News and events for the week ending 29th November 2019 Friday 29th November 2019 Opening words from the Executive PrincipalKia ora tatou, good afternoon, 你好, 안녕하세요 We’re one week away from the end of term, the Tui outside my office is warbling with ever-increasing vigour, and the Christmas tree has gone up in Reception, lighting up Chrissy’s face and whipping up the excitement levels of any Primary student who happens to pass through. It was PrEP day yesterday, which led to more excitement and featured a wide range of clever and colourful products, supported by some very entertaining advertising. As I write, 40 Year 7 and 8 students are taking on the wild, wild sea, accompanied by Mr Johansen and Mr Reynolds; 30 Year 12 students are heading back from a week adventuring on Great Barrier Island; and a group of dedicated trampers are climbing mountains on their Duke of Edinburgh Gold tramp. There’s school too, of course, and it’s been great to see students mix their usual schoolwork with a greater variety of project work and activities this week. We are quite different to most schools, as we keep working until the end of the school year, making the most of the time we have. But we also like to break things up a little as we head into December. I’d like to say a huge thank you to the teachers who are managing to blend these different learning experiences at the moment, as well (of course) to the children who are having a go at everything with such enthusiasm. Thank you as well to the parents I’ve met this week. We had a really productive Pinehurst Connection meeting on Tuesday evening, and there will be some more activities for parents, run by the Pinehurst Connection parents, over the coming year. They will have a presence too at the Pinehurst Christmas Picnic next week, so if you’d like to find out more, pop over and have a chat with the parents or contact Sylvia Lum at any time. Thank you to the parents who came along to the Parents Thank You morning tea on Wednesday. We held it at Brigham Creek Café for the first time, and it was great to see a good number of parents come along. It’s the involvement of parents that makes the difference in so many ways at Pinehurst, and we’re grateful for all you do. Some news for you, hot off the press. The Board of Governors have approved a few small changes to our College uniform code for 2020. Please be aware that, although these changes are being made, we don’t yet have all of the relevant stock in. I’m letting you know now so that you’re able to plan ahead. The changes are:
These are just small changes, and won’t involve additional expenditure. They do, though, offer a little more choice for some students. We won’t making any other changes next year. Finally: a quick introduction to some of our new teachers in 2019 as promised. Joining the Primary school next year is Mrs Millward, who will be teaching one of our senior classes. Mrs Millward is a very experienced New Zealand trained teacher, who has worked in Auckland and in a top international school in Taipei, where she was the Assistant Principal. She impressed us with her exceptional curriculum knowledge and student-focused approach. Joining the College Mathematics department next year is Mrs May, who trained and taught in the United Kingdom, and who has worked in New Zealand for some years. She comes to us from Waitakere College, where she was Head of Mathematics, and we were excited by her passion for the subject, and by her teaching and learning expertise. Joining the Commerce department is Miss Beck, who is an outstanding young teacher: Mrs Mann, Head of Commerce, is looking forward to seeing her bring her enthusiasm and recent training to her very experienced department. Miss Beck is an additional Commerce teacher, because the popularity of these subjects has grown, and because we have added more Commerce to our Year 7-8 curriculum. Finally for today, we welcome Miss McRae and Miss Adair to our Social Sciences department. Miss McRae will be teaching History, and we were impressed both by her subject knowledge and enthusiasm (as well as the fact that she’s already written a book); and Miss Adair will be teaching Geography. Again, it was the combination of her subject knowledge, passion for her subject, and ability to teach in a range of ways that impressed us. I have a couple more teachers to introduce next week, but we’re very excited by next year’s intake of teachers. The one thing that connects all our appointments, of course, is that they are good people who will build strong relationships with students. It’s the most important quality that we look for. I’m looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible next week: we have the JC Social, Primary Prizegiving, Year 7 and 8 Prizegiving, Year 9-13 Prizegiving, the Christmas Picnic and the Christmas concert too. It will be a packed four days for our students and families, and I’m hoping that everyone spends the week with a smile on their faces. WEEK 8 Monday 2 December
