No images? Click here Message from the Executive Principal
Kia ora koutou, good afternoon, 下午好, 안녕하세요 A Year 1 child had a question for me. It was before school, and he was wandering along the path in the front of the front lawn. He stopped, pointed at my tie, and asked me what it was. A tie, I said. He paused, a little puzzled, then asked another question: “why are you wearing it?” It was my turn to pause. “Well… to look smart.” He frowned, looked skeptical and went on his way. I came away feeling that I’d lost that little debate. We’re back! Fifteen children have begun their school journey with Miss Taylor, who has made a great start to life at Pinehurst. The children have settled very well indeed, and I saw two of the girls in the class skipping on their way to the class this morning, so I think they’re pretty happy to be here. We have only a few new students in other year groups because we have very little movement during the year, but a huge welcome from me and from the whole school community as you start your Pinehurst journey. It’s so great to be surrounded by our vibrant community once again. I’ve been very impressed, actually, with the way the school has come back. There’s so much energy about the place: in the very first lesson of the week, lessons included Year 13 students making aspirin (yes, really), and Year 10s cutting up eyeballs. Primary classes were into maths and literacy lessons within 10 minutes of the start of term, and the buzz is generated by the prospect of lots of learning mixed with a huge number of events. We have visiting authors, including Kate de Goldi, coming in to talk to Year 7-9 students in a couple of weeks; in the next week alone we have three Year 7/8 Zone Days (netball, futsal and rippa); trees are being planted offsite next week; the Ensemble Concert is next week too… and the full winter sport programme is up and running. On that: special congratulations to the Year 4 and Year 5 netball teams, both of whom won their A Grade tournaments at the weekend; and to the Year 6 team, who made it to the A Grade semi-finals. I’m looking forward to seeing the College production of Annie tonight. It’s a full house, and I hear that the first two nights have been fabulous, so well done to all the students involved, and to the amazing team of teachers who have been supporting them. I’d like to make a special mention to Mr Ronayne, who’s directing the music for the first time at Pinehurst, and to Miss Cox, who has picked up the reins as Director and done an a superb job. A little later this term, the Year 5 and 6 are going to be dressed up as assorted animals for Madagascar. It promises to be special! On Wednesday night, we ran our Year 8-9 Transition Evening in College 4. We had a great turnout – around 150 people were there – and I’d like to thank the whole community for your ongoing commitment to engaging with the school like this. It’s something that makes us special: we want you to know as much as possible about the work we do with our students because we know that this is the best way to support them. Thank you to the College leadership team for making sure this went so well. On Tuesday and Thursday we have our second College Parent Teacher Conferences of the year – it’s a good chance to catch up with teachers, so I look forward to seeing many of you there. Finally, I’d like to mention two alumni students. On Wednesday, David Lu popped into school to return some of his Prizegiving trophies before heading overseas. David was a fabulous Pinehurst student, joining us as a five year old in 2008, leaving us as young man in 2021, and now on his way to Carnegie Mellon University in the USA. It was a delight to see him, and I’m so pleased that he’s going to fulfil his ambitions. He’s worked hard for it, and will do superbly. We also got news this week that Louie Holgate-Simpson, who was Head Boy in 2018, has graduated from King’s College, London, with a First in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (the news was accompanied by a great picture with the Houses of Parliament and the Thames behind him!). Congratulations to Louie! Have a lovely weekend and see you next week. 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 1st August
Tuesday 2nd August
Wednesday 3rd August
Thursday 4th August
Message from the Principal of PrimaryKia ora, It has been wonderful to welcome everyone again this week despite the icy cold wind and lashings of rain. Everyone I spoke to seemed happy to be back, three weeks gave some a chance to travel overseas and reconnect with family or just to enjoy some sunshine and warmth again. I read a lot of books and indulged in creative pastimes, including building a Lego bonsai tree which I got for Mother's Day, it wasn't that easy with long nails, but it was a satisfying process. We welcomed 15 New Entrants to P23 along with Derek Guo in P13 and three new members of staff, Leah Taylor in New Entrants, Sophie Berry in Year 6 and Laurie Cadag teaching Year 1-3 Spanish. Our New Entrants look like they have been here all year and they happily skip into school each morning ready for the day. As always, we got straight into our programmes from the first day and every class was focused and ready to learn. As teachers we spent Monday focused on the educational impact we can make in maths and how to