No images? Click here 25 June 2021Pinehurst School NewsletterOpening Words from the Executive Principal...Kia ora tatou, good afternoon, 你好, 안녕하세요 We’ve had blue skies scoured by tangled stems and branches this week. Mists and mellow fruitfulness have given way to frosty mornings, and I’ve seen scarves and beanies everywhere. Actually, we’ve probably not had as many beanies as I would expect, so just a reminder that we have Pinehurst beanies available for Primary students in the uniform shop. I love the cold mornings and clear skies, but I do hope that everyone is keeping warm. We are also very much in “winter colds” season too, so please stay at home if you are ill, and get a test if you have any symptoms that are similar to Covid symptoms. On Covid: I’m hopeful, as I said earlier this week, that we will avoid a change in alert levels. We are, though, prepared should the situation alter, and will be monitoring the news carefully. At the moment, there’s no cause for alarm and we are looking forward to the School Ball tomorrow evening. But I would ask everyone to be vigilant and to support the whole community by acting cautiously and using your tracer app. I will write home separately if there is any new information to share. Nearly every Primary parent has been in this week to see their child’s teacher: thank you to parents, teachers and children for managing such a positive experience for everyone. Our conferences are an important part of the partnership we have between the school and our community, and I hope that you took the opportunity to talk through any and every concern and question you may have. This morning, we had the first of our two orientation sessions for the little ones beginning their school journey, and I’m looking forward to welcoming more Pinehurst families into the fold. Two quick items on career education. Our senior students all visited the Career Pathways Expo at North Harbour Stadium yesterday, and will have taken the chance to explore possible options for their futures. Next Wednesday, we have our first Career Speed Meet event. I’m delighted that so many Year 11 to 13 students, as well as some Year 9 and 10 students, have booked to meet parents and alumni to discuss their jobs, and to explore what it really means to work in a wide range of fields. Thank you to Mrs Griffiths for organising the event, and to all the parents and alumni who are giving their time so generously to the school and to our current students. I know that Mrs Griffiths has just about completed seeing all the Year 12 students individually, and that she will be seeing the Year 11 students next term. It’s a great service for our students, so please take advantage of it. Ka kite anō au i a koutou. Have a great 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 Week 9 Kia Ora, The mornings have been chilly this week and various sports teams have been wrapped up warm as they make their way to courts and pitches in the semi darkness. They all had smiles on their faces though and put their efforts into training in preparation for their weekly games. The frost caused great delight on Thursday with some children referring to it as snow and wondering why the fields were white. We love these little teachable moments and opportunities to ask and answer questions that lead us on discoveries. This morning we have 16 new students visiting us who will belong to our newest New Entrant class in P23. At the moment they are going on a ‘Bear Hunt’ around the Primary to look for teddy bears and to see where everything is at the same time. We are really looking forward to working with them and welcoming them to our Primary school along with their families. Many of them are siblings and have visited us on numerous occasions already, we feel like we know them and are very much looking forward to them learning with us. I would like to mention some super Maths Whizz stars this week, these are four students who have completed Maths Whizz and have a maths age of 14 plus. They are Oscar Zhao and Bosco Jin in Year 5 and William Wang and Tiger Niu in Year 6; they will be receiving their certificates at the first Y4-6 assembly next term. Well done boys, we are really proud of you! There are several students who are almost there and we look forward to celebrating their success very soon. Again thanks to all of you at home who are supporting your children to complete their weekly homework. I know I talk a lot about Maths but my first love is reading so please keep encouraging your child to read daily too. Some children don’t like fiction to read so maybe you can read to them and allow them some time to read non fiction in their daily reading time. Reading a variety of books helps children to build their vocabulary which is key to comprehension and to good writing. Set some challenges to find the meanings of words, introduce a new word a day that you can discuss at mealtimes perhaps and find fun ways to learn on the go. Matariki Day is on Tuesday next week and we will celebrate the legend and festivals of Matariki with a themed day and an assembly for all of our Primary students. We will take the opportunity once a term