Tuesday 3 December
Wednesday 4 December
Thursday 5 December
TERM 4 ENDS 如需阅读校长的中文留言和重要事件日期,请点击此处 Elizabeth Roberts, Primary TeacherAfter high school Elizabeth spent a year living in Genova, Italy and attended an Italian art school (Liceo Artistico Paul Klee). When she returned to NZ she completed two years of a languages degree in Italian and French then stopped her studies to have her two daughters born in 1997 and 1998. Languages has always been a passion of hers and she still speaks Italian and visits and keeps in touch regularly with friends in Italy. In 2000 Elizabeth decided she wanted to become a language teacher but ended up completing a Bachelor of Education Primary instead! She began her teaching career in 2004 at St Michael’s Catholic school in Remuera, where she taught for 11 years, at each year level from 0 to 6, as well as being the teacher in charge of English, and SENCO. In 2015 she moved to Mt Roskill Primary where she taught in the middle school for the next 3 years and was the Head of e-Learning. At the beginning of 2018 Elizabeth and her husband moved to the North Shore to be closer to their newly born grandson and she settled very happily into Pinehurst. Elizabeth looks forward to continuing her role as Year 3 and 4 Syndicate Leader next year and start her new role as Teacher in charge of e-Learning/ICT for the Primary. She is also starting her Master’s degree next year too, but will make sure she still has the time to go bush walking, read a book, and spend plenty of time with her family. Kia Ora, This is an interesting time of year, we are looking forward to the summer break and tired children are ready for some down time. Next year there will be new classes and new teachers to go to but some of our youngest students in particular have been a bit sad at the thought of leaving their class and in particular their current teacher. There is a mixture of excitement at what’s to come and a little bit of worry too as to what the future might hold. Transitions are so important and we can prepare our children by talking positively about the next year. There are new beginnings and opportunities to make new friends and learn lots of interesting things. Each year we mix classes around so that students get opportunities to work with a different set of children and develop new friendships with others, this allows them to develop their social skills and learn to co-operate and collaborate with others. I can remember times in my own experience where I have gone somewhere new by myself, not knowing a soul and been nervous initially but ended up making some of the happiest memories of my life. The start of Term 1 is possibly the most important part of the Primary school year. Meeting the new teacher and going to the new classroom before term starts is vital. This is not just about picking up stationery, it is about establishing a relationship between a family and a teacher. The stronger, more open and more nurturing that relationship is, the happier a child is to learn. In the second week of January you will find out who your child’s teacher is and have the opportunity to book a conference time on the 23rd or 24th January. We do expect all families to attend these conferences so that each child has the best start to 2020. It was wonderful to see all of the amazing products at the PrEP market. The quality of the products was high and students have clearly learned a lot about financial literacy and basic economics. One of the things that most impressed me was how kind and polite our students were to each other. PrEP is a very exciting time and there can be a temptation to forget about others in the pursuit of a particular item. However everyone was amazingly respectful to each other, we even saw some very orderly queues for the most popular products! The Year 1 and 2 Art exhibition was fabulous with some amazing art work. Our guides helped us through the displays and there were lots of excited children showing off their work to their parents. Keep checking the calendar for events next week. Prizegiving is at 1:15pm in the Gym on Tuesday, the picnic is Wednesday after school with rides and food for everyone to enjoy. The final day is Thursday and we are all looking forward to the Christmas assembly before we wave goodbye until next year. We hope to see you throughout the week, thanks as always for your support. Ngā Mihi, Sian Coxon, Principal of Primary Primary MandarinIt's been a busy few weeks in Mandarin. Here is a quick summary of what's been happening - In Year 5 and 6, we have been learning about animals with Chinese First Language students (CFL) reading up on how to look after a cat/dog and answering questions about the text. At the same time, students have been practising the correct stroke order with their handwriting. Mandarin Foreign Language (MFL) students have been learning about the Zodiac animals and to describe ourselves with Zodiac signs, birthdays as well as our family and siblings. Year 4 has