encourage our students to articulate their thinking in maths as well as develop appropriate mathematical vocabulary. We looked at the importance of mental maths, using materials like cubes, number lines and counters and how to problem solve. We also reflected on our collection of data and how it is used to improve outcomes for learning, and on continuing to develop positive classroom cultures. You will have received the Term 3 learning overview before the holidays via Seesaw, please contact your child's teacher if you have any question around our programmes for this term. There is much to look forward to with Book Week, Madagascar, Lego day, Year 4 camp, Y0-4 Cross Country, and Y4-6 Speech competition as well as trips to the museum, the theatre and art gallery. We look forward to watching Basketball and Hockey again, and some no doubt outstanding results, across all sporting codes and competitions. Maths Whizz certificates are on their way with many students gaining their green tick for the term. Please continue to support your child to complete their weekly homework on Maths Whizz and Reading Eggs, it does helps them in class and the programmes were chosen specifically because they match our curriculum. Not every child loves doing their homework but there are ways to set them up for success. Choose a time that works best for your child, this could be morning or afternoon. Make sure they have a good space to work in and can be free from distractions as much as possible. Hungry children find it hard to focus so a snack is good and using a timer for reluctant learners to break their homework into smaller chunks often works well. Five or ten minutes spread over the afternoon feels more achievable than 30 all at once. It's the end result that matters. Enjoy your weekend. Noho ora mai, Sian Year 5 & 6 NewsKia ora from the Year 5/6 Syndicate. It has been great to see so many happy faces back at school this week. I would like to extend a huge warm welcome to Sophie Berry who is joining us as a Year 6 teacher in P19. This term the Year 5/6 team will be presenting the stage show Madagascar – A Musical Adventure Jr.. Rehearsals are well underway, costumes are being collated and students are well into learning the songs. Performance nights are the 30 August and 1st September, tickets will be on sale soon so please look out for these as we would love your support. In Writing, we will be focusing half the term on persuasive speeches with our Year 4-6 competition taking place at the end of the term. Year 5 will also investigate mysterious incidents that have taken place at Victor Rowley’s Red Café. Students, along with the Big Writing Agency will learn to write a newspaper article to encourage residents to come forward with more information. Students will also write letters of explanation to the park authorities to explain how the issues could be resolved. Following this, students will write a gripping mystery story about the strange occurrences at the Red Café. Year 6’s Big Write mission involves landmarks all over Europe mysteriously vanishing. As panic spreads, the Big Write Agents (students) must write a newspaper article to reveal the Collector’s role in the disappearances. Students then have to act fast to warn politicians in the Houses of Parliament before they become the Collector’s next target. In Global Perspectives, Year 6 will be completing a challenge called, ‘If I was a world leader’. By the end of this challenge, students will have developed their evaluation skills by assessing the reliability of information from different sources. They will learn about the educational rights of children worldwide, the problems with school attendance in some countries, what organisations are doing, as well as possible actions they could undertake as individuals to help the situation. Year 5’s Global Perspective Challenge involves ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle. Where does all our packaging go?’ By the end of this challenge, students will identify key information about ocean health and waste from website articles. Learners will use what they know about materials, along with new information, to identify whether packaging could be recycled, reused or made of biodegradable materials, and will create a proposal for redesigning an item of packaging to help reduce the amount of waste in our oceans. In Art, Year 5 students will be manipulating clay to create a pinch pot design. Year 6 will be exploring printmaking and the artist Andy Warhol. Watch out for photos of our artworks in upcoming weeks newsletters. Last Term in P16!Children have been learning all about writing recounts. To help explore recounts, children acted out stories whilst thinking about how they would feel in these situations and how they would show their thoughts through body actions. When children were in the audience they had to think of as many describing words as they could, to talk about what was happening on our classroom stage. We used this to help inform our planning before we began writing. There was lots of descriptive, imaginative language as children recounted events showing their perspective. In art last term we have been learning all about the colour wheel, through mixing colours, shades and tints, and European artists. Using our knowledge of colour mixing children