to have a children only assembly so we can all get together but don’t worry we will share the work from the day on Seesaw. Kia pai to rā whakata, have a good weekend. Ngā mihi, Sian Coxon, Principal of Primary Safari Adventure in P2This term P2 has been on a Safari Adventure. We have read many Safari themed picture books and completed literacy activities which relate to these stories. This week we read the picture book Meerkat Mail by Emily Gravett. Meerkat Mail is about a Meerkat – ‘Sunny’ who lives in the Kalahari Desert with his family. Sunny and his brothers and sisters work together, play together, eat together, learn together, and sleep together. Sunny needs a break from his family, so he decides to take a trip to visit some relatives. Through a series of postcards Sunny documents his journey for his family. But as he travels, Sunny realizes there is no place like home. After reading this story together we discussed WOW vocabulary from the book that described Sunny. We then went on a word hunt to find these words which were hidden around our room. Together we used our WOW words to correctly label a picture of Sunny. Our focus, for Big Write, has been learning to write an animal report. This week the children wrote a report on the Meerkat, using the information they had learnt when reading Meerkat Mail. The students knew to be successful that they needed to tell their reader what a meerkat looks likes, likes to eat, where they live and an interesting fact. The students have also been learning to add connectives to their sentences in order to extend their sentences. In Phonics, we have been busy learning our long vowel sounds and learning to read and write words that contain these sounds. When we practise our sounds, we always remember to first sound out the words using our ‘Fred Fingers’ and to add our sound buttons – have a look at some of our amazing spelling. In Mathematics, we have been learning to use part-whole models to related facts up to 20. Related facts are basic mathematical sentences made up of three numbers. The P2 students have been very busy during Global Perspectives learning about the negative effects of littering. The students have been discovering how dropping rubbish can lead to devastating consequences for sea and animal life. Our next step for this learning is to share our learning with others and educate them on the importance of not littering. Amazing learning this Term P2, keep up the fantastic work. This week in P4In P4 this week we got the chance to go into the Life Education van and spend some time with Harold. We learned all about how we can tell how someone else is feeling if they don’t tell us. We practiced all our different facial expressions; happy, sad, nervous, and surprised. We learned that we could tell how someone is feeling by the way their face looks, what their mouth is doing and what their eyebrows are doing. We also have some amazing Maths Whizz stars in P4. Four of our students have had green ticks every week since week 1 of term 2. What an accomplishment! Well done Eddie, Mia, Odelia, and Quinn. Trees in warm colours and cool coloursIn P8 we have been looking at different types of mixed media for our Art. In this mixed media painting we used oil pastels and watercolours in order to learn the ranges of warm and cool colours. First we drew the tree and the fields with a pencil. Then we decided which part will be in warm and which in cool colours, next we traced all the lines with oil pastels. Here we traced the tree with red and the fields with blue or vice-versa. After that we painted the areas with watercolours, shading and mixing the colours on the paper with water. Finally we painted the trunk and the branches with a black solid colour, still continuing to use watercolours, remembering not to dilute it too much. P10 this termThis term P10 have been developing their research skills by finding out about an endangered animal or species, and what impacts their decline. Students are generating questions and ideas about what actions could be taken to help protect their chosen animal. We are now at the final stage of collating all our data and presenting this in a poster format. Here are some of the facts and solutions some students have uncovered. Jenny and Yuri have discovered that the Black Robin is 10-15cm long and is endangered because starlings are taking over their nests and kicking out the Black Robins eggs. To help them survive, a Black Robin Sanctuary can be made, and starlings can be kept out. Kimi, Aaron and Zack have researched the Black Striped Gecko. They found out that they are endangered because rats, cats and mice are eating them. As a solution, they think that cats and rats should be kept only in the North Island and not allowed in the South Island - where the Gecko’s live. Iona selected the Maui Dolphin. She found out that fishing nets are causing the Maui Dolphin to become endangered. Iona’s solution is to eliminate net fishing in the North Island. Learning in P14 Global Perspectives and Health We have enjoyed exploring the concept of ‘Relationships’ with our focus on forming and keeping positive friendships. To