News and events for the week ending 15th March 2019 Friday 15th March 2019 Opening words from the Executive PrincipalKia ora tatou, good afternoon, 你好 This week began with 90 Year 7 students heading excitedly off to their camp: they’re still on camp as I write, and the pictures I’ve seen suggest they have been having a fine time! We are nearing the end of our summer ‘camp season’ (just Year 9 to go), and the comments I’ve had have been overwhelmingly positive. I’m very happy, of course, to receive any comments or suggestions you may have about our camps: we are always looking to make improvements (for example, we changed our venue for the Year 5 camp this year, and the Year 9 tramp/sailing experience is a wholly new one), and all comments are welcomed. We won’t be able to do everything – I had one suggestion last year for a Primary camp in Hawaii, which was never really going to happen – but every idea is considered! On Hawaii (I don’t think I’ve ever started a paragraph like that before), a Geography trip there for senior students is currently one of those being considered by the school. There are a number of possibilities for overseas trips at the moment, and we’re trying to get the balance right between offering opportunities and making sure things are practical and affordable. Keep your eyes open! We have also had our Positive Puberty sessions this week with Year 6 and Year 8 students: these have gone well, as they always do, because of the experienced team who come into school to deliver the lessons. I thought this was a good opportunity to emphasise that we have a thorough ‘health’ programme in our curriculum at all levels. We cover the obvious areas of healthy living, nutrition, the way our bodies change and how to look after ourselves. We also talk to students about their use of social media and other ways to stay safe online, as well as issues connected with their identities in its broadest sense. The kind of things we talk about with our young people changes significantly as they get older, as you would expect, but the principles of understanding, respect and safety run through all we do. A final word from me about the kind of learning I’m seeing around Senior College at the moment. It’s obvious as I walk around and look online that Schoolbox has had a real impact in the learning our students are doing across College, and that students are adapting, as are their teachers, to an additional environment for them. In class, there is the usual range of interesting, challenging work going on, some of which uses devices and some of which does not. Indeed, it’s normal for students to be asked to close their laptops in some lessons – I do this as well – so they can engage with other students and vary the kind of learning going on. Talk, pen and paper are important too! But, at home, there’s a huge amount of additional learning going on, and vast amounts of resourcing to support students. Teachers are working hard to develop Schoolbox, and we are trying to keep a balance in its use. As with everything, I’m happy to take comments on its use. Which means that I will finish with a big “thank you!” to all of our teachers for their work so far this term. Have a lovely weekend. WEEK 8 Monday 18 March
Tuesday 19 March
Wednesday 20 March
WEEK 9 Monday 25 March
Tuesday 26 March
Wednesday 27 March
Thursday 28 March
Friday 29 March
如需阅读校长的中文留言和重要事件日期,请点击此处 Kia Ora, Within our staff meetings this week we have started planning our end of term reports and Parent/Teacher Conferences. The Term 1 interim reports are distributed to all families of Year 7 to 13 students. In these reports, broad descriptors are used to describe the academic progress, effort, homework and organisation of your child within their main academic subjects. The report also includes an attendance record along with a written comment from your child’s homeroom or POD teacher. These reports are not intended to provide the detailed comments and examination results and grades that you will find in the Term 2 and Term 3 (Year 11-13) or Term 4 (Year 7-10) academic reports. These interim reports will provide a general overview of how your child has settled into the school year. The detailed feedback on how your child is progressing will be provided by teachers during the end of Term 1 Parent/Teacher Conferences. These conferences are being held on 2nd and 4th April, 3.30pm to 7.30pm. Bookings can be made from 25th March. You will soon receive an email with further details of the conferences and how to make your online bookings. We are aware that some students may be taught by over 10 different teachers during a school week. You may choose to prioritise which teachers you meet with, it is not necessary to meet with every teacher that your child has. We are often asked by parents if their child should also attend. This is a parental decision but we always feel that the feedback and discussion is far more valuable when the child is present. Each year we have a growing number of parents who attend the conferences and they are very busy evenings. If you would like to meet with a teacher it is necessary to book an appointment rather than turn up without a booking and expect another parent to wait whilst you talk to the teacher. We look forward to seeing as many parents as possible during these two evenings. Today Year 7 parents welcome back their children from camp. It sounds as if they have had a fantastic week. I am sure there will be many happy memories, stories, photographs and videos to share. Ngā mihi, Chris Wiggin and Kieran Verryt Principals of College Year 8 Leadership Camp – Parent help needed!The preparations are well underway for the upcoming Year 8 Leadership camp on the 10th and 11th of April. This is just another opportunity