No images? Click here Newsletter - 8 April 2022Message from the Executive PrincipalKia ora koutou, good afternoon, 你好, 안녕하세요 Congratulations to our Premier Golf Team. We are once again Auckland Champions, beating King’s College in the semi-finals and Rosmini College in the final. We were unbeaten for the whole season, and have now cemented ourselves as Auckland’s top golfing school. So to Yeonsoo, Nicole and Towa (all of whom now have their second consecutive Auckland titles) and to Yicheng, who is only in Year 8: well done. We are very proud of you. We’re just a few days away from the beginning of the Easter holidays, and this will be the last newsletter of an eventful term. Reception, you may have noticed, has had a distinctly eggy theme for the last week or so, and our generous Easter Bunny will make a return on Wednesday. The leaves are turning; mornings are cool and clear; it’s time to have a rest and, for many of us, a holiday! Our Year 9 students this week enjoyed a Big Day Out, mountain biking and tree climbing, returning to school at 4.30 looking suitably exhausted. For some of our students, this was their first time doing this kind of biking (indeed, for a few, the first time on a bike), and I’m delighted that we’re able to start running our normal programme of outdoor activities once again. The Year 9 Sailing and Wilderness Camp has been rescheduled for Term 4, and I can’t wait for the students to once again discover a little more about their capacity for resilience and endurance. Our Silver Award Duke of Edinburgh students – over 20 Year 11s and Year 12s – left today for Mahurangi West, ready for a weekend of tramping and kayaking. Many thanks to all of our staff for giving our young people so many opportunities. I was fortunate to see a little of our Orchestra Rehearsal on Tuesday. Mr Ronayne, who joined us earlier this term, has moved rehearsals to a 6 pm to 8 pm slot, and the benefit of the extra time was clear to see. Mr Ronayne was working with wind and percussion, while Ms Byun, whom we have just employed to support music performances in school, was conducting our string section. Our repertoire has become more challenging this year, and the sound, for this stage of the year, was amazing. We are lucky to have six such talented cellists to drive the strings, but my highlight was hearing a beautifully-played oboe cut through the night air. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to have musical performances, but our plan remains to run far more opportunities for students to perform, and we will be talking more about this early next term. I’ve missed hearing our young people perform. We also had our Debating teams in action on Tuesday night – thank you to Mr Zimmermann for his support of the teams. We have six teams this year, the most we’ve had for some time and, even though the debates are still being held online, it’s great to see such enthusiasm and skill. Tuesday and Thursday nights saw us run Primary Parents’ Evenings to our usual rhythms. Thank you to all the parents who attended, and of course to the teachers for their commitment and care of the children. It has made a huge difference to have all the students back in school, and we can already see the patterns of ‘normal’ life return. For a few children, the readjustment has been quite difficult, but my impression as I move in and out of classes has been that we’re pretty much back to where we should be. This is especially true of participation in our extra-curricular programmes. We have ten Primary netball teams once again, and will have the largest presence at Kidzplay; and we now have nearly all our Primary basketballers back in action, for example. I hope that the conferences were useful for you: whilst the holidays are a time to get some rest, they can also be a chance to reset for next term and to make some academic targets that children can work towards. Our College Parent-Teacher Conferences are on Monday and Tuesday next week. We’re running these in a greater number of rooms than normal to ensure we can have reasonable physical separation, so please bear with us if there’s a little more movement than usual. These are a valuable opportunity to ask questions about the students’ Term 1 reports, and to focus our older students on the crucial learning that takes place in Term 2. Enjoy the last few days of term, and have a wonderful holiday. School finishes for students at 3.15 pm on Wednesday 13th April, and the school will be completely closed on Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday, reopening on Wednesday 20th April. The Uniform Shop will be open whenever the school is open. Have a lovely weekend and a wonderful holiday. Ngā mihi, Alex. 如需阅读校长的中文留言和重要事件日期,请点击此处
Monday 11th April
Tuesday 12th April
Wednesday 13th April