show our understanding of the different strategies we could use to resolve conflicts we got into groups to show aspects of positive and negative friendships - check out our videos! Thank you very much to our families who supported our research into friendship by completing our survey. We enjoyed tallying and collating the information we received. The 5 most valued qualities of a friend we discovered were some one who is…. KIND, RESPECTFUL, HELPFUL, LOVING, FUN The Big Write During our Big Write mission we really enjoyed creating exciting comic strips that included our superheroes as the main character. Through this writing activity we focused on using dialogue to tell the story and the inclusion of alliteration and captions to show a change of place and time to add information for the reader. Reading Our current focus in reading is to make connections to help us to understand the messages in the text at a greater depth and level. We have been identifying connections that we can make between texts, our own personal experiences and the text and finally between the text itself and what we know about the world around us. Maths We have completed our exploration of time during homeroom maths. It has been challenging for many of us to develop an understanding of the 24 hour clock and to convert between 12 and 24 hour clocks when reading timetables or following a schedule. Computer Science To develop our understanding of coding using algorithms we had to create a set of instructions for others to follow to navigate a maze outside in the playground. This helped us to understand just how many different codes are used in digital tools. Lastly Grandparent's Day… It was so exciting for us all to have grandparents visit us and work along side us to create Matariki folding stars. They also joined us at Dance Sport and saw what we were learning. Primary SpanishİHola a todos! The Year 2 students have been busy this term learning how to say words for body and numbers to then describe monsters! They are now creating their own monsters and then describing them in Spanish. ¡Qué bien! The Year 6 students have been learning all about monsters too, but are learning how to use tricky adjectives to describe them in detail. We have been singing songs and games like ‘Simon Says’ to learn all the new vocabulary. The Year 4 students have been learning how to say different countries and languages in Spanish. They were given boarding passes and flew around the classroom speaking to different people from around the world. Students also enjoyed learning about how the Spanish language originated and spread to different parts of the world. Primary FootballOn Tuesday, our Year 5/6 Boys Football team went to the Super Cluster Football Competition versing eight other schools in a 9 a side tournament. Coming up against schools that have multiple football players and teams, our boys battled and showed great resilience throughout the day, with a strong defensive shape they managed to hold most teams to only one goal and if not for the post or some excellent saves from the opposition keepers we could have won most games. Throughout the day there were two stand out performers for our school, Thomas Forshaw for excellent goal keeping and Kyle Nam for great individual skill. Year 6 Netball TournamentOn Wednesday, 23rd June our Year 6 Falcons netball team played in a Year 6 tournament at Netball North Harbour. The team played in the B grade, against schools from all over Auckland (i.e., Grey Lynn and Waiheke) and only lost one game. The players had a lot of fun together both on and off the court. A big thank you to coach Debbie Stanaway for such a successful day. Kia Ora, The penultimate week of Term 2 has provided a range of new opportunities for our college students. On Thursday morning, all of our Y11 & 12 students took a short break from their study to head up to North Harbour Stadium to attend the Career’s Expo. Engrossed in the numerous tertiary programmes, our students engaged with the exhibitors and their glossy handouts, questioning them on the nature of their courses, necessary prerequisites and possible career options, or simply sampling and partaking in some hands-on challenges. It proved to be a very worthwhile and exciting opportunity for our senior college students. Opportunities to explore future career pathways continues at Pinehurst next week with our Careers Speed Meet event scheduled for Wednesday evening the 30th June. This event will provide further opportunities for our students to learn from our current and past parents and alumni in particular areas and fields of study. Our student leaders have stepped up and delivered again this week. Following the success of our Student Council’s Cultural Market, and Cultural Festival on Friday night, this week it was the Arts Council’s turn. They ran a Jump Jam competition for the Senior College. A mass of colour and costumes covered the gym floor as all 24 PODs and their POD teachers mirrored the movements of a select group of energetic and coordinated girls leading the Macarena, Witch Doctor and Coconut songs. It was another fabulous event enjoyed by both students