No images? Click here 29 October 2021Pinehurst School NewsletterOpening Words from the Executive Principal...Kia ora tatou, good afternoon, 你好, 안녕하세요 I’ve just popped in to our in-school Primary bubbles, seeing how well our wonderful team of Teacher Aides are supporting the students who are in school. I watched Mrs Walton and Mrs Turner online with our youngest children. There were about 9 students in each class, and nearly all the children were working independently as the teachers delivered their phonics lessons. Every time I do this, I’m so impressed by both our teachers, who are managing to do something that many other schools think isn’t possible, and by our children and their families, who are helping us so much as we work in our online world. I’m mentioning this now because I know that we’re all a little tired and keen to be back in school, connecting socially and working in the same physical space. I’m going to look forward a little this week, but I also want us all to remember how well our community is working together. As we problem-solve, manage the frustrations that come our way, and navigate the changes that we can’t control, we also need to celebrate our ingenuity, adaptability and, yes, our sheer bloody-minded stubbornness. We will make this work! So let’s remember to celebrate our achievements every step of the way at the same time as we look forward to returning to something a little more ‘normal’. So let’s talk about the future! We have confirmed our builders for College 5 and the Theatre now, so you will see action pretty much immediately. The first two buildings in the Village are scheduled to leave on November 11th, with the others following before the end of the year: we’ve donated them to local state schools and community organisations, and they’ve been gratefully received. We are starting ground work on November 8th (being careful, of course, not to disturb any examinations), and the builders will move in properly before the end of the year. We’re currently planning a year of events, small and large, to celebrate its emergence from the ground! The Rosedale Road entrance is now completely ready, and will be available for use when we return. There are 17 parent/visitor parking spaces (10 minute limit in the mornings), plus a drop off zone for mornings which becomes a bus zone in the afternoons. It won’t transform the experience at the front of school, but we’re expecting it to make a difference. We’ve been busy rescheduling over the last week or two. We’ve reached the point now that we expect to run Prizegivings at around the same time as usual, but we will break them up into slightly smaller units, students at school, physically present, parents watching the streamed events. Next term’s camps have been confirmed, and we’re doing things like changing the Year 7/8 Formal Dinner into a Year 9 Formal Dinner early next term, rearranging Duke of Edinburgh tramps for next term, and even making arrangements for an online ‘toast’ to our 30 years. We’re well into our timetabling for next year – which will involve being a tad more flexible with rooms as we manage the year before College 5 is completed – and our staffing is nearly complete too. I have some more work to do around extension and a few bits and pieces around the edge of the curriculum, and I’m hoping that I’ll get that completed in the next couple of weeks. As for the nearer future: there has been a flurry of activity from the Government and from Principals recently, but it does look as though we will get students back into school before the end of term. This is good news! We’re ready, and are doing the final bits of our planning next week so we will be completely ready for students in Years 1 to 10. It’s worth remembering that we’ve done this before: masks, bubbles, ventilation, temperature checking, sanitising… these are not new to us, so we’re essentially adding additional safeguards (air purifiers, testing, vaccinations) and tightening up procedures that we know we can make work. I know other schools don’t have the environment, the resources and the experience that we have, but I’m hoping that, in the next couple of weeks, we will have the opportunity to present a safety plan and to open safely to our students. As usual, feel free to ask questions, and we will do what we always so and publish our plans when we know exactly what is required of us. Good luck to all our Year 11-13 students taking exams: they continue to be absolute stars, and I’ve been so happy to see them in school, following our rules, and so enthusiastic and committed to their studies. They’re a joy to be around. And good luck to our Year 7 to 10 students who are taking their exams at home next week. Thank you, too, to the parents who will be watching their children and acting as unofficial (and unpaid!) invigilators. It’s obviously not an idea situation, but I’m once again grateful to our very adaptable staff for making this happen, and to our students and parents for taking it all in their stride. Kia kaha, and enjoy the 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 DiaryKia ora, It has been an interesting week in the Primary and there have been many high points for us to focus on whilst we have been learning online. The NED show returned, albeit in a different format and Tim showed us his yo-yo skills from somewhere in America whilst teaching us all about NED. This stands for never give up, encourage others and do your best. I feel that we have all been getting plenty of experience of doing this during the past few months but it was good to watch a fun show and discover ways of teaching young children about being an upstander