No images? Click here 2 July 2021Pinehurst School NewsletterOpening Words from the Executive Principal...Kia ora tatou, good afternoon, 你好, 안녕하세요 It feels as though we should be heading into Christmas. After 14 years in New Zealand, I still associate the onset of winter with the faint jingling of bells, the smell of warm mince pies and a desire to hide away in centrally-heated houses while It’s a Wonderful Life or Gremlins plays on television in the background. I’m obviously getting old, and choosing to forget all the things that aren’t so great about December in Britain, but bear with me for a moment on this. This is also the time of year when, until last year, more than half our community would head overseas. We would fly off to the warmth of the Gold Coast, perhaps Rarotonga, or to see friends and family in Korea, China, the UK, the US… pretty much anywhere in the world, taking advantage of the three-week break. It has always been a chance to re-charge ourselves and to reconnect with the parts of our lives that lie elsewhere in the world. This year, of course, that isn’t something we can do in the same way. Many of us are missing the chance to hold parents, see brothers, sisters, new nieces and nephews… or perhaps simply to visit new or favourite places, to have the kinds of holidays that offer change and rest in our busy lives. I’ve been thinking, as you can see, about our Pinehurst community and about the impact of the last 18 months. We always preface our comments about this with a reference to how fortunate we have been in New Zealand (and we really have been), but that doesn’t alter the fact that there are difficulties we face, or that, as such an international community, it can be hard to be cut off from the rest of the world. The other way of looking at it, of course, is that the last 18 months have built our local communities and made them stronger. I certainly feel that this is the case at Pinehurst, and I hope you feel the same. It’s been a busy last week of term. Thank you to the new parents who came along on Monday evening for some wine, tasty canapés and conversation; thank you, too, to all the parents who volunteered their time for our first ever Careers Speed Meet event on Wednesday, which went really well. Well done to all the chess players who competed in North Shore competitions this week, especially the top Year 5/6 team, who came second overall, and the other two Year 5/6 teams, who both finished in the top half of a very large field. Thank you to Mrs Naumovska for taking along her senior music students to experience the Auckland Philharmonic in action; and to all the staff, students and parents for their continued enthusiasm for our sports programme. I’m delighted by the participation and skills on display, and I hope everyone is enjoying taking part in sports this year. And a special thank you to the Primary staff for the wonderful Matariki activities this week. A quick word on the holidays to come: our Year 10 to 13 students should expect to have some study and homework. Years 11 to 13 especially will need to keep on top of their studies. But they will also need to find time to slow down a little and do some (local!) travelling and enjoy some activities that aren’t related to school. Younger students should be enjoying themselves doing a range of different activities, and not worrying too much about school. Term 3 starts on Tuesday 27th July. On the evening of the 27th, we have our Year 8 to 9 Transition Evening – Year 8 parents should already have received a letter about this – and the College Production of Peter Pan and Wendy kicks off on Thursday 29th. I’m looking forward to seeing both casts perform, and the very best of luck to the team, led by Abigail Forrester, over the holidays as they complete their rehearsals. Ka kite anō au i a koutou. Have a great holiday, travel safely if you’re heading off anywhere at all, and see you all in a few weeks’ time. 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 1, Term 3 Kia Ora, We are half way through the year already and as we prepare for our break it has been a time of reflection on what has been achieved so far and where we are going to next. At the beginning of next term you will receive an overview of our learning programmes for Term 3 which will give more detail than the yearly overview we sent at the beginning of the year. As always if you have any questions about your child’s learning or progress you can contact us via Seesaw, email or in person. One of the highlights of this week was Tuesday’s Matariki themed day. There were so many different activities taking place with lots of creativity and art in particular. The classrooms were busy, full of glitter and very calm as everyone focused on their star themed creations. Thanks to P2 for helping me and Mrs Jones