and staff. We are always exploring ways to augment our student leadership programme and look forward to more events next term, The Jump Jam winners were: best dressed – KKP; Most enthusiastic female – Caitlin Takle; Most enthusiastic male – Keanu Gerrits; Most enthusiastic House – Totara; & Most coordinated House – Kauri. Nga Mihi, Joe Johansen, Deputy Principal of College Results for Year 7 Results for Year 8 Mathex 2021Pinehurst teams competed in the North Shore Mathex on the 16th of July. There were four Year 7 and 8 teams who competed in groups of four in a mathematical race to answer questions. All involved had a wonderful time. In Year 7 and Year 8 one team runner in each year group won an award for showing respect to others while competing. These two students were Jianna Lee (Y8) and Callum Morgan (Y7). Well done to all involved and thank you also to our reserves who came with the teams to cheer them on and made themselves available should they be needed. Year 7 team members were: Team 1: Cleo Huang, Elsa Lu, Emily Prasetyo, and Claire Liu Team 2: Wen Yao Zhong, Daniel Yu, Yiching Wang, and Ceaser Xu Team 3: Callum Morgan, Elyn Xu, Chloe Zong, and Simon Gu Team 4: Linda Chen, Sophia Wang, Annie He, and Aayoung Joung Reserve: Owen Wang Year 8 team members were: Team 1: Lily McCabe, Anderson Chen, Gloria Li and Jack Chen Team 2: Osbert Gu, Jianna Lee, Julie Xiao and Roey Huang (Zachary Boss reserve) Team 3: Michelle Hao, Luis Huang, Sunny Wu and Zach Wu (Cindy Wang reserve) Team 4: Katrina Gao, Sejong Park, Ivy Roodt and Eric Sun Cultural Night 2021The Student Council organised The Cultural Night event held on Friday evening where students were able to showcase their cultural performances. Some performances included an instrumental piece on the guzheng, and dance performance from the K-pop dance group and a performance from the school’s own rock band. There was a guest appearance that included a traditional Korean tea ceremony. The Cultural night was lively, with students, teachers and parents coming together to watch and celebrate our cultural diversity at Pinehurst. Student council members worked exceptionally hard during the weeks leading up to the events making sure that that both events of the Cultural Market and Night were to be successful and we hope to see everyone there next year. All profits from ticket sales, raffles and stall fees will go towards World Vision. The raffle ticket winner will be announced next week.
NH Zone Day Table TennisThis week, 8 of our keen Table Tennis players went along to the Zone Day event at North Harbour Table Tennis. Competing against 11 other schools, all our players had a great day, with some awesome Table Tennis played. Thank you to Ms Toerien for supporting the students at the event, and to all the parents who came along to cheer and watch the games! Year 10 Art and DesignIn Art & Design the Y10 students have just completed their first acrylic self-portrait. Each student approached this project in a way that reflects their personality and style. Working with a limited palette, students learnt to mix their own skin tones and values, learning the art of colour relationships between saturated and desaturated colours. The results of their efforts are amazing! Auckland Secondary Schools Orienteering Individual ChampionshipsFourteen students from Y7-10 travelled to Woodhill Forest (near Muriwai) on Wednesday to compete in the AKSS Orienteering Individual Championships. For many it was their first forest competition race, and all did very well completing the course and, if they made errors, being able to analyze where they went wrong. Congratulations to those who placed in Top 3 of their age category: Zach 3rd in Y7/8 Boys Championship, Ben 2nd in Y7/8 Standard and Benen 2nd in Intermediate Boys Standard. Also well done to Steven who, on hearing an emergency whistle blown repeatedly, did the correct thing and abandoned his race to try to locate and assist them and, despite not finding them, reported this to the organisers once he reached the event centre. College Netball Team 1A stunning day and stunning victory for Team 1 Netball over the weekend, beating Rangitoto 4 by 13 goals. This brings their current run of wins to 3 after victories over Orewa 3 and Whangaparaoa 2 in the past weeks. Young Writers WorkshopFifteen keen Pinehurst writers from years 8-13 came together for a creative writing workshop on Saturday. Led by Ros Ali and Jo Emeney, both teachers, poets and writers, they immersed themselves in language and composed and shared pieces with each other. The students came together again on Wednesday to write a poem for the magazine but also to express their gratitude to Ros and Jo for making the morning so memorable. A2 ChemistryStudents in Dr Waddel’s A2 Chemistry class have been studying polymers. As part of the unit, they made plastic from potato starch. The first task was to extract the starch from the potatoes and then gently heat with other substances to turn the starch into plastic. The students found this to be an enjoyable and interesting task especially when they could colour their plastic. North Shore Career Pathways ExpoYesterday