for others and being kind. The NED show doesn’t charge a set fee as such but works on a pay it forward model with the sale of yo-yos. There are tricks to learn and fun to be had with yo-yos available to purchase online and collect from school. As the time spent in online learning continues we can tell that some families are finding it tough being at home and not able to socialise or spend as much time outdoors. Parents are doing an amazing job of supervising and motivating their children to be in lessons and engaging with their work. The structure of the day is good for all of us as it provides a level of certainty and organisation, even a sense of purpose for young children that makes them feel safe. We will keep looking for innovative ways to engage them and provide some fun activities that add to their well-being until we can be back on site again. We want to say a huge thankyou to all of the parents and children who put together the messages of appreciation for our teachers. Everyone was uplifted by the thoughtful words, songs, artwork and dances. Teachers told us they were so touched and a few shed a little tear. We miss being in the classroom and can’t wait to see everyone again. Kia kaha, stay safe. Sian Coxon, Principal of Primary
Onsite with our Primary Bubble
P1's AdventuresP4 this weekWe have been having so much fun in the afternoons in P4. Our two favourite things were the upcycling afternoon and art afternoon! We really enjoyed using some of the recycled materials around our house to make fun teddys and other creatures. Daniel Potter was super creative and made a teddy out of old socks. We especially love the cute little ears and bow. For art afternoon Ashton Mann made a silly frog mask with a crazy long tongue. The frog is even wearing a face covering to protect himself while he is at school. Eddie Wei made these gorgeous paper origamis with his little sister. We can’t imagine how much focus and concentration those two must have had to follow those directions. Well done P4. Amazing learning and even more fun This week in P6P6 have enjoyed a productive week online. In our programme we have a focus on Robots. In our writing programme we have been given a writing mission to up level and write a formal letter to the fictional National Robotics Institute. In reading we have been enjoying the story “The Wild Robot” by Peter Brown. Whilst reading through the chapters, P6 have been exposed to new vocabulary, found the definition and then used synonyms to rewrite sentences, also found clues in the text to help answer questions. In art we have created walking robots and have thoroughly enjoyed our ‘Lets get Arty” special event where we made our own choices from a range of activities from flower art, rocket launcher, paper snake, stress balls to name a few. Our mathematics lessons this week have had an emphasis on partitioning hundreds, tens and units to enable us try different strategies to add two and three digit numbers together. P6 is a resilient and talented bunch of children and continue to encourage each other during our online lessons. Thank you to our Teachers!From P5 Fun with The NED ShowThis week in P9Dear Pinehurst families, We wanted to share some of our thoughts and reflections from this term. We want you to know what online learning life is like from our perspective and hopefully this will help give you an idea of what goes on in our little P9 learning community. Some things are hard and can be challenging, but we love being together online where we can still learn and share our ideas and we have some moments we are very proud of. Reflections from P9 Students
Lockdown Poetry P10 Super StarsNearly into week four of term four, and P10 Super Stars continue to shine. Showing resilience, respect and a can do attitude, are just some of the attributes that make P10 the Super Stars that they are. What a week P10 have had this week! We attended the NED show along with the entire primary. It was fabulous to see a zoom meeting with 400+ students attending. The Arty Afternoon on Wednesday was a lot of fun and students were able to get creative.. In Global Perspectives we are preparing for Pr.E.P. Job application letters have been written, and students have begun to learn about budgets. Students have been consolidating their knowledge on mental addition and subtraction, and using the expanded and column method when solving equations. These skills did come in handy when they were trying to stick to their budget of $10.00. They have gathered information to use in a tally chart and then transferred their data onto a bar graph or pictogram. In Writing, students have continued to up-level their sentences and are now learning to extend their paragraphs in their narrative writing. We are looking for answers not directly written in the text when we are reading and writing a summary after each chapter has been read in our class novel The Witches. We have begun to use the Breakout rooms during some lessons. This has enabled the students to engage with each other and share their ideas. In Science, four groups discussed the functions of a skeleton, and who has a skeleton. It was lovely to see the students engaging and having in-depth conversations and discussions with each other. Continue to sparkle P10 Super Stars. P13's online learningIn P13’s exciting online world we’ve been learning about Roman Numerals in Maths. Who knew that there were so many places we’d find them… Marcus discovered that the letter M on his hat represents 1000 and he also has a clock with Roman Numerals! Paris excitedly found an X on her hood which represents 10. We even wrote our birthdays in Roman Numerals.