Hill make our sparkly headbands! Behind all of the activity was of course the opportunity to learn more about Maori culture, traditions and celebrations along with myths and legends and the stories that are passed from generation to generation. We give our students opportunities to learn te reo, the language, in classrooms through greetings, numbers, dates and high frequency words and as a staff are seeking to develop our own knowledge of the language and tikanga maori. In the afternoon we held an assembly for the whole of the Primary which was a fantastic celebration of Matariki through song, drama, speech and art. The New to 2 syndicate impressed us with their version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in Maori, Tirama tirama ngā whetu and the Macarena in Maori from all students plus everyone sang and signed the national anthem. Sign language, along with Maori and English, is an official language of Aotearoa New Zealand. Lots of parents have asked what their child can work on during the break, especially as it is three weeks long. The number one piece of advice is to have some rest and relaxation, our children are really tired this week and they need to recharge so that when they come back they will be ready to learn. If you have some time off yourself give them lots of experiences, trips to the zoo, museums, the theatre, cinema, playgrounds and beaches. They should read, every day, and talk about their experiences to build new vocabulary. Young children need to be outside as much as possible, sitting on the couch with an iPad should be a very limited activity unless they are reading a book. I will try to take my own advice ha ha, although being able to spend time reading is the thing I am looking forward to the most. Whatever the next three weeks has in store for you I hope you enjoy some family time with your beautiful children, we will have everything ready to go for next term and look forward to welcoming you on Tuesday 27 July. Kia pai to rā whakata, have a good weekend. Ngā mihi, Sian Coxon, Principal of Primary ‘Looking after our world’ and Kandinsky’s circles in P5 For Global Perspectives this term P5 have been exploring clean and littered environments and their impacts on people and animals. Also, the students have been able to express opinions about clean and littered environments. They were very shocked to see the consequences of litter ending up in the ocean and the impacts on fish and birds. To enable them to create a plan to make a difference, P5 first walked around the playground and recorded the types of litter they could see and where it was located. After some discussion on how to make a difference they decided to make posters to inform and educate others about the consequences of not putting litter in the bin. Some children took the initiative to ask for gloves to help clean up and keep their environment tidy. They hope others will now make better choices with their rubbish. In Art, P5 students have been having a lot of fun exploring Kandinsky’s dot. Firstly, they designed their own unique dot and then joined them all together to create a collaborative artwork. Next, they had to reflect and make creative decisions when designing an artwork using coloured paper circles. Everyone is very happy with their results and plan to further develop their ideas. P6 this Week What a wonderful week we have had in P6 this week. We had so much excitement and enjoyment at our Matariki (Maori New Year) fun day as we learnt why Matariki was an important time in the Maori calendar. We learnt that when the Matariki stars appeared in the night sky this was the time to start planting our winter vegetable. That it is a time to remember our loved ones, past and present and how important they are to us. Also, that it is a time to fly kites. We enjoyed doing a range of different art activities that related to Matariki for example kites, stars, bookmarks with kowhaiwhai patterns on them, maths fractions colouring of stars, paper chains and decorating stars. P6 also enjoyed a range of myths and legends that related to Matariki. In Maths we have been exploring and identifying 3 dimensional shapes. We have enjoyed learning the mathematical language for example vertices, surfaces, edges and naming the shapes. In reading and writing we have practised cursive writing and been delighted in experiencing a word less book called Flotsam and completed a range of different tasks relating to the book. We found the definition of Flotsam (things that have been discarded or rejected as worthless or floating pieces, wreckage of a ship that has been washed up by the sea) and have then been able to give examples of flotsam that a person might find in a range of locations for example the flotsam found in our classroom are things like food scraps, pencil