At the end of the day the three groups completed a confidence course challenge in the mud which not only took us out of our comfort zone, but put our refreshed skills to the test." - James Corles "The day we had at Action Matakana really brought out the best in me as a young leader. I felt that the confidence course, in particular, revealed a new decisive side of me that I didn't know I had as my team and I worked together to overcome the military-style challenge." - Mackenzie Smith "Although tired and muddy, the leadership training day was memorable. Getting up early for the day was worth it through the balance of the fun activities that we participated in and the instructive talks that were given to us. From the confidence course to the Elephant race, I felt that as a whole, we all developed our leadership skills and learnt to cooperate with each other to get a certain task done, balancing our opinions with others to succeed in overcoming the obstacles that were ahead of us and becoming better leaders." - Christ Deng The Economics of SharingYear 10 and Year 12 Economics students were faced with a problem this week…. Their teacher gave them a chocolate bar and they had to devise a fair way of sharing the chocolate between the whole class. Year 10 students eventually decided that the fairest way was to have Mrs Mann hide the chocolate bar, and then race to see who could find it first. The Year 12 students on the other hand opted for the simple, yet elegant, names-in-a-hat method. This simulation allows us to discuss scarcity, the allocation of resources, and price as an allocative mechanism. Daniel and Yee-Hsien were the winners of the respective classes. Kia Ora, It is so good to get the year underway and even though not everyone can be with us just yet there is lots of learning happening in school and at home. Students are settled and teachers are telling me how much they really love their classes. New friendships are being forged and we have been very impressed with the way that our students have welcomed and supported anyone that is new. One of the most anticipated events for many of us in the Primary has been the completion of the Junior Primary playground. Over the holidays we have been watching each element being added and now have a haven for imaginative play. The brief to the designers was to retain the park like feel and create a play space that would foster imaginative play. We love how they have incorporated the existing trees which provide shade and a wonderful feeling of peace. The outdoor kitchen has been well used to mix sand, water and leaves to make pretend cakes and lunches. We have pots and pans to use and lots of conversations about what to make and serve in the pretend cafe. The most popular activity seems to be how many children can fit on top of the tunnel and there is lots of stretching and jumping on and off happening. The music wall gets loud but is great fun and there are places to balance, jump, step or just sit with a book and read. Some of our Year 2 students took myself and Mrs Stanaway to Australia one lunchtime in one of our playground cars. We had a lovely time and there was even some music in the car provided by Emily. Caleb was in the next car and he was going to Rarotonga. As you can see there is so much scope for imagination, developing language, social skills and just having fun. We are looking forward to years of happy memories being created in our wonderful new space. Teachers have been posting overviews of the year’s work in each subject as well as a more detailed overview for the term. You will find these on Seesaw along with samples of work and an insight into what your child has been learning each week. We are so proud of our students this week and how well they have coped with a slightly different start to the year and we know this is in part due to how well they have been prepared and supported at home. Thank you, we are really looking forward to a very successful year. Ngā mihi, Sian Coxon, Principal of Primary Primary ChoirThe Junior Primary Choir (Year 2-3), Petite Elite will start meeting on Tuesdays in JC8 on a weekly basis from Week 3 and will be guided by Ms Du Toit. The Senior Primary Choir (Years 4-6) will be meeting on Thursdays in P2 on a weekly basis also from Week 3 and will be guided by Ms Watters. If you would like to enrol your child in these co-curricular music groups, please complete the enrolment form found at the bottom of this page. New Year, New Experiences in the Junior Primary…It has been an exciting start to the year in our Junior Primary. Everyone arrived at school, looking smart in their new uniforms, ready to meet their new teacher and learn new things. Our New Entrants have settled in well with Miss Dobbins and Miss Watters. They have been spending this week getting to know each other, as well as learning classroom routines and navigating their way around school. Both Senior Year 1 classes have started the year by channelling their ‘inner superhero learning power’. Mrs Boniface and Miss Lew have set up positive environments, where students can access the resources required to help them discover, explore and learn. In Year 2, Mrs Thomson, Miss Viskovich and Mrs Murray are blown away at the level of independence in their new students. ‘Splat the Cat’ has visited again and the students have been using story mapping to retell the story about his first day at school. I wonder if it is like their first day? Although all of the above has been so exciting for our young students, there is one new thing in the Junior Primary that has overshadowed everything else….the NEW PLAYGROUND! If you