are creating artworks inspired by famous artists, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee. Students have set their own success criteria based on what they notice about a famous work of art and are trying to replicate it in their own art. Can you guess who has inspired our P16 artists? We were also visited by Marlon from ASB Get Wise, he taught the children all about CASH- Clear goals, Actions, Save/Spend and How long? Children had to set a clear savings goal, decide on the actions they could take to reach this goal, then decide how they would save or spend any money they managed to earn. Once they had done this they had to calculate (using the formal written method of division) how long it would take them to reach their goals. Next, they had to decide, was their goal a realistic and achievable goal? The children had a fantastic time working with Marlon. Mid-Season Primary Netball TournamentOn Sunday, 24th July, three of our Primary Netball teams took part in the Mid-season Netball Tournament at Netball North Harbour. It was the first time most of these girls have taken part in a tournament, and they demonstrated their developing netball skills, positive attitudes and enjoyment for the game. Overall, it was a fantastic day as the girls got the opportunity to compete against teams from all over Auckland. Our Year 6 team went unbeaten through their first four games to win their pool. This won them a place in the A Grade semi-final where they played Randwick Park School from Manurewa and narrowly missed out on the finals. It was a very hard-fought game; our girls never gave up and we were very proud of them. Both our Year 4 and Year 5 teams went unbeaten to win their sections, which won them each a place in the finals. Both finals were exciting to watch, and our girls showed great resilience and skill to see them go home as the A Grade winners. Year 4 – Pinehurst Kereru against Red Beach Pulse (12-0) Year 5 – Pinehurst Kea against Sherwood Pugs (12-2) A huge congratulations to all three teams on their achievements! A big thank you to coaches Debbie Stanaway, Lynn De Winnaar and Lyndy Williams for taking the teams, and our wonderful parents who supported the teams on the day. Introducing our Primary Specialist TeachersMandarin Years 5-6 For Mandarin, the mixed groups in years 5 and 6 will be learning about food and drink. They will learn to use the sentence starters to express likes and dislikes, as well as describe whether the food/drink is tasty or not. There will also be a topic study on the Mid-Autumn Festival closer to the end of the term. Chantelle Wang Mandarin Years 0-4 Mid-Autumn festival 中秋节 - one of the larger Chinese festivals will fall on September 10th this year. This term, we will spend time exploring and learning about the origin of the festival and its importance in the Chinese culture. We will learn about the legends associated with the festival and of course mooncakes will be featured in our programme. 中秋节 is not complete without mooncakes. Biec Vien Year 2 and 3 Health Year 3 begin the term with a unit of work called, ‘Looking on the Bright Side.’ Students will learn to: · Think of negative events and mistakes as learning opportunities and experiences · Accept that bad times are temporary and don’t have to spoil other parts of your life · Be thankful for the good things that happen, express thanks and show appreciation towards others · Use positive tracking · Develop an optimistic mindset when faced with setbacks or difficulties. In Year 2, the students will be focusing on developing courage. Students will develop their understanding that if there is no fear there is no courage, and that what makes one person nervous, worried or scared may not be the same for others. Students will learn to: Discriminate between everyday courage, heroism, sensible risk taking and foolhardiness Recognise that courage can be physical, psychological or moral Pippa Fleming New Entrant – Year 1 Music Our youngest students in P23 will focus on rhythm this term. They will be copying short rhythms, finding the pulse of a piece of music and clapping the pulse. Our Year 1 students will move into rhythm and notation in Term 3. Students will learn techniques of listening and responding to music, maintaining the beat, writing basic rhythmic notation and pitching songs correctly when singing. They will perform simple melodies on tuned instruments such as chime bars and xylophones. Ashleigh Pope Physical Education This term within PE we are looking to develop our student's fundamental movement skills through the use of games and activities associated with Rugby, Cricket and Athletics. These sports also provide us with the opportunity to work on our interpersonal skills within a competitive environment, striving towards success while ensuring we are developing positive sportsmanship. Jack Taylor Year 4-6 Spanish Welcome to Term 3 Spanish! We will continue to consolidate all four skill areas (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) while learning about different topics: La comida- Food (Year 4), La ropa- Clothing (Year 5), and Los deportes y los pasatiempos- Sports/hobbies (Year 6). We will learn to use correct pronunciation when presenting dialogues. iVamos! Nicole Shin Term 3 Science Day one and we are already up and running with our