all Year 11 and Year 12 students attended this careers expo at North Harbour Stadium. During the hour they were able to circulate around the different tertiary providers and chat with the representatives about opportunities offered. It was great to see everyone engaged in discussions about their future and making the most of having so many providers in one place. Most left carrying a pile of information which they can read, digest and then make time to see Mrs Griffiths for further discussions. Arts Council Jump Jams the CollegeOn Thursday during period 7, the Arts Council’s inter-house Jump Jam competition was expertly planned by its leader Catherine, MC’d by Kate and led by a group of enthusiastic seniors – Zahra, Emily, Roza and Shizzy. Students and teachers embraced their house colours and let their decorative imagination run wild, while they were transported to their primary years when dancing to the Coconut Song, the Macarena and The Witch Doctor. Hansel and Gretel Ballet features two Pinehurst StudentsThe De Vere School of Dance featured two of our students – Amelie (Yr 7) and Samara (Yr 9) in its Hansel and Gretel Showcase last weekend held at the Birkenhead College Theatre. Both girls have been training for more than a year with the school and are completing grade 4 and grade 6 of the Royal Academy of Dance examination in classical ballet. Congratulations to the girls for an outstanding performance! Classical Music SuccessOver the past few weeks, Jade has been taking part in a number of prestigious world-wide music competitions. These events were organisied out of Europe and the U.S.A. and attracted entrants from over 70 countries. All participants record a video performance and send to a panel of judges. Her first result came from her Piano performance in the Bonn & Salzburg International Music Competition where she was the first prize winner in the 10-11 year age group. As a result of her performance she was invited to perform at the Beethoven House and the Solitär, Mozarteum in August this year. Unfortunately, due to the current Covid-19 travel situation she will not be attending this year. Her second award came from her harp performance in the New York International Classical Music Competition. Here, she was the overall Grand Prize winner in her age (10-11 years) which included performances on all instruments. Her photo and performance piece will be published on the https://www.nyicmc.com/ shortly. Also, she has recently completed her final performance of the North American virtuoso International music competition for both piano and harp. She is the only NZ representative in the final of this event for 11/under. The results are pending and we hope to hear more by the end of the month. Peter Pan and WendyPinehurst School is proud to present the College production of Peter Pan and Wendy. There are two casts playing in the show which is to be held at the Pinehurst School Arena 29th July to 1st August 2021 at 7pm for evening performances and 2pm for the two matinees on the Saturday and Sunday. Tickets cost $20 for adults and children. Please purchase tickets using the link here. If you have any queries regarding the purchase of tickets please contact Sandie Waddel at the following email Sandie.Waddel@pinehurst.school.nz or any queries regarding the show contact Abby Forrester at Abigail.Forrester@pinehurst.school.nz
I Spy... P5 working hard on their Math. I Spy... P7 practicing their Spanish by naming and numbering the parts of their monsters! I Spy... Clay masters at work in P19 Art! I Spy...Year 2 Netball team, Kiwis... Alumni Duke of EdinburghCenedra and Paige Waddel attended the Duke of Edinburgh Gold International Award ceremony last weekend at Pukekohe High School. They started their Gold journey in March of 2019 and 52 weeks later completed it in March 2020 just as lockdown was happening. Highlights of their journey included a 10-day voyage on the Spirit of Adventure in the middle of winter swimming in freezing conditions and seeing the wildlife high up on the mast as well as seeing the kiwi in the bush as part of their 3-day kayaking trip. They made many new friends which they are still in contact with. The certificates were presented by Sarah Hillary, daughter of Sir Edmond Hillary. The Governor-General, Her Excellency the Rt Hon Dame Patsy Reddy, and a National Patron of the award was in attendance and congratulated the 56 award recipients. The ceremony concluded with an amazing selection of refreshments. Special thanks to Izelle Toerien who braved the terrible weather conditions to attend the ceremony. Izelle is in charge of the DoE at Pinehurst School. Well done Cenedra and Paige on a fantastic effort. Spelling BeeCongratulations to Dev in Year 8 who took part in a Spelling Bee competition earlier in the week and came second place out of 30 students. Head Held High (Year 7-9) Speech and drama lessons are now available to Year 7 - 9 students through Head Held High! These lessons have proved incredibly popular with our Primary students this year, with 90 students attending lessons each week. Advanced lessons for the College are now available, on Tuesdays. |