been working on learning about food. CFL students have been classifying them into healthy eating food groups, while our MFL students have been categorising them into what they like and don't like to eat. In Year 3 we have been focusing on sounds with CFL students learning and writing poems with Chinese onomatopoeias and they sound great! MFL students are putting sounds they hear into written words. Learning Chinese characters have been our focus in Year 2. We now know why we have to follow certain rules when we are writing the characters. Did you know each of those lines in the characters have a name just like the letters in the alphabet?! We are not ready for Chinese characters in Year 1 yet, but we are getting pretty good at using our Fred Fingers to help us spell words out in pinyin just as well as we can do them in English. Year 5 GaTE WritersThe Year 5 GaTE writers have been learning about and exploring Free Verse poetry. They each selected a topic dear to them and wrote Free Verse poems which convey both emotion and imagery to the reader. The students are writing an Anthology of poetry and their Free Verse poems will be included. Their topics are varied ranging from favourite places to, holidays, experiences and seasons. Free Verse poetry can be difficult because there are no set rules, it is free from limitations of regular metre or rhythm instead it follows the rhythm of natural speech. Students needed to move through their poems once written with an editor’s pen ensuring they had carefully selected words that gave proper accent and cadence to the overall poem. Year 6 GraduationCongratulations Year 6 students who celebrated their graduation last week, sharing poetry, dance and music with their parents and Year 5. The children collected their certificates proudly, with an air of excitement at the impending move to College. It was lovely to be able to celebrate the students' journey through the Primary. Year 5 & Year 6 DiscoMuch fun was had last Friday evening as the Year 5 and 6 students hit the dance floor. Sweat dripping down their faces, the students created conga lines, dipped under the limbo bar and posed in the photo booth. Dancing paused while games were played and pizza was loaded into empty bellies. The addition of lolly bags this year was a pleasant surprise and treat to pump those sugar levels up! A great night was had by all. Many thanks to the Year 5/6 syndicate for organizing this event. Road Patrol at Rainbows EndWe say it every year, but it’s so true “What a great job our Road Patrol students do”. They stand outside with staff members Terry and Jill in the cold, wet and heat to ensure that our students and families cross over the ever increasing busy road outside our school. As a thank you to these students, they get to spend a day at Rainbows End. This year saw the biggest grgroup of students ever taken, 30 Year 6 students and 16 Year 10 students. Thank you to the teachers and wonderful parents who accompanied them on the trip and a huge thank you to Terry and Jill who support our road patrollers on duty during the year. The students were a credit to Pinehurst with their behaviour and willingness to work together in their groups. I Spy in the PrimaryI Spy...P2 making their own zoo! I Spy...beautiful pictures on display for the NE-Y2 Art Exhibition! I Spy...PrEP Market Day! Kia Ora, This has been a great time of year for our students completing their outdoor adventure experiences. Well done to the students who have successfully completed their Gold Duke of Edinburgh tramp and the students who have just returned from their Great Barrier leadership camp. See below for more details and pictures showing what they have been doing. Next week, Wednesday 4th December, we host our Junior and Senior College prizegiving events. All parents are welcome to join us in celebrating the achievements and effort displayed by College students through years 7 to 13. Junior College prizegiving will begin at 10.00am and Senior College prizegiving will start at 1.00pm. Both events will take place in the gym. Prizes are awarded to the most successful students within each subject, we also recognise the students who work hard and apply themselves diligently throughout the year. The achievements of our leading students are truly outstanding and provide an example for others to aspire to. This week teachers have been completing and checking school reports. Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 end of year school reports will be available mid way through next week. At this time of year many students start to look ahead and plan for the next stage of their education. Year 8 students will be transitioning into Senior College. On 23rd /24th January there will be opportunity to meet with their new POD teacher. Year 9 students will be preparing for start of their 2 year IGCSE courses. We have been able to successfully accommodate and timetable all the subject choices of Year 9 students. At this stage of the year we do receive requests from parents wanting to know more about the IGCSE courses that their child will be following. When students begin their courses in February they will receive information about course content, organisation and assessment. For those keen to obtain this prior to next year I would recommend the Cambridge website. Here you will find syllabus and course details for all IGCSE subjects. The curriculum for Year 11 students moving in to Year 12 changes significantly. The most fundamental change is from breadth to depth. Year 12 students reduce the number of subjects studied from 8 or 9 to 4 or 5, doubling the lesson time spent studying each subject. Cambridge do not publish a specific date for the release of Checkpoint results. These are sent to schools and we usually receive them during the second or third week of December. When we receive these results we will send them out. Results of IGCSE and A Level examinations can be accessed by students online and will be released on the following dates:
Students will receive their login details following Wednesday’s prizegiving. Ngā mihi, Chris Wiggin and Kieran Verryt Principals of College College Academic PrizegivingsWe would like to invite you to our College Prizegivings which will be held on Wednesday 4 December at the following times: Year 7-8 College Prizegiving - 10am - 12pm Year 9-13 College Prizegiving - 1pm - 3pm Following each prizegiving, we invite all parents to join our College staff for refreshments in the new Library building. This is the last College event of the year and it honours those students who have achieved success in a variety of academic and cultural endeavours in 2019. Duke of Edinburgh Bronze QualifierOn the Thursday and Friday of last week 73 Year 10 students and 8 staff completed the tramp up to the Pinnacles Hut in the Coromandel and back down via the Billy Goat Track. In total the Year 10’s tramped just over 20km of reasonably ‘hilly’ terrain. This was there ‘qualifying’ journey. Most had learnt about packing the correct food and suitable clothing from the practice tramp earlier on in the year. The stunning weather this year, made the views from the Pinnacles summit even more breath-taking. Many thanks to the students and the teachers for making the tramp such an enjoyable experience. All the students will need to write a 2 page reflection of their experience to complete their Adventurous Journey section of their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award. Gold Duke of Edinburgh Qualifying TrampOn the 24th November at 6am 5 Pinehurst Gold DoE students set out on their qualifying Adventurous Journey. The group started at the northern end of the Tongariro crossing, walking 19km up over the fabled saddle, encountering the emerald lakes and the red crater. Day 2 was much easier tramping, 10km to Whakapapa. After a restful evening they tramped along the rest of the northern circuit, staying in the Waihohonu and Oturere huts, encountering bush, forest and mountain moraine. On the final day, the group climbed back up to the emerald lakes and back the way they came up on the first day, finally reaching the minivan on Friday afternoon. The group consisting of Alina Liu, Anna Li, Linda Tang, Matt o’Conner and Maddy Hailes (former student) tramped 68km and planned their adventure over the 6 days. On the way home the group had a well deserved trip to the hot pools in Tokoroa to soak their aching leg muscles. Year 12 Great Barrier CampGreetings from Year 12 Barrier Camp. The sun is beaming, the kingfishers are swooping around and the students are about to head out on their overnight adventure, sans teachers. Some of our activities this week have included rock climbing, abseiling, high ropes, sea kayaking, coasteering and surf kayaking to name but a few. Interwoven into all of these have been a running theme of expanding their leadership skills and overcoming challenges. In the evenings, we have had some fantastic games involving team building and some nice down time in this beautiful setting. Last night we ventured down to the dock to star gaze and we were lucky enough to spot a number of shooting stars and some incredible bioluminescent plankton. The students have had a wonderful week learning more about themselves and each other. They are currently making lists of requests for dinner tomorrow evening - burger fuel and pasta have been top of the list - hint hint parents! Year 9 Sailing and Maritime Museum Experience (Week 2 - Group 2)The annual Year 9 Social Sciences trip to the Maritime Museum and sailing on the Auckland Harbour was enjoyed by all again this year. The students cheered as we sailed under the Harbour Bridge while a bungy jumper flung themselves from the platform above. The museum had new exhibits as well as the interesting and informative displays of earlier Pacific and European migration. After lunch the students enjoyed the sun as they walked along the Viaduct locating major landmarks as part of the Maritime Museums