programme with lots of hands-on activities. Year 4: Our unit covers the skeleton of animals, including humans. Students will be learning about the function of the skeleton and identifying and naming the major bones. We have started with the human skeleton and today we learnt the names of a few of the major bones. Students constructed skeleton models, put together jigsaw puzzles, played Bone Bingo, and worked together to label our giant skeleton. Day one and we are already up and running with our programme with lots of hands-on activities. Year 5: This terms work will focus on plants both flowering and non-flowering varieties. Today we started with observations of flowers and learning about the male and female parts of the flower. Due to the lack of flowers in our school grounds we made careful observations of some artificial flowers. Students will dissect some real flowers and use microscopes to look at the pollen grains prior to learning about the process of pollination and fertilisation. Expect to see some seeds coming home to grow and even a mung bean or two to sprout at home. Watch out for some photographs on Seesaw of our amazing flower models constructed from plasticene. Jacqui Herbert Extension This term in Extension English our focus shifts to writing. I am currently working with the Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 students on developing their skills in narrative writing. They are learning to write for an audience and maintain a strong connection. We are exploring various language techniques that help make a rich experience for the reader. In Year 2 STEM the students are learning to understand the workings of mechanisms and how they help simple machines. They will be exploring levers, gears, pulleys, wheels and axles. In Year 3 Robotics the students are working on science and engineering tasks to build solutions to problems and use coding blocks to programme their builds to carry out simple commands. In Year 4 and 5 Robotics the students are being introduced to Mindstorms NXT and EV3 and building driving bases and using scratch programming to complete challenges and commands using various sensors and motors. Rachael McKewen New Entrants - Year 2We welcome 15 new students into P23 and their teacher Leah Taylor. Despite the weather, Miss Taylor has had a warm welcome to Pinehurst and feels part of the Pinehurst whanau already. In P1 and P2 this term they are learning all about nocturnal and diurnal animals. Their friend, Fizz has asked the students to find out all about animals that come out at night-time. They have some exciting books from the library to help them learn all about the different animals. Later in the term the students will start to learn all about space. In maths, Year 1 are starting the term with place value all the way up to 50. The students are also extending their knowledge of odd and even numbers. As the term progresses, they will explore elements of weight, height, length. P1 and P2 are also practicing counting in steps of 2, 5 and 10. The science topic is ‘What happens at night’. The students will look at lots of different things such as the moon, animals at night, the night sky and how things move. During Global Perspectives they will be learning about different cultures from New Zealand to Mexico and Japan. P4 and P5 are learning about pirates this term, their writing is based around a message in a bottle. The students have started writing instructions on how to be a pirate. In Science the students are learning about light and sound and then later in the term, magnetism. In Global Perspectives they will be looking at learning new things. A really important topic in Health will be Food and Nutrition, which is ideal when looking at what is in the lunchbox. In maths this week the year 2 classes have enjoyed using a range of materials to show numbers in different representations. They have experienced seeing a number in written form, explained the value of the number for example how many hundreds, tens and ones in the given number, written as numerals and then a range of materials all representing the same number. The students found as many ways as they could to make 84. P6, P7 and P8 have began the term looking at teeth and learning about the function of them. The students were really interested in learning about the proper names of the different teeth and what they are used for. As they continue to learn about teeth, they are also learning the importance of caring for them and the ways to do so. Message from the Principal of CollegeKia ora Pinehurst Whānau I hope you have enjoyed your time together during the school break. My own break included a trip to the South Island where we experienced the Trans Alpine train journey which travels from Christchurch to Greymouth. This really is a spectacular trip with breathtaking views of the Canterbury Plains and the Southern Alps, and it was a reminder of how lucky we are to live in such an amazing part of the world. I came back home feeling grateful, very rested and ready to start Term 3. After a very bleak, grey and rainy Teacher only Day on Monday, it was wonderful to see the sun shining on Tuesday morning to greet our students to Term 3. As I welcomed our students back on that day, I was met with happy, smiling faces and excited chatter at the school gate. We