Message from the Principal of PrimaryKia ora, I have never felt especially drawn to be a New Entrant teacher, preferring older years and College teaching too for a while. New Entrant teachers are a special type of people with a real passion to teach five year olds and a great task to be a child’s first teacher. My first teacher was called Miss Ormerod and she seemed to me to be a hundred years old at least. I’m sure she wasn’t, but she was very stern and nothing like our warm and nurturing teachers here at Pinehurst. Five year olds are slightly unpredictable at times, want to tell you everything about their lives, their lunch, their pets and what they like and don’t like. To teach them how to write a set of instructions when they have only been at school one or two terms seems like an impossible task. And yet I witnessed this week how specific teaching and a focus on literacy skills has such an impact even on very young learners. Bossy verbs, bullet points, Fred Fingers and visual aids helped P2 to write some pretty sophisticated instructions for crossing the, ‘Valley of Doom.’ You may have heard discussions in the media recently about structured literacy and what is needed to ensure children and young people have the literacy skills needed to take them into adulthood. Our programmes have been designed and refined over a number of years, particularly in numeracy and literacy, to be specific in their approach so that students learn the basics really well. We are very proud of what we have created and the results that our students are able to achieve. The excitement is building around Madagascar Jr our Year 5 and 6 show and we have the second of two workshops today which our Year 6 students will attend. I can’t wait to go and see how they are getting on and have been invited by our Director Kelly Clark to, Move it, Move it, this afternoon. I don’t think that will be the last time we hear the phrase! The audition tapes have been coming in and we really have a talented bunch of students to work with, if we need an understudy there are some great parent auditions too. Thanks parents for playing all the other parts of the script while your children try out for the part they want. Kia pai to rā whakata, have a good weekend. Ngā mihi, Sian Coxon. P13 this week'Growing our learning’ has been our motto in P13. Our grass heads have had their first haircut to promote lots of new growth and learning for the following term. We have been developing our visualising skills during our ‘Big Read’ novel ‘Madam Pamplemousse and her Incredible Edibles.’ Here are some of our fabulous sketches of Monsieur Lard; a bully of a character in the story. In Maths this week, we have had fun learning about decimals and have played a fun rounding game to extend our thinking with a partner. Our Picasso portraits have also finally been finished and look fantastic displayed in our classroom. Feel free to come for a look. This week in P17P17 are loving being all back together again. Students have come back to P17 focused and hungry to learn. We have had a lot of fun writing balanced arguments about whether we should save endangered animals or not. It was interesting to see how creative students could be with their arguments. We have also been investigating debating and the format and structure of a debate. Students have brainstormed many ideas and are currently working in small groups as debate teams to practice forming a rebuttal and giving an argument. In Math this week, we have been learning how to convert pounds to kilograms and vice versa. Students have enjoyed working together to help each other solve problems. We have also been investigating decimals and students have done a fabulous job of learning how to round decimals and the fraction equivalent of decimals. In Reading, we are making inferences about characters and using evidence from the text to support our answers. Students have loved collaborating and working in small groups, especially when we made 2 truths and a lie from a section of our class novel “Treasure Hunters, Secrets of the Forbidden City’. This activity challenged understandings, caused a great debate, and made students re-examine the text for evidence. P19’s Still Life Art and Saving BrianTerm 1 zoomed past, and now the holidays are right around the corner - how exciting! P19 have been very busy with their learning, and we are proud of our achievement this term. Upon finishing our Big Write Time Capsule Mission, we have successfully learned how to write autobiographies, recounts and persuasive letters. Writing an autobiography has been an excellent opportunity to reflect on our lives and think about what awaits us in the future. Our focus in Visual Arts has been sketching still life art this term. We learned what values are (how light or dark something is), how to shade, contour and think about the different values of shades based on where the light is coming from. We carefully observed some cups, bowls and other everyday objects to sketch and shade. Have a look at our amazing art! P19 have been hooked on to the class novel, ‘Hatchet’. Hatchet is a story about a 13-year-old boy Brian who gets involved in a plane crash and has to survive in the Canadian Wilderness. Stemmed by the question, “what if Brian had a parachute to survive the plane crash?” the children worked in small groups to create a parachute to help Brian land safely and slowly. We tested our prototypes, and at last, Brian was safe and landed without having to injure himself from the horrible plane crash. Well done, guys! What a week in P15!This week in writing, we continue with our study of Balanced Arguments. We are learning how to use generalizing language, adverbials and emotive language to write a balanced view on an issue such as ‘Should children be allowed to choose their own subjects in primary school?’ and ‘Should the school day finish at 1pm?’