Waterfront Experience activity. The accompanying photos are only a snap shot of the fun had by all during what was a perfect day for sailing and enjoying the waterfront views. Year 9 Commerce TripOn the 21st and 22nd of November, the Year 9 students visited the Tip Top factory and Sylvia Park as a part of their Commerce trip. The visit to Tip Top included a tour of the factory with an explanation on how they make their ice cream and how it is so different to other companies and why they are so successful. At the end of the tour everyone received a free ice cream which was thoroughly enjoyed. While at Sylvia Park mall, the students did a scavenger hunt looking for different things to do with business such as independent stores, chain shops, the best Christmas promotion, pop up stores and stores with a cool brand image. By the end of the day, the students learnt a lot more about running businesses and they all enjoyed the trip very much. - By Breanna Lee Last week myself and fellow Year 9s travelled to the Tip Top ice cream factory for an exciting trip. When we arrived, we were split into halves and took turns in walking around the busy hustle of an active business. We saw from above the efficient processes of thousands of litres of ice cream moving around the production line being ready to distribute to stores in New Zealand and globally. After taking a tour we all picked a delicious ice cream and learned a bit more about the company. On the business side we learned about what they have struggled with and succeeded with in the past, we learned where and how the ice cream gets exported, we learned that they make 50 million litres of ice cream a year! A long with many other interesting facts. Overall the trip was great and everyone loved it, especially the ice cream! - By William Montague-Brown Year 10 SpanishYear 10 Spanish loved practising their language at El Humero in Takapuna! Colombian food is definitely "muy deliciosa". MCP PODWe celebrated Christmas a little early and decorated C10 for their Secret Santa whilst listening to Michael Bublé. College ArtYear 10 have just finished their end of year exams and there was some particularly strong work coming from this cohort. They were tasked with researching and drawing a still life. Artworks of an exemplary standard were produced and it became very difficult to decide who would receive prizes at prizegiving this year. I can honestly say that there will be some serious contenders for top marks at IGCSE level next year. You may have seen some of the self portraits that students from this class have produced in reception this past few weeks. These portraits were painted with acrylic paint then scanned into photoshop and composited with a line drawing of their favourite animal. Wonderful work! In Music this WeekFourth Informal Music Concert Congratulations to all the groups and soloists who took part in the last informal concert held this year on Tuesday. A very appreciative audience made up of parents, siblings, friends and teachers assembled to watch an array of musicians perform as soloists, in duets or groups, no matter their ability or age. The informal Music concerts will resume next year and are usually held at the end of every term. Students can register to perform via a link provided in the newsletters, closer to the event date. If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact marija.naumovska@pinehurst.school.nz Christmas PicnicYou are warmly invited to our Christmas Family Picnic on Wednesday 4 December, 5pm – 8pm on the top field and courts by the Administration block. This is a fun evening for parents and children with rides for all ages (cash only), music, face painting, balloon lady, lolly scramble and more. Santa will be there too! A wonderful end to the school year. There will be food vans (no eftpos sorry) but feel free to bring along your picnic and your friends. Relax with a wine and socialize with other parents. A great evening not to be missed. Hope to see you there! Christmas Hamper FairiesA big thank you to our wonderful parent helpers and Year 8 students who so kindly wrapped and organised all of the Christmas Hampers for our Christmas Service. Pinehurst Christmas ServiceYou are warmly invited to attend our Pinehurst Christmas Service. This will be held in the Gymnasium, Thursday 5th December, 2.00pm - 3.15pm. We look forward to enjoying this special, traditional occasion with you. Thank you again for your generous contributions to our beautiful Christmas Hampers for our sister school, Yendarra. Uniform Shop Holiday HoursJanuary 13 – 17th: 10am - 2pm Jan 20, 21 and Jan 23, 24: 10am - 2pm January 22nd: 11am - 3pm Please note: the online uniform shop will be taken offline from this week until start of sales on January 13, 2020. Lockie BurnellCongratulations to Lockie Burnell who was recently presented with the 2019 North Shore Table Tennis Clubs "Most Improved Player of the year" trophy by Hon. John Gillion Chairman of the Kaipatiki Board. |