shavings, empty tissue box, dried out whiteboard makers, glue sticks etc. Life in Year 5, P15 By Bonnie Huang By Jayden Huang By Harry Sun Students also wrote poems where they had to think about rhyme schemes and rhythm. These poems were based on timeslip narrative stories students had written earlier. After crafting the poems, students presented them to the class thinking about being expressive with one's voice and varying the pace and volume. By Bella Zhong By Vivan Zhu P15 have had a fabulous end to the term. In Art, we have been learning about famous European painters from the 1850’s to the 1950’s. Students chose an art movement that they liked and a particular artist that inspired them. Before painting, students created their own success criteria knowing what elements made their chosen art style unique. Here are some of our pieces that were inspired by the following art movements: impressionism, cubism, and surrealism. By Eddy Guo By Margaret Zhang By Susana Luo By Jack Van der Eijk Nationals here we come! Pinehurst Chess A-Team place 2nd.We made it! We had three teams entered into the North Shore Primary Interschool Chess Competition which was held on Monday. Each team had to play six rounds of tough matches against other schools. Pinehurst A Team even had to play our Pinehurst B Team and battle each other. Luckily after the last round of matches, Pinehurst A Team came second. Pinehurst B Team came 12th and Pinehurst C Team came 15th out of a total of 31 teams. Well done Pinehurst and thank you to Alex Huang our chess coach. Nationals here we come! Our Primary Chess Club is in P13 on Thursday lunchtimes. Come and have a game! Primary MandarinThe Year 5 and 6 CFL students have been working hard on learning new words and sentence structures this term. This week, we enjoyed ourselves in doing a Word Search and Chinese character match-up. Those activities helped us to revise the vocabulary we have learnt this term. Throughout this term, the MFL students in Year 5 and 6 have been learning about pets and animals. We have learned how to say the name of twelve animals and what animals we have and don’t have. To describe number of animals, we needed to learn three measure words that go with the 12 animals. There are more than 100 measure words in Mandarin! We now know when to use 只 (zhī), 条 (tiáo), and 匹 (pī). We have also learned different adjectives describing the animals. In addition to all that, we continued broadening our understanding of Chinese character by looking at the evolution of the character for horse (mǎ) and have enjoyed writing the character in both traditional (馬) and simplified (马) forms. Matariki The Primary Council had a busy term organising our Matariki celebrations in the Primary. Each class had a special day planned with activities based around the important concepts connected to Matariki. Matariki is all about celebration, and spending time with family. The coming of Matariki symbolises the harvest festival and the time when the Maori calendar restarts. Students were asked to bring in a special family photo to initiate conversations around the uniqueness of their family. Part of Matariki is taking the time to think about our ‘family trees’. Who are our grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins? This helps us to see our place within our extended families. The Primary Council is made up of many different groups of students and our council members were given special roles to play in the Matariki assembly. One group of students performed the play, ‘The Seven Fish or Matariki.’ This myth is a cautionary tale associated with Matariki. The seven little fish swim away from the rocks and become caught in the net of Tataraimaka. Tane (God of the Forest) throws the net up into the sky and they turn into the star cluster we know as Matariki. Our Kapa Haka group performed the Matariki Macarena which proved very popular with our younger students, whilst the Arts and Cultural team began the assembly by singing and signing the National Anthem. Our Junior Primary students were given the challenge to sing ‘Tirama, Tirama nga whetu’ (Twinkle, Twinkle, little star) in Te Reo and gave a rousing performance. Our Year 6 councillors and fellow council members demonstrated the traditional stick game: Poi Rakau. The aim of this game is to be one of the last 2 people holding a stick. The caller calls a direction in Te Reo: Maui – left or Matau – right. When the direction is called, they release their stick and move in the direction called to catch a new stick. This is a fun game with lots of giggling and sticks falling to the ground. Another important aspect of our assembly was the sharing of Pepeha. A Pepeha is a special way to introduce yourself. You share with your audience who you are, and your connections with people and places. We