have had a very positive start to the term with students quickly getting on with their learning and actively engaging in their work. During the break, many of our students were continuing with school related activities including representing us in sports and carrying on with projects. Our Girls’ Football Team has had an outstanding season. They played in the finals against Orewa College and our whole team demonstrated huge determination and resilience in a well-fought match which ended in a loss to us after a penalty shoot-out. We also had wins over the break for our Under 19 and Under 17 Boys’ Basketball teams, 1st XI Boys Hockey, Girls Hockey, Seven-a-Side Hockey and Lacrosse. In Table Tennis, team 1 finished second in the A1 grade and Team 2 finished second in the A grade. These are fantastic results and all of our students who are participating in sports can be proud of their efforts. On Wednesday we hosted the first of three information evenings of the term. This was for our parents and students who in 2023 are transitioning from Year 8 to Year 9, and the event was very well attended. Thank you to all of those parents and students who braved a cold night and came into school to hear about the differences they can expect as they transition through the College. Early in August, we will also be holding information evenings about IGCSE and A Level examinations. Parent Teacher Conferences are being held next week on Tuesday and Thursday and our teachers are looking forward to seeing you during these evenings. The College production of Annie finishes tonight and I am very keen to see our students perform at Centrestage later this evening. They have had two successful performances so far and I am sure that tonight’s performance will be a real treat. We have a busy and important term ahead of us, but I know that our students are ready for any challenges they will face. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I look forward to seeing you at Parent Teacher Conferences. Ngā mihi nui Dawn Basketball:We would like to congratulate the following students on their selection in the respective Harbour Basketball Teams: 2022 Harbour Basketball Under 13 Division 1 Team:
2022 Harbour Basketball Under 13 Division 2 Team:
This is an awesome achievement, and we wish these students all the best for their upcoming representative campaigns. We can’t wait to see them in action next week when the Term 3 competition kicks off. Premier A Table TennisIn Term 2, the Pinehurst Premier A table tennis team were crowned champions of their league. A warm congratulations to Matthew Heng, Keitaro Yoneda and Youngmin Kim. Youngmin Kim was also crowned the individual Champion for the Premier league. This term we have three teams in various table tennis leagues and we wish all teams good luck for their competition ahead. Jessica Drescher GymnasticsDuring the school holiday, Jessica Drescher (Year 7) competed in the National Rhythmic Gymnastics competition in Invercargill. Jessica competed in four different apparatus – Ball, Freehand, Hoop and Clubs. She performed consistently with all four apparatus and was award with a fifth place for Overall. Jessica also competed in a team with three other gymnasts representing North Harbour and they came away with Gold. Well done Jessica and congratulations! Year 8 KitesOn the last day of term the Year 8s assembled by the amphitheatre to fly kites. As part of our measurement topic the students were asked to research and design kites for Matariki. They had to create a blueprint and calculate the area and perimeters of their designs. Extra marks were awarded for creativity and their ability to fly. Physical Education - Life Saving AssessmentsThis week, our IGCSE and A level students have been assessed in their ability to perform CPR and deliver appropriate care to unconscious casualties. This skill has been developed as a part of their practical assessment in Life Saving. In addition to performing CPR, students also completed skills in the pool such as towing, throwing rescue ropes, rescuing casualties from deep water and performing patient care on pool side. All students have demonstrated a good level of care and competence and should be pleased with their achievements so far. Solo and Duo Performance ShowcaseWe were delighted to host our first music concert in over a year in the last week of last term. This was the first in a series of concerts open to all students to showcase their wonderful talents. There will be more opportunities later in the year where students who did not perform will be prioritised for selection. A big thank you to Natalie Raphael for being our MC. Ashleigh Pope Brayden Zhao ABRSM Merit AchievementBrayden Zhao from Year 6 P18 recently sat the the ABRSM Piano Grade 8 Performance exam and was awarded with a very impressive Merit!! Well done Brayden. Sibling PhotosIf you were sick or in isolation in May and missed our Sibling Photos session, we have secured a time slot for a ‘make-up’ session. This will be on Monday 1st August at 11am during Period 3. If you would like your children to take part in this, please complete the attached form and email to sylvia.lum@pinehurst.school.nz If you had your sibling photo taken in May, these should arrive at school shortly and we will send this home with your eldest child. |