we offer at Pinehurst for our students to leave the school grounds and put their leadership skills to the test by navigating their way around Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands. We know from past experience that this camp can be an extremely powerful way for students to develop a more positive self-concept. In order for this trip to run, parents, WE NEED YOU! Thank you to those parents who have generously put their hands up already. We need another 5 parents for this trip. If you're interested please email Mr Elliot on William.elliot@pinehurst.school.nz Year 7 CampOur Year 7 students have had a fabulous time down at Narrows Park camp in the Waikato region. They've spent the last five days kayaking, hiking, swimming, water sliding, paint-balling, rock climbing, learning bushcraft and sleeping in bivouacs. What a great way to start the year and make new friends! Orienteering – North Harbour Sprint SeriesWe are well into the 2019 Sprint Series with two events completed and three to go. A team of 16 Pinehurst students spanning Year 7 to 11 join 300 other competitors each week aiming to navigate their way on a course of about 2 km around the school as quickly as possible. Many of the students are completely new to the sport which combines mental and physical activity. The students are enjoying the events and are showing improved times each week, always finishing with a smile. Well done in particular to the following who have finished in the Top 10 in their grade on one or both weeks: Charli Spence, Bailey Benshaw, Amara Green, Lucy Bennison, Lily Stanborough and Angelica Morton. North Harbour Athletics Zone DayOn Monday five students, Dong Ook Kim, Bryan Quach, Brianna Tirado, Samuel Vaughan and Aria Rhodes, qualified to compete at the NHSS Athletics Zone Day in a variety of events. Our students had an exceptional day with two students obtaining a podium finish. Congratulations and well done to Brianna Tirado who placed second in the Intermediate Girls Javelin and Dong Ook Kim who placed second in the Junior Boys High Jump. Both will now attend the Auckland Secondary School Athletic Champs. North Harbour Zone Day Swimming TeamCongratulations to our Year 7-8 NH Zone Day Swimming team – Hunter, Ione, Elsa (Year 7) and Jack, Jasmine, Charlotte, Kris, Ethan & Kalan (Year 8) who were outstanding at the NH Zone Day Swimming event this week. Our boys Year 8 relay team were 4th in the medley relay, and then went on to win Silver in the 4 x 50m Freestyle Relay. Our girls relay team also did well, with a combination of Year 7 & Year 8 swimmers, they finished 5th in the Medley event. As always, thank you to the parents who supported the students at this event with supervision and timekeeping duties. Pinehurst GolfBoth Pinehurst teams played each other on Monday in the North Harbour Golf competition. For the fourth week in a row our players enjoyed beautiful weather and played great golf. Our top team won quite comfortably and showed why they are one of the best school teams in the country. Yeonsoo and Eujin played consistent, smart golf to play their nine holes in 35 strokes. Jaewoo improved this week to have a round of 38 strokes and Subin finished well with 40. Next week, to end the round play of the competition, Pinehurst 1 plays the also unbeaten Rangitoto and our second team will play Kristin. PhotosynthesisA2 students complete their Photosynthesis unit by investigating the effect of Carbon dioxide concentration on the rate of photosynthesis using aquatic plants. Maths in Action: PendulaLate last month the Year 13 Maths classes were investigating the relationship between the length of a pendulum and the time it took to swing from one side to the other. They did this with pendula up to 5m long, hanging off the side of College 3. After they collected the data they made log-log and semi-log graphs to find the exact relationship, eventually finding a formula very close to the ideal result predicted by Physics. Kia Ora, It is always a pleasure to be out and about with our students and Tuesday’s swimming gala was no exception. Our Year 5 and Year 6 students plus a small selection of Year 4’s had a wonderful day at Northern Arena competing in our Inter-house swimming event. There were races to suit everyone’s ability and everything ran like clockwork due to the enthusiasm and maturity of the students and the support of willing parents and staff to make the day a huge success. The house competition was very close and the leaders changed throughout the day but in the end it was Totara house who won the event, well done Totara! Lifelong learning is an attribute that we aim to foster in our students so that they continue to gain knowledge and build skills long after the time they have left school. As teachers we must continually strive to up-skill ourselves in the latest and greatest teaching techniques and gather the best the world has to offer in terms of resources to support our learners. On Tuesday night our Primary teachers gathered for their second session of ‘Big Write’, which was facilitated by Lindsay Watters. Big Write is a programme developed by Ros Wilson in the U.K. and is an approach to teaching writing and raising writing standards that focuses on:
We became the students for an hour and honed our writing skills by using a range of connectives, openers, adverbs, vocabulary and adjectives that added interest to our own writing. The challenge at first was to actually talk about what we wanted to write rather than just writing, as talking is key to developing great writing. The session was fast paced and we learned lots of techniques to use in the classroom. Big Write was trialled last year in Year 1 and the results were so inspiring that we decided to purchase the programme for the whole Primary and we are in the process of implementing it this year. We also learnt about Kung Fu punctuation which is becoming very popular in the Juniors at the moment. Don’t be alarmed if you hear strange sounds and see some very nifty arm movements coming from your child, we are teaching them about full stops, capital letters, exclamation marks, speech marks and ellipsis! We look forward to sharing the success of this programme throughout the year. Ngā mihi Sian Coxon, Principal of Primary Year 4 CampLast week Year 4 spent 3 days at Peter Snell Youth Village on their first overnight school camp. Eagerly they loaded bags onto the bus and waved goodbye to family and friends. Some had butterflies in their tummies but were soon filled with excitement as The beautiful scenery greeted them upon arrival. The days at camp were full of fun and challenging experiences such as archery, air rifles, rock climbing and paintball. The Year 4 students learnt new skills and worked in collaboration with their team mates, developing new friendships along the way. The camp adventure is definitely a highlight they will remember for a long time to come. The Year 4 students and teachers would like to thank all the parent helpers who came along to help. We couldn't have had such a successful camp without you all! The enormous waterslide was so slippery and fast, when I got to the end water splashed on my face and it was very refreshing. - Blake Hebbink The delicious food kept us full of energy. It was so yummy! - Jenny Deng I enjoyed everything about camp, if I could change one thing it would be be to stay for 1 week! - Isaac Jiang I thought the confidence course was going to be really hard but I challenged myself. I have grown to be much braver than I thought I could be. - Rainy Yang Primary Inter-house Swimming 2019Earlier this week we held our Senior Primary Annual Inter-house Swimming Event at Northern Arena. There was a lot of excitement as students arrived at the venue, some to take part in their very first ever swimming sports event! After collecting a house coloured cap, students showed off their talent in the pool in a wide range of events – everyone who participated gave 100% effort! Well done to Totara who were the overall winning house this year, after some great results in the finals and relays. A huge congratulations to all students who took part, with special mention to the students who were our overall medal winners in 2019. Thank you to all the parents who assisted us on the day, with a very special mention to Vanita (Judge) for your time. And a huge thank you to College students Paige & Cenedra, who were our qualified lifeguards at this event. For additional photos of the day, please see our Pinehurst Facebook Sports Page Visit to StardomeAs part of their learning in Science, New Entrants visited the Stardome and explored the displays. They answered a quiz all about the solar system and worked out which order the planets were in from the sun. Primary MandarinThis week we were looking at the different Mandarin sounds with pinyin. Year 2 and 3 practiced writing down the pinyin they were listening to. Year 3 started to write their words with the correct tone marks and Year 2 expertly used their phonic knowledge to help them pick out the correct letters. New Entrants and Year 1 listened to the words and then tried to find the matching words in our greeting song videos. In Year 4, we used our final sound knowledge to complete the number words in pinyin. CodingWe are excited to show you a little of what we will be doing this year in coding. Why we code in the Primary Coding encourages children to not only consume digital media and technology, but to create it. When children code, they take complex problems and break them down into smaller parts, learning what it’s like to approach a problem with logical, computational thinking. We know code, like any new discipline, is a challenge. Tackling complex problems teaches the valuable skill of persistence in the face of these challenges. It also helps with communication as they learn how to communicate with the most simple-minded audience imaginable: computers. Coding teaches children how to break down complex ideas and arrange them in a way that computers can understand. We look forward to sharing our coding throughout the year with you! Buddy Birthday RecognitionWe’re into our third term of our Buddy Initiative which was launched last year. Some of our buddies have left New Entrant and Year 3 and are now Year 1 and 4 students. To help grow our friendships, we recognised some birthdays this week! Daniel Singh (Yr4) and Jason Zhong (Yr1) are buddies, who coincidentally celebrated their birthdays on the same day – 8th March. Stanley Wu (Yr4) received a surprise visit in class from his buddy Kenneth Zong (Yr1) on 12th March and Kayla Fan (Yr4) had her 8th Birthday visit from her buddy Zoey Wu (Yr1) on 14th March. Birthday cards, cupcakes, presents and even goody bags were exchanged! We hope that keeping the connection between our buddies will help our children embrace the Big Brother/Sister role and be an aspiration for our younger children to be one to a New Entrant child when they are in Year 3. Social CoordinatorsAll our Primary Classes now have their Social Coordinators. Thank you to all parents who have taken on this role. We know time is very scarce for everyone, so we appreciate you volunteering to fit this into your busy schedule. The role of the Social Coordinators is to bring together the parents, children and families in their class so can we create a ‘Pinehurst Family’. Their main responsibilities will be:
Please help support your Class Social Coordinators through the year to help bring together the Pinehurst Community.