had some special Pepeha shared by both students and staff in a range of languages special to them. Ravenna Zhang: Japanese, Mateo Paliser: Spanish, Mrs McIntosh: Te Reo, Ryann Wang: Te Reo. We thank them for preparing and sharing these with us. To conclude our Matariki assembly the student council presented each staff member with a Maori Whakatauki. A Whakatauki is a Maori proverb or saying that holds wisdom. Kia Ora, Kia ora koutou I don’t often get the opportunity to share lessons with the wider school community but what I just experienced deserves to be shared. I have just walked out of a Year 9 Global Citizenship class who just completed their 9 week Leadership module and were introduced to the next term’s course on Ethics. After a brief discussion about the definition and philosophy of moral principles and the impact they have on our decisions, the class were faced with a challenging ethical dilemma to stimulate thinking… Are neural brain implants the next logical step in human development? The students had previously watched the documentary “Father of the Cyborgs” and viewed other associated resources such as Elon Musk’s work with his new venture “Neuralink”, and discussed last night’s episode of “A Current Affair” and their piece on brain implants for those suffering from epilepsy. The class were asked to consider all the new information they had to hand and then instructed to stand on a continuum in the classroom from 1 - strongly disagree that brain implants should be used to 10 – strongly agree. Once they were in position they were encouraged to listen respectfully to each other’s justifications and were encouraged to shift if their perspectives changed. This task generated some worthwhile discussion and highlighted some in-depth thinking from our Year 9 students. Human right issues, political agendas, changes to education and employment, crime and prisoner rehabilitation were all raised as potential points of interest. Let’s just say I won’t be the only one who is looking forward to Global classes next term. I’ll finish there and wish everyone a safe and enjoyable term break. See you next term. Ka kite ano Nga Mihi, Joe Johansen, Deputy Principal of College Kia Ora from Pinehurst Our Japanese Korean Club have finally finished with our school recording which we are sending off to Imae School in Korea this week. Mrs Cataloni would like to thank all members of the club for the great effort that has gone into this work. The video captures the warm atmosphere of our school perfectly. Enjoy! Sissi's Journey poemAs part of the Year 9 Journey theme in English, the students wrote poems showing what the word 'Journey' meant to them. Sissi's poem was about her cockatiel Cresty; she later decided to submit her poem to the magazine, East Coast Bays Shoreline, which was published in their recent edition. Well done Sissi. East Coast Bays Rotary Interschool DebateThe Advanced Open Debating team faced up against Rangitoto in the annual Rotary Debating Challenge at the Pupuke Golf Club. The moot was "This House would make it mandatory for all students at public schools to receive the Covid vaccination". Pinehurst College was affirming. It was a particularly tight contest as stated by the adjudicator and eventually the decision was made to award the debate to Rangitoto. Our team did exceptionally well - they were poised, confident and undaunted and the audience showed great appreciation for a tightly contested debate. The Advanced Open Debating team has so far had a particularly successful season with three out of four victories in the Auckland Debating competition. Auckland Secondary Schools Intercollegiate Swimming Individual ChampsThe AKSS Intercollegiate Swimming Individual Champs were held last weekend. We had two participants compete. Jack placed 2nd in Open 200m Freestyle, 4th in Open 100m Backstroke, 1st in Open 400m Freestyle and 3rd in Open 200m Fly. Eleanor placed 5th in Girls Open 100m Fly, 12th in 100m Backstroke and 15th in 50m Freestyle. Congratulations and well done to these two on their achievements. Auckland Secondary Schools Rock Climbing Series 2AKSS Rock Climbing Series 2 event last weekend was attended by two Pinehurst students. Ava placed 9th =/27 in her age group and Taine placed 8th =/30 placed in the Boys Year 7 – 10 group. Congratulations on these results. Year 7 Digital TechnologyYear 7 Digital Technology students are shooting a stop motion video using claymation.