. We have also investigated active vs passive voice. We completed an exercise to convert sentences from active voice into passive voice and we now feel more confident to use it in our Big Write. In reading, we are working our way through our novel, ‘Treasure Hunters Secret of the Forbidden City’. This week, we worked closely with Rex Retriever and Dood Detective to justify and elaborate on thoughts, feelings, opinions, and predictions all while referring back to the text for evidence. We are also working on making inferences using our own prior knowledge coupled with cues and clues from the text. In maths this week, our learning focus was on decimals (adding decimals as complements of 1, rounding decimals and sequencing decimals). We also refined our problem solving skills for tricky questions involving mass and scaling. We have been highlighting key words in word problems to help find clues about which operation we should be using. In Health, students selected and researched historical figures who did something for which we feel grateful. They worked hard develop an understanding that they can feel gratitude towards people whose actions benefitted society as a whole, and that these benefits may be felt years or even centuries later. They then presented their chosen historical figure and research to the class. In ICT, students are wrapping up their learning for the term by constructing an information leaflet for Year 5 students to inform them how to stay safe online. Their leaflets include creative elements such as activities for Year 5s to complete, key definitions of important vocabulary and step by step information on how to be a good digital citizen. P15 managed to secure 2nd place on the MathsWhizz podium last week! We are hoping to continue our streak this week with another Top 3 finish! Ms Shaw is very proud of the children for their diligence and effort with MathsWhizz. Year 5 and Year 6 MandarinThe students in the mixed group have been learning the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. We learned how to introduce ourselves with basic information such as name, age and our zodiac sign. We also know how to say what animals we like and dislike using 我喜欢 (wǒxǐhuān) and 我不喜欢 (wǒbùxǐhuān) as sentence starters. This term our Year 5 and Year 6 CFL students have been working on improving their fluency in speaking with tongue twisters and their accuracy in writing Chinese characters. We have been learning the vocabulary and sentences to describe the beginning of a new term and this week Year 5 and Year 6 are writing a recount about their first day of the term in Chinese. They are encouraged to write in paragraphs with a title that relates to the text. They use time connectives to put the events in order and record their feelings and hopes from the beginning of the term. Many of our students mention in their writing that on the first day they hoped to make friends and learn new things. Seeing them working together and helping each other, you can easily tell many of these hopes have become the reality. Message from the Principal of CollegeKia ora, As I write my final Pinehurst newsletter and think about what I will say to students and staff next week as I farewell the school, I look back to 2011, the year I joined Pinehurst and reflect upon the journey that I have made with the College at Pinehurst. When I joined the school, the college was split in two, with Junior College consisting of Years 7 – 9, and the Senior College of Years 10-13. Both Colleges had their own set of staff, their own uniform, and slightly different ways of doing things. The Junior College was overseen by the Head of Primary, and I joined Mr Wiggin as an Assistant Headmaster in the Senior College. The Senior College had three Head of Faculties, one of which was Mr Wiggin, compared to the six Head of Departments that now oversee the development of the curriculum at Pinehurst. As I have mentioned previously much has changed in the proceeding 11 years. The senior college I joined had 219 students split into 16 PODs, and the Junior College had 173 students split across 8 Homerooms. Our College now has 628 students split across 24 PODs and 8 Homerooms, and we are looking at extending the numbers of PODs next year to keep them small so that students and POD teachers can build relationships to ensure that first step in a sense of belonging within the College. Of course this growth in student numbers has been matched by a growth in teacher numbers, support staff, curriculum growth, and buildings. It has been great to be involved in a school with so much positive change and I must admit to being slightly disappointed that I will not see the completion of College 5, the last building to complete the College. While much has changed, much has also remained the same. The values and ethos of the school are still strong. We have students that work hard academically, engage positively with each other, and enjoy a fantastic range of opportunities. Since last Friday’s newsletter we have had or Year 8 and Year 13 students return from Camps. Our Year 9 students enjoyed an activity day out, and this morning 27 students and 3 teachers have headed out on the latest Duke of Edinburgh expedition. As I was leaving school yesterday the Drama Room was full of students in costume completing the promotional photoshoot for this year’s Production, there were six volleyball teams in the gym completing the finals of their term long tournament, a mixed football team was warming up to play Mt Richmond special school, while the orchestra was rehearsing in the Dance Studio. Today at lunchtime the staff will be playing the students in football in the first of three competitions throughout the year. What this highlights