Kia ora tatou, good afternoon, 你好, 안녕하세요

A short message from me today before I head outside to see if the Easter Bunny has any chocolate eggs for me. We are heading into Easter Weekend today, and to all those attending services, celebrating or otherwise marking Easter, my very best wishes to you at this important time of the year. To all those heading away for the long weekend, travel safely and enjoy what promises to be a sunny weekend. And to our whole community: enjoy spending time together as a family. I hope you have the chance to take a deep breath and relax.

Thank you to all those who attended our 30th Anniversary Garden Party and our Foundation Day celebrations: it was wonderful to have so many parents with us on our birthday, and I hope everyone enjoyed themselves. I watched both the Primary and the College concerts, and I was bowled over once again by the talent on display. We had music and dance from many cultures, and to be able to see Year 1 and 2 students singing and performing and playing at such a high level, then older Primary students dance and play with such sophistication and control, made me very proud. The College concert included two wonderful performances on the guzheng, as well as one of the best chamber performances I’ve ever heard at our school, and a wide range of dancing too. This included what I think were our first K-Pop (Blackpink, for those in the know) performance at a concert, and our first Bollywood dance. Thank you to all those students who entertained us.

These two events were the final ones to be organised by Judy Wallace, who has been a parent and a member of staff at our school for 25 years. It’s Judy’s last day today, so if you know her and have the chance to say goodbye, please do so. She’s a wonderful part of our family, and I know she will stay connected to us.

A few congratulations: to our Premier Golf Team of Jaewoo Son, Yeonsoo Son, Nicole Choi and Towa Usui, who became Auckland Champions on Monday, beating Macleans College, a week after becoming North Harbour Champions. This is another outstanding achievement from our top golfers, and we’re very proud of them. Congratulations too to Brianna Tirado, who won the Auckland Schools Senior Girls Javelin, and last weekend was named New Zealand Champion in the Under 20 category for the Javelin, coming in 3rd place in the New Zealand Senior competition, a superb result. I’d also like to highlight our swimmers, who took part in the North Harbour competition this week: Jasmine Lyles won the 50 metre 13 and under breaststroke title and our other swimmers acquitted themselves well. And in the Year 7 and 8 Auckland Championships, Osbert Gu and Arissa Liu both had amazing days. Arissa won Silver in both the Year 7 Girls 50 metre Freestyle and 50 metres Back and placed 7th in her other 3 events - 2 of these events were ‘Open’ events for both Year 7 & 8 swimmers. Osbert had 3 podium finishes in his 5 events, with Gold in the Year 8 Boys 50 metres Backstroke, Silver in the 50 metres Open Butterfly stroke, and Bronze in the 50 metre Breaststroke.

I’d like to mention, as well, our team of 20 students who spent the whole weekend at the United Nations Youth Conference, doing a great job and learning about international diplomacy at the same time. My experience of attending these events is that our young people are much better at solving international disputes than their adult counterparts! That group of students, by the way, included some of our top golfers and swimmers, as well as many outstanding academics: we always encourage our students to take part in absolutely everything they can, and it is always great to see such enthusiasm.

Finally, my apologies that we had to cancel the Year 8 Leadership tramp, and the Year 2 Wheels Day. Both will be rescheduled, of course.

Ka kite anō au i a koutou. Have a good weekend, and Happy Easter!

Alex Reed
Executive Principal 

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Dates for your Diary

Kia Ora,

With the events to celebrate our 30th Anniversary taking place on Monday, I took the opportunity to reflect on the 10 years that I have been at Pinehurst. During my time at the school I have witnessed the college grow significantly in infrastructure, student, and staff numbers. I have also witnessed significant progress in our academic, sports, music, and cultural performances. There are many other aspects of the college that have grown and improved.

In many ways the school has changed to become a more mature and higher performing environment. Alongside much of this change though, has been a consistency that is so important for any institution or organisation to flourish. We have had great continuity in staffing, and also in the ethos and values of the school. The college has always been a place where students are able to reach their individual potential in a safe and inclusive environment, where they can grow and flourish. I have always been proud of the fact that we are a welcoming community where every student is able to find their niche and their friendship group.

A key pillar of the school is respect for others. This enables us to create the environment that we need for our students. At today’s college assembly I will be speaking about kindness. I think it is an important time to remind our students of how important kindness is, as we near the end of the term and students are potentially a bit tired. It is also important for bystanders to step into help sometimes. Bystanders play a big part in either facilitating, or halting negative behaviour. If you have any concerns about your child’s happiness at school, please do not hesitate to contact their homeroom teacher, POD teacher, Dean, or myself.

Unfortunately, the weather has wreaked a bit of havoc on our plans this week. All of the events that have been impacted will be rescheduled so that our students do not miss out on these valuable opportunities.

A reminder that parents are now able to book conferences with teachers for the 12th and 13th April. You will have a link through SchoolBox if you have not yet booked. If you have any questions about conferences, please do not hesitate to contact myself or Debbie Parker. Finally, on Wednesday parents will receive a Term One progress report.

I hope that all in our community have a fantastic Easter weekend.

Nga Mihi,

Kieran Verryt, Principal of College

Kia Ora,

We started this rather wet week with a big celebration of our school and the 30 years it has been open. From humble beginnings in a horse paddock with just three buildings, it has been amazing to watch Pinehurst continue to grow into the school it is today. Our celebrations started with an assembly where we managed to have all of our students in the Arena at once which was really lovely. Students and staff reflected on why Pinehurst is special to them and teachers told lots of funny stories of things that have happened in the past. There is a lot to be proud of and it was clear that our students feel very connected to their school.

As teachers, the special times centre around the relationships with their classes and families and the gains for children in learning along the way, whether large or small. Some of the students I used to teach have kept in touch and it is lovely to see them getting married, enjoying fantastic careers and having families of their own. To be a part of a child’s life and a positive contribution to it is a very special responsibility. The rest of our birthday celebration was very exciting with food trucks and families, a Primary concert and a movie afternoon; it was the perfect day.

I have been spending some time in Year 6 this week observing writing and maths lessons. All of our students were engaged in every lesson I saw for the whole lesson, the pace of the learning and explicit teaching they received meant that they really got a lot out of their time.  I often asked the question, ‘What is the most important thing you have learned in this lesson?’ Without fail each student I asked could tell me the focus of the lesson and what they had achieved. We have developed a specific way of teaching based on best practice and research based evidence which means that our students are able to progress and achieve at higher levels whilst still allowing for different teaching styles and of course enjoyment and interest which leads to a life long love of learning.

It was great to see so many parents at interviews this week, we really do encourage you to bring your child along so that they can celebrate their learning with you and work on their next steps. If you have any questions or need some more time with your child’s teacher, please don’t hesitate to make a time.

We hope that you can take a break as a family over Easter and we will see you again on Wednesday next week.

Ngā mihi,

Sian Coxon, Principal of Primary

P5 Easter Egg Hunt

Last Sunday the P5 Social Co-ordinator – Carmen Sutton held their first event for P5. To celebrate Easter the class enjoyed a great Sunday afternoon taking part in an Easter Egg hunt on the back fields at Pinehurst. Carmen, along with a few parents spent 30 minutes hiding 200 Easter eggs around the playground!

20 children took part in the Easter Egg Hunt which gave them the opportunity to find 10 eggs each – and all 200 eggs were accounted for! After a lot of running around and a full bag of eggs, they then took part in a few activities that gave them even more eggs to take home. Everyone had a great time and it was so nice to see a class come together for a fun event in the weekend!