NH Zone Day WaterpoloCongratulations to our Pinehurst Waterpolo team, who competed yesterday at the annual NH Zone day event. Competing in the B grade, our team were unfortunately down 4 of our regular players due to illness /absence, so played all our games with just 1 substitute – if you have ever played a game of Waterpolo you would understand just how tiring that is! The team (Alistair, Daniel, Chloe, Claire, Finlay, Clarence & Justin) had a fantastic day finishing 3rd in their pool games, then winning their next game in a penalty shootout to progress to the plate final of B Grade. In the final, the team scored a last minute goal to tie the game 4-4 with Kristin. Unfortunately there wasn’t time to play out the draw, so the team was awarded 1st in the plate competition. Thank you to former Pinehurst student Izzy for coaching the team, and to Mrs Lindsay for supporting the students on the day. AS HistoryLast Friday the AS History class visited Highwic House in Newmarket. This was to supplement our unit on the Industrial Revolution. The house was built in 1862 by Alfred Buckland, a key figure in New Zealand’s colonial wool industry. Thanks so much to Christopher who gave us an amazing private tour of the house which really helped to bring the topic to life, as well as taking a glimpse into what it was like to live in New Zealand in its early days of European settlement. NZCF North Shore Intermediate Interschool Regional Qualifier Chess TournamentOn Tuesday, Pinehurst entered three teams into this year’s competition, with the two top placed teams during the event going through to the NZCF National Interschool Championship. The tournament format, consisting of a 6-round Swiss-system event for teams of four, kept 140 Intermediate students busy from 9am in the morning until the last game finished just before 2pm in the afternoon. With no lunch break, and some games being a titanic battle of pure concentration for over 40 minutes, students finished the day exhausted and yet excited to have out-maneuvered their opponents. And, although Pinehurst was not ‘placed’, the teams played every game to the end, with some asking their opponent, in good humour, if they wanted to surrender, even though they themselves were about to lose the match. Tactics is the name of the game, and our teams played the game well, learning from the experience so that they will win their next game and their next tournament. Careers Speed Meet EveningOn Wednesday evening the top of College 4 was transformed into a Careers Hub with current students able to book appointments to chat with ex-students and parents to gain up-to-date information on a variety of occupations and study areas. Thank you to our past students and members of our parent community whose contribution enabled this to take place and feedback from students who attended has been incredibly positive. If you missed it this time, look out for it in 2 years time! College Girls FootballAnother great win by our Girls 1XI team last night away against Glenfield College. It was our last game of the season and a play-off for 5th/6th place. The girls have progressed so far this year and showed high levels of commitment to improving their individual skills and playing for one another. Last night, a penalty from Year 8 Olivia sealed the deal and the team came away with a 4-1 win; Hannah finishes off as our top goal scorer and the future looks bright with a team mostly made up of younger students. What a great way to end the season and we look forward to what comes next. Cultural Raffle WinnerMany Congratulations to Yazen who won the raffle for our Cultural Week! The draw was made by Mr Reed who pulled out the lucky ticket! A huge thank you to all of the businesses who have donated the prizes for the raffle. The Cultural Market and Night events, organised by the Student Council have raised $1,193.60 for World Vision charity. Thank you for all of the great support! "Mindfully curated for the art of self-love"Botanical Boxes is a self-care box business run by a group of 6 of our students as a part of the Young Enterprise Scheme. The focus is on the art of self-care and self-love, and 20% of our profit will be donated to Mental Health Foundation supporting body-positivity campaign. Their small box, contains lip balm, soap, and shower steamer, for $24.99; and their big box with all the above and the addition of body lotion, body scrub, and cloud candle is $51.99, which are all ready to soothe and warm you in this cold winter season! Botanical Boxes are open for orders and you can order through their email botanicalboxesnz@gmail.com or on their Instagram @botanicalboxesnz. Readers CupOn Tuesday evening we had five students compete in a reading competition called The Readers Cup. The Readers Cup involves reading a chosen set of six books and answering rounds of random questions about each one. Pinehurst’s team have been training for the competition by deep reading the texts all term. Nine schools were represented in this year’s competition, most of them from the North Shore. Chloe, Zoe, Lea, Angelina and Sissi showed exceptional team spirit, and their commitment was rewarded when they took out third