to me is the fantastic work that our teachers do both within the classroom and beyond to ensure the best possible education for our students. They work hard to foster positive relationships to support our students to become the wonderful young adults that we are proud to see graduate our school each year. I will miss the hustle and bustle of daily school life. I will miss the many questions that I receive everyday from students and staff. For now, I am stepping away from the education sector, I think this is probably a good thing in the short term as I cannot see myself enjoying another school as much as I have at Pinehurst. I hope that I have the chance to catch up with many parents next week at our conferences on Monday and Tuesday. Nga mihi, Kieran Verryt. Year 8 Leadership campThe Year 8s had a fabulous time at the Leadership Camp. On the Thursday, they learned some valuable first aid skills and how to build a night shelter. The run down and walk up the sand dunes was exhausting for most, but a well deserve barefoot walk in the shallow stream was just what they needed to cool down. Night games of spotlight generated a lot of excitement, with one teacher who was never found. Well done to the team that found Mr Reynolds as he was worth double the prizes. On Friday, the students showed excellent levels of teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills as they challenged themselves in a range of activities. It was a great camp and experience for all involved. Year 9 "Finally" get a day out!After another term of disruption to our Outdoor Education programme, we were fortunate to offer an alternative opportunity to our Year 9 students to experience some learning and fun outside the parameters of our usual academic programme. Year 9 spent the day out in Woodhill Forest this week ducking and diving their mountain bikes through various trails and testing their agility and nerve navigating suspended obstacles and ziplines high up in the pines of Tree Adventures. Well done to all of Year 9 for embracing this outdoor opportunity, and a special thank you to all the staff and two dads that accompanied us, especially Mrs Rea and Mrs Heslop for teaching some of our Year 9 students how to ride a bike. Year 13 Tongariro Camp
Life101 this weekWe were fortunate to have Employment Lawyer (and Pinehurst parent), Natalie Tabb, come in to work with the students in the Year 12 Life101 course this week. Our focus was Employment Law and Rights and Entitlements as an Employee. Students gained valuable information that is immediately relevant in permanent part-time or casual employment (we learnt the difference!) for the students who currently have jobs or are looking to get one soon. And of course, it will still be relevant when they seek full time employment in later years. Thank you Natalie for giving up so much of your time! Greenhouse Club UpdateIt’s been a productive term for the Greenhouse Club, the club is made up of enthusiastic students from Year 7 to Year 13 and is brand new this year. Pinehurst’s newest extracurricular activity started this term with an empty greenhouse and two planting beds. Since then we’ve:
To celebrate our success this week, we had a shared lunch using some of the ingredients from our garden. With winter coming along next term, we’ll be focusing on building a more long time pukeko defence, maintaining and possibly expanding our hydroponics setup, and using the greenhouse to cultivate seedlings to plant in early spring. Pinehurst TennisTennis has continued to build on the momentum from previous years and welcomed a number of new students this Term. We had two training groups (foundation and advanced) with students developing a range of skills in both groups. The foundation group had a focus on learning and applying correct technique in the core tennis skills including the forehand, backhand, volley and serving. Whilst the advanced group have been developing their consistency with hitting drills and tactical awareness in both singles and doubles. We’ve also had four teams represent Pinehurst in the North Harbour Competition who have all done extremely well. Special mention must go to the Pinehurst 1 Boys Team who won the A-grade competition against schools all around the North Shore. We’ve also had a number of younger students playing against much older opposition which is great as they develop along their tennis journey. A big thank you to the parents who continue to support the school Tennis programme and to the students who bring enthusiasm and a positive attitude to each session. Year 8 PEYear 8 students have been able to experience a range of striking and fielding games this term. In each of these games, students need to analyse different roles within the game. As a striker, they think about body position when standing ready to strike the ball, where best to hit the ball that allows them time to score points for their team and minimise getting out. It has been pleasing to see some students trick the fielding team by giving cues of what they might do or where they might hit and then doing the opposite. As fielders, students have been working as a team on how to cover the fielding area, move under high balls to catch players out, where to throw the ball to maximise getting strikers out and choosing the correct throwing technique, whether under or over arm. It has been great to see the students’ applying tactics and learning the application of terms in some of these games to their advantage, for example “all bases are loaded”. Year 10 PEYear 10 IGCSE PE students have applied their knowledge of bones, joints, tendons, and ligaments to create a mechanical hand. Pinehurst Golf Team Auckland ChampionsPinehurst won the Auckland Secondary School Golf Championships (again) on Monday and for a relatively small school we have excellent golfers. Each week they compete against the best secondary school golfers in Auckland and win as a team. Our students appreciate the chance to play as a team and so we support each other, prepare well each week for our games and always give our best. On Monday we beat Rosmini at the Huapai Golf Club. Our match against them during the season was much closer but in the final we were a better team winning easily 192 – 224. Player profiles