haven’t been to visit, please come along. It looks amazing and there is plenty for the students to do. There is only one problem…Mrs Coxon and her friends can’t keep away and no one else can get a look in! An Exciting Start to 2020 with Year 3 & 4!The Year 3 and 4 students arrived with huge but rather nervous smiles ready to start the school year. The enthusiasm could be felt by all. Teachers waited with excitement as new students cautiously opened doors and entered their new ‘home’ for 2020. The first few days have flown by and students have explored, chatted, laughed, learned, shared and asked lots and lots of questions! The Year 3's have explored the big playground that is now theirs to use, and run excitedly around the top playing field. A big focus for all students this year is independence and taking risks with their learning. Already the children have stepped up to the challenge and have been sharing how they can get out of the ‘Learning Pit’ and when they can’t do something, they are learning how to say, “I can’t do it….YET”. All students have started their learning journeys into Global Perspectives, Health, Art, Mandarin, Spanish, Music, Science and more, and setting Maths and English goals. Digital technology is an important part of our focus and it has been so exciting getting to explore the new interactive panels in some classes. The interactive whiteboard feature where content and images from the internet is very popular! All sorts of amazing learning can be done. We have so many goals to achieve this year in Year 3 and 4, and the bright and enthusiastic students that make up the middle syndicate are more than ready for the challenge! Keep an eye out for the exciting learning ahead in 2020 and see what great things we’re going to achieve. A Great Start for Year 5 & 6!It has been wonderful to see everybody back after a long summer break and be settled so quickly. While much of this week has been setting up routines and getting to know each other, it didn’t take long to get stuck in to some awesome learning! Year 6 have been learning about biographies, writing ‘Who Am I?’ and Star Biographies – either about themselves, a famous sports star or person! As well as producing awesome writing, Year 6 have already begun their leadership responsibilities. They play such a vital role in helping the school run smoothly! One such role, is the road patrol crew who are out there rain or shine, hot or cold, making sure the students of Pinehurst have a safe space to cross. Another cool addition to the school is of course the new junior playground. While we are unable to play in it, the seniors couldn’t help but go and check it out! E-learning and use of devices is a large part of our curriculum at Pinehurst, and will continue to be integrated throughout school and in whichever careers our students choose. For this reason we put a lot of time in to making sure our students are able to safely and responsibly navigate devices and the internet. As the year goes on, the seniors will develop their research skills and their ability to locate trustworthy information, as well as coding, video editing and design using digital mediums. Specialists are under way, with most students already beginning Spanish, Mandarin, Music, PE and Science this week. The feedback all round has been positive, with students getting back in to the swing of things. A very positive start to the year! I Spy in the PrimaryI Spy... the Junior Primary students enjoying their new playground! Pinehurst Music ProgrammeWe are excited to offer a wide range of musical tuition and performance opportunities for our Pinehurst students this year. Itinerant Lessons One on one tuition is available to students who wish to learn how to play an instrument, during school time. Fifteen specialist tutors come to Pinehurst every week to offer a performance mentoring on the following instruments:
Co-curricular Groups Students can join the following co-curricular music groups for free and develop their performing skills: Before applying for one of the music groups above please read the Code of Conduct here. Musical Production – The Addams Family Production rehearsals begin on Tuesday in C2 from 3.30-4.30 followed by an all-cast read-through on Wednesday in the Arena from 3.30-5pm. We are very much looking forward to working with our talented cast over the next two terms. The production will be held at Center Stage Theatre on:
Ticket sales will be available closer to the time. NZSS Athletic Champs – December 2019Congratulations to Brianna Tirado who placed 3rd in the Junior Girls Javelin at the NZSS National Athletic Championships held in Wellington last December. Term 1 Tennis CoachingTennis coaching will begin in Week 3 this term. If you would like to play, please send an email to confirm a spot.
Cammando Basketball AcademyRegistrations for all Cammando Basketball classes for Term 1 are now open.
Junior Academy (Year 1-9): New Recruits (Year 1-3) - Start Date: Saturday 8 February (3-4pm), Cost: $135 for Term 1 Sessions Junior Cammandos (Year 4-6) - Start Date: Saturday 8 February (4-5pm), Cost: $135 for Term 1 Sessions Rookies (Year 7-10) - When: Friday 7 February (3:30-4:30pm), Cost: $135 for Term 1 Sessions Senior Academy (Year 9-13): Hops ‘N’ Handles - When: Tuesday 4 February 3:30-4:30pm, Cost: $125 for Term 1 Sessions Shooting Range - When: Wednesday 5 February 3:30-4:30pm, Cost: $125 for Term 1 Sessions Jam Session - When: Wednesday 5 February 4:30-5:30pm, Cost: $125 for Term 3 Sessions Workout Pro - When: Saturday 8 February 5-6pm, Cost: $199 for Term 1 Sessions Recruits Combo: All 3x weekday academy sessions $299 |