place -equal with Takapuna Grammar! Yr 10-12 Music Classes Trip to the Town HallOn Tuesday night and despite the chilly weather, 30 Pinehurst music students attended the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s Unwrap of Haydn’s Military Symphony at the Auckland Town Hall. Haydn wrote 106 symphonies in his 77 life span and this 100th symphony is inspired by the percussion instruments of the Turkish Janissary Bands. These bands used to accompany Ottoman political processions – in particular the triangle, bass drum and cymbals which feature in his second movement of the four work symphony and at the time brought the audience to their feet in delight and surprise. The Year 10 class have chosen to study this work more in depth for their upcoming Year 11 IGCSE exam at the end of 2022 and will begin looking at it in more depth from next term. Jack Explores Auxiliary PercussionJack has been learning the drums for quite some time but he is expanding his impressive percussion skills to include some pots and bottles for his IGCSE Music performance by tackling a new-age-y Gareth Farr piece. New Zealand’s renowned percussion composer, Gareth Farr describes Three Little Pieces for Eve as “serious fun". He wrote the lively and fun pieces for the occasion of a friend’s birthday and they showcases Farr’s comic wit and clever writing. The percussionist is required to use household objects including bottles, flowerpots, mixing bowls and a triangle. Three Little Pieces for Eve is sure to add a good mixture of variety and demonstration of skill to any recital programme and perhaps a fun birthday celebration too. Jazz Band set to premiere Daniel’s original composition ‘The Krebbe” at KBB CompetitionDaniel, now Year 12, was invited to join the Jazz Band as a promising Year 6 player of the Saxophone, having showcased his impressive performing skills on the instrument at the annual Senior Primary Music Concert back in 2015. For the first time ever the Pinehurst Jazz Band will be presenting an original student work at the KBB Competition and thus will be eligible to enter the NZ Composer award category. Daniel has a thorough understanding of the Jazz genre, is a talented bass, also saxophone and piano player and wrote this composition with the Jazz Band in mind. KBB Workshops in Term 3 for Jazz Band and OrchestraThe KBB Competition is the largest inter-school competition held in New Zealand and it will run from the 9th -14th of August (Week 3 of T3). The Pinehurst Orchestra will compete on the Monday the 9th session from 9.30-12.30am and the Jazz Band on Wednesday the 11th from the 6.30pm – 8.30 session. The groups will need to be there for the entire duration of that time. Parents and friends are welcome to attend the event. To prepare the groups well, two workshop weekends have been organised, additional to the normal rehearsals during the week and they will be held on: Orchestra: Saturday 31st of July and Saturday 7st of August 11.30am -2.30pm Jazz Band: Sunday the 1st of August and Sunday the 8th of August 11.30 am-2.30pm Peter Pan and WendyCome and fly away with us on our adventure to Neverland. Tickets to this years production of Peter Pan and Wendy are now on sale via this link. 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...College Netball training... I Spy... Year 2s working hard on distinguishing shapes in their Maths lessons... I Spy... P9 learning how to tell time on digital and analogue clocks... I Spy...Year 3 Rurus with coach Michelle... Reserve your tickets now here Uniform ShopThe Uniform shop will be open on Friday 23rd July from 8.00am - 4.00pm over the holidays. For any other requests please call into reception. Facilities to hireLooking for a space to hire for afterschool activities? Our Dance Studio and all weather turf area now have availability! If you are interested in hiring a space please get in touch: communications@pinehurst.school.nz Pat Hanley Creativity AwardsKyuwon Park was selected as one of the talented recipients of the Pat Hanly Creativity Awards 2021. Ms Smith and Kyuwon's mum were there to support him at an evening event at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Kids at the MoviesThese holidays Centrestage Youth Theatre presents Kids at the Movies - The Kids Kabaret. Featuring best loved songs from your favourite movie musicals - Trolls, Enchanted, Despicable Me and many more. Presented by an enthusiastic cast of 26 young local performers, including several Pinehurst students; Isabelle Wilcock, Charlotte Clark, Victoria Clark and Grace Clark. Come along and join in the fun! Performances Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 July at 7.30pm nightly and Saturday 17 July at 2pm and 7.30pm. Link for tickets: Performances - Kids at The Movies - Kids Kabaret - Centrestage (patronbase.com) |