Pinehurst Internal Volleyball LeagueToday was the culmination of a term of fierce volleyball competition, and it did not disappoint. The first match was 1 vs 4, the staff Dream team and Boys 1. There was a good tussle for top spot and the match went to 3 sets and the Dream team were able to pull off a win. The weeks of practice definitely paid off as the ‘oldies’ jumped, stretched and powered their way through. The Boys 2 vs Girls Blue was the next semi-final, and although pretty well matched, the girls’ Blue team showed some consistent attack and solid team work to walk away with the win 2-0. The finals showcased some amazing volleyball with long rallies and daring saves. Although the Dream team were crowned overall victors, it wasn’t an easy win; the games were close and it was incredibly entertaining to watch. Congrats to the staff team – I think we will be putting an all-stars student team together for a rematch in the near future! Thanks to all the spectators who came to watch and to our parents who support their children in sport. It has been a great season. Although it is the end of the school season, Harbour volleyball does have development programmes in Term 2 and 3 for students who are keen to develop their skills. The details will be sent out shortly. Until next season! Year 7/8 Basketball Pinehurst LeagueOver Term 1, our Year 7/8 Basketball players have been working hard on their skills and then playing in an internal ‘mini-league’ on a Friday morning. With teams randomly split at the beginning of the Term, points were earned each week. This week we held our semi-finals and finals. In the first semi-final, White played Silver, with White taking the win 8-2 to progress to the final. The second semi-final saw Blue take on Green, and with the game tied up at full time ‘golden point’ was in play with Green taking the win to move on to the final. The final saw some exciting Basketball, again finishing in a draw at full time. Going to golden point, both teams had opportunities to secure the win, but it was Green who made the final basket to be crowned Term 1 champions! Congratulations to Joshua, Lucas, Peter, Matthew and Stanley! We also want to recognise the weekly ‘Player of the Day’ awards that were presented in Term 1 - these went to: Nick, Carlos, Clarence, Stanley, Harry and Owen. Finally, a big thank you to Coaches Christ & Dan for supporting the programme. Football ExchangeEach year Mt Richmond Special School brings a bunch of students over to play football with our students. The rules are skewed to suit Mt Richmond and, as usual, the score is debatable as to who actually won. It doesn’t matter though, as everyone is just here for a bit of fun, make some new friends, and enjoy another memorable afternoon! Auckland Secondary School Mountain Bike Enduro RaceSenior College student Ben, competed in the U20 AKSS MTB Enduro race held at Maraetai over the weekend, placing 1st in his age group. Well done Ben! AIMS Games 2022Individual Sport Applications & Team Trial Registrations now OPEN for Year 7 & Year 8. If you would like to be part of our AIMS team in 2022 please make sure you: Register to trial for an AIMS Team Sport https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSccaSfTTYnon7bwdQRHYUNlcWNjlgK7NyCq3AQleVVZBXRG9g/viewform?usp=sf_link No later than 9am, Wednesday 4th May 2022. Please see the general information letter sent on Friday 1st April for further details, or click here: AIMS Games General Information Letter 2022 Any questions – students are welcome to pop in to see Mrs Lindsay in the Arena Sports office, before the end of Term 1, or email kelly.lindsay@pinehurst.school.nz Year 11 Computer Science... Pinehurst School Family Online Easter Quiz Winners!Congratulations to the winners of the Pinehurst Family Online Easter Quiz, the Raduban Family! They have received a lovely Devonport chocolate giftbox. Thank you to all our online quiz attendees! Uniform Shop Holiday Opening HoursTerm 2 - Winter Uniform Week 1:
Week 2:
On the above days the shop will be open. Mornings from 8.30am – 12.00pm and afternoons from 1.00pm – 3.00pm. LittleCooks needs helpers!Are you looking for some part time work? Do you like working with kids? Do you love to cook/bake? We are looking for a few helpers for our LittleCooks Monday class for Term 2. Work hours would be 2 hours, duties include working with a small group of students to cook or bake a recipe that the class is working on, and cleaning up afterwards. Applicants must be year 11 or above, responsible, reliable and confident both with cooking and dealing with kids. Pay is $19.00 per hour. Contact Suzi if keen at team@littlecooks.co.nz www.littlecooks.co.nz |