Excitedly, P13 joined P12 and P14 in our very first assembly together on Tuesday. It was definitely fun seeing all our friends from other classes. Our ‘Let’s get arty’ Tic Tac Toe on Wednesday afternoon was enjoyed in breakout rooms developing our artistic skills and having the choice to try different things with our friends. Developing financial literacy in Global Learning has been exciting with Mrs K. This week P13 had to design their own vegetable cars with set criteria and which had a total worth of $10.00. Much fun was had working in teams discussing which vegetables and how many could be used to make their vegetable car designs. Digital Art with P19For Art this week P19’s task was to create some digital art. The inspiration was Andy Warhol’s “Endangered Species” series of work. The students started with the outline of any creature they chose. They then added outlines and colours in the manner of Andy Warhol. With the variety of devices that the students are all using at home, there were a few technical issues. The students were able to help each other solve the technical aspects of digital line and colour application. The teamwork and problem-solving were educational, enlightening, and fun to listen to. Here are some examples of their artwork. Millie Wang Candy Shen Zoe Qin Linda Liu Seven Chen Aaron Chow Sports Cups & TrophiesWere you presented a Year 5-8 Sports Trophy or Cup in 2020? Is it still at home with you? Mrs Lindsay is busy organising this year’s Sports Awards, and needs to send all our Trophies & Cups away to be engraved for our 2021 award winners soon. So, if you still have your trophy or cup, would you kindly return this/these to Pinehurst Reception, no later than Friday 12th November. Thank you! Previous winners listed below for reference. Kia Ora, We now have less than two and a half weeks remaining in our Cambridge examination schedule. It is important that our students maintain their focus and continue to follow the protocols that the school has in place, something that they have done an outstanding job at so far this session. It has been great catching up with students as they have come out of their exams this week, in the vast majority of cases they have been very positive about the papers that they have just completed. Some students will be coming up to their last examinations next week. As students complete their exam session, we ask them to please return their textbooks. This is normally a simple process of dropping into the library, but with current restrictions we will develop an alternate plan and I will write to students and parents around this next week. As most of you will be aware, next week we have our Years 7 - 10 examinations. We have set in place protocols for students to follow which match as closely as possible how we would run a set of examinations on-site. We appreciate parents support in assisting with ensuring the validity of our examinations. The results the students achieve will be one of many pieces of data that we gather on students, this is one way that we are able to be confident that students are completing assessments in the way that we intended them to. Teachers have been talking to students about structures and providing reassurance. We know that many will be nervous given that they haven’t been in classrooms for nearly 8 weeks of term time. They will also be nervous about completing assessments on-line. This is all completely normal, so if your child is nervous, please reassure them that assessments at this level are about providing good feedback on their learning, that is the important part of this process. As Mr Reed mentioned in his message, we are busy planning our normal end of term events, and moving events that we will not be able to run currently, to future dates. We will communicate particular events to the relevant year levels shortly so that both students and parents have something to look forward to. It is great that we have an indicative date for students returning to school, I hope that our students are looking forward to returning. Nga mihi, Kieran Verryt, Principal of College
Online Assembly this weekIn the Commerce departmentA picture paints a thousand words. Some serious and light-hearted moments of teaching accounting and business classes online and in the classroom. Getting the “class-family” to sit for a family photo, is just as stressful as in the real life and needs just a much cajoling. The A2 Accounting students, however, have their head in the game, and can be seen working through the numbers to find and acceptable financial solution. Auckland University Economics CompetitionIn June, 23 senior Economics students participated in the prestigious Economics Competition from Auckland University. This competition is delivered to Year 12 and 13 students nationwide. This year, our students were extremely successful with almost half attaining scores in the top 15% of students nationwide. Of particular note, were our 4 students who achieved high distinction awards, placing them in the top 10% of Economics students in their division. Qihao (Ivan) Li and Kaius Olsen gained High Distinction awards in the Year 13 division and James Austin and Jessica Forshaw gained High Distinction in the Year 12 division. Of special note, Jessica was ranked 13th in New Zealand. The awards ceremony was held virtually on Thursday last week where students and teachers had the pleasure of hearing about the interesting work being done by both John Small, Commissioner of the Commerce Commission and Dominic Stephens, Chief Economic Advisor at the Treasury. A big theme from both speakers was that our young economists have vast opportunities and the potential to solve important societal problems if they follow their interests further! Exploring our TūrangawaewaeIn Year 9 Maths we have taken a slight break from revision to explore our Tūrangawaewae. The students have created their own pepeha and posters to show what their names mean, the flags of their countries, items that their countries are known for, and something unique about themselves. After the exams they will be using this ideas to complete a design project. I look forward to sharing their final products with you later in the term. This week's Maths problemLast week's solutionAnimal Adventures with Year 6 visiting an aquarium.... Online Learning with Year 6.... ScholasticIssue 7 from Scholastic has been released for orders. Please follow the link to the online catalogue here. To order any of these exciting titles, open the link below – note down the 3 numbers highlighted in black below each title and proceed to place your order via LOOP as you normally would. If you are new to our school please follow the link below, register your details, add your child, find your school and once this is complete, you are set up to place your order. https://mybookclub.scholastic.co.nz/Parent/Register.aspx |