Thank you to our new Class Social Coordinators:
I Spy in the PrimaryI Spy... some very helpful lunchtime monitors with the Duty Teacher. I Spy.... little climbers! I Spy... hockey practice in P.E! I Spy... the magic of Rainbow Reading! I Spy... lots of writing going on in P7! I Spy... beautiful Carp Kites in P12! I Spy... lots of fun being had at Tabloid Sports Day! I Spy... artistic talent in Year 6! Introducing Naomi LeeThis week we welcome Naomi Lee to the Music Department. Naomi is currently undergoing her teaching qualifications at Massey University and will be at Pinehurst completing her first practicum experience until the end of the term. We are very lucky to have Naomi with us. She has extensive experience as a violinist. She completed a performance degree at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and has played with the APO. Naomi will be working with the string section of the Orchestra on their current selection of repertoire; she will be mentoring a piano chamber trio as well as taking a few classes in the next few weeks. Chinese Troupe visiting PinehurstOn the 26th of March, Tuesday, Pinehurst will welcome the Peace Angel Arts Troupe for an Music, Dance and Cultural experience. Peace Angel Arts Troupe is a group of talented young artists mostly from primary schools, and is run by a charitable organization (China Soong Ching Ling Foundation) which is dedicated to the establishment of international relations with friendly organizations and institutes both at home and abroad. The arts troupe have been playing an active role in China’s international cultural exchange scene. This year IGCSE’s music syllabus, in it’s world music topic, is placing a particular focus on Chinese music and this experience will allow Chinese and NZ students to showcase their talents and friendship, to celebrate both their shared heritage and the diversities in their cultures through intensive communication and performances. Pinehurst Bus Route 6It has become increasingly difficult for our bus route Pinehurst 6 (Toms) to arrive in a timely manner at the school. Starting from Monday 18th March we would like to trial Bus Route 6 starting from Gulf Harbour at 7:05am. This means arriving at your normal stop 15 minutes earlier than normal. Please note we have also extended his route to start at Gulf Harbour near Wentworth. We are currently updating the website and a revised route will be available to view soon. Parent ConsultationsParent Consultation Meetings with Alex are on Tuesday 26th March at 2pm and 6.30pm. The topics to be covered include; co-curricular participation, curriculum extension and community building. If you would like to attend please RSVP to judy.wallace@pinehurst.school.nz East Coast Bays and Pinehurst Interact Rotary ClubsOn April 6th at 7pm in the “Arena”, the Pinehurst Rotary Interact Club, in conjunction with East Coast Bays Rotary will be hosting an exciting Quiz Night. It will be a thrilling evening with lots of goodies on offer, quick fire raffles and many silent auctions throughout the night. If you’re feeling funky don’t be afraid to get dressed up to a common theme of your choosing. There will be a prizes for the best dressed table and the worst and much more. Finger food will be available for a small price and BYO is acceptable too! We have a very experienced MC for the night who will bring laughter and tears to your eyes. All proceeds go to Rotary to sponsor female Cambodian orphans to NZ for one or more years of their education. Tickets are $20 for an adult and $10 for a student and will be available to purchase from the Pinehurst accounts office. For more details email the Pinehurst Interact President Chantelle at chantelle.baldwin@pinehurst.school.nz or Jennifer at East Coast Bays Rotary at jrneads@gmail.com Pinehurst Business Directory is Coming…So many parents, so many needs and so many networks! We are looking to launch a new Pinehurst Business Directory available to our Pinehurst Parents and Friends. This is a great opportunity to network with other Pinehurst Parents and create and receive new business opportunities. Have you had times when you want to find someone to polish your wooden floors, sell your house, find a caterer for a birthday party, look for someone to design an invitation? Maybe you need new blinds or want to treat someone to a helicopter experience or even a luxury weekend away? Did you know that there are Pinehurst Parents that can offer you these things? If you are interested in adding your business (whether you work or own it) to the Pinehurst Business Directory, please email Sylvia.lum@pinehurst.school.nz with your name and business details so we have your interest registered. Baking for a Good CauseLast weekend, two Year 7 students, Nadia Gyde and Isabelle Wilcox, took it upon themselves to bake some delicious treats and sell them at the local market. As a result of the girls’ efforts, they raised $305.00 for World Vision. Way to go girls! Ben WeddAfter graduating from Pinehurst in 2011, Ben went to the University of Auckland, where he did a conjoint Commerce and Science Degree majoring in Finance, Economics and Chemistry. Where is he now? Ben is an Analyst for ANZ Investments in the Wealth Investment Management team (largest third-party fund manager in NZ). His message for current Pinehurst students: "Pinehurst was a great educational foundation for me, it gave me the inspiration to peruse a career in finance. It also provided me with a strong network of friends / contacts. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and try things that are out of your comfort zone. Making mistakes and challenging yourself is the way that you will learn and grow as a person. Secondly; make sure to enjoy being young when you are at high school. Don’t neglect hanging out with friends and having a strong social life - high school is one of the best times for this so don’t forget to have fun whilst you’re there" |