Message from the Executive Principal

Kia ora koutou, good afternoon, 下午好, 안녕하세요  

Best wishes,

Mike Waller 

Message from the Principal of Primary

Year 5 Camp

From bush walks and confidence courses to archery and air rifle shooting, and just about every adventure in between, the Year 5 Camp at Carey Park was an overwhelming success! Over the course of four days and three nights, our Year 5 students immersed themselves in an array of exciting activities. They tackled the centipede, raced trolley carts, and scaled rock climbing walls, to name just a few of the challenges they faced.

Each student pushed their boundaries, stepping out of their comfort zones to test their physical abilities and mental fortitude. The determination and resilience displayed by the students were truly inspiring. It was a joy to see the sense of pride and achievement on their faces as they conquered tasks that initially seemed intimidating or impossible.

Our teachers couldn't be prouder of the students' perseverance and the incredible camaraderie they exhibited. The encouragement and support they offered each other played a significant role in making the camp experience memorable and enriching for everyone involved.

We would also like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the wonderful parent volunteers who joined us this year. Your assistance and enthusiasm were invaluable and greatly contributed to the success of our camp.

To capture the spirit of our fantastic week at camp, we have included some photos that truly illustrate the fun and adventures we had. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Block printing painters!

In Art, P2 class had a hands-on art session exploring block printing. We started by looking at artworks featuring block printing, which showed the children the different patterns and textures possible with this technique. They learned about its cultural significance and history. Using cardboard, wool, and PVA glue, we created our own printing blocks, designing unique patterns with the wool.

Once the glue dried, we applied different coloured paint to the wool patterns and carefully pressed the blocks onto paper. We were all very excited to see the prints emerge, each one different. After printing, we created a vibrant gallery, sharing our artworks and complementing each other's designs. 

In P1

In P1, we have embarked on our second Big Writing Adventure: planning a journey to Antarctica. We have been gathering information about Antarctica and its characteristics. Words such as freezing, snowy, and icy have been used by the children to describe this region. Working in groups, they created a scene of Antarctica using cellophane, tissue paper, pom poms, and pictures of animals.

We have also been learning about the animals that inhabit Antarctica. Did you know that polar bears don’t live there, and killer whales are part of the dolphin family? We were surprised to discover just how large Emperor Penguins are - they are taller than some of the children in P1!

As part of planning our journey, we have explored the types of clothing people need. Some even pack their swimming gear in case they want to take a polar plunge into the icy waters! Students have also written their own packing lists.

We are eagerly looking forward to continuing our Antarctic Adventure!

Junior Music

This term in Music we have been focusing on the musical element of rhythm. We have created our own rhythmic patterns and improvised them using a range of percussion instruments such as drums, shakers, tambourines and claves.

The students can read simple rhythmic patterns and echo them on their instruments or by using body percussion such as clapping, stamping, clicking etc. We have also enjoyed using our voices to create different timbres, textures and simple harmonies through rounds and partner songs.

 - Kate Du Toit

Year 3 Robotics

The second group of Year 3 students have now had the opportunity to begin the Robotics programme. Each term, 24 Year 3 students attend weekly lessons that focus on various coding elements and problem solving. WeDo 2.0 is the Lego set and programme that the children work with. There is a vast scope for extension within the programme that caters for those that may have worked with the set previously or are requiring more in-depth challenges that demand higher order problem solving skills.

Robotic students have worked through the Getting Started projects that introduce them to block configuration coding. They have been encouraged to challenge themselves by creating codes that show a variety of blocks used and various actions performed such as colour, sound and various directional movement. The Glowing Snail, The Cooling Fan, The Moving Satellite and Milo the Science Rover have been on display around the classroom as the children have shown great delight interacting with their builds and projects, by extending the capabilities of these designs.

Many students have now moved onto the Guided Projects where focused problem solving is required. We have seen the Pulling Machine where students have learnt about friction and how size and materials used in wheels improve performance. The Year 3 pupils are enthusiastic about the Robotics programme and enjoying the challenges presented to them.

Year 3 and 4 Solo, Trio, Orchestra and Ensemble Performance Showcase

On Wednesday this week, we celebrated our Primary School musicians with our Term 2 Solo, Trio, Orchestra and Ensemble Performance Showcase.

Our concert began with a rousing rendition of Anchors Aweigh performed by our Primary Orchestra led by Ms. Pope.

Twenty-one Year 3 and 4 students thrilled us with their outstanding solo and trio performances, along with our Flute Ensemble who performed The National Anthem for us. We were also delighted to have two Year 6 students guide us through the concert by being our MCs for the afternoon.

We applaud all our performers for the effort they put into preparing for their performance, along with their outstanding talent, and courage in taking to the stage.

Thank you once again to the students and whanau for all their work leading up to the concert.

Planet Protectors – Pinehurst Waste Audit 

Last year, one of our targets was to reduce the rubbish produced at Pinehurst. We are continuing this investigation and challenge this year and thought we should start with a waste audit. This week, with the help of two Enviroschools facilitators, Anna and Grace, we completed a whole-school waste audit. 

The purpose of the waste audit was to help the whole school identify our waste habits. With help from our property team, we saved Tuesday’s waste, excluding items already placed in recycling and compost bins. On Wednesday morning, the Primary’s Planet Protectors, College’s Enviro Council and Enviroschools facilitators Anna and Grace sorted, weighed, and examined the rubbish to understand our waste better.  

We had some very juicy bags and lovely aromas while we sorted through a third of the waste. What did we find? Lots of waste that could be recycled or composted is ending up in landfill.  As a snapshot, this is what we found in the 37% of the bags we sorted: 

Our next step is to look at the results and come up with a plan to reduce the waste we send to landfill. We are already thinking of possible actions that we can take including setting up more kai scrap bins and sending home uneaten food. 

Big Writing Agents

The students in P21 have successfully completed their writing mission, "The Lost Buildings." Through this mission, they have developed their non-fiction writing skills by crafting an incident report, a persuasive letter, and a news report. The level of writing is outstanding, and the students have become confident in using features such as subheadings, standfirsts, bullet points to highlight important information, synonyms to add variety, and adverbials of time and place to enhance structure and cohesion. Click here to see a few of their amazing news articles.

Message from the Principal of College

When we talk about celebration, we talk about food!

This week, from Year 7 to Year 11, students who study Chinese were celebrating Dragon Boat Festival by crafting Zongzi & Dragon boat origami, and most importantly, they had an opportunity to taste a bit of China ----- Zongzi!

Zongzi is a traditional Chinese rice dish made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves. Fillings can be either sweet, such as red bean paste, or savory, such as pork belly or Chinese sausage.

This time, we ordered both savory and sweet zongzi for our student. Look at them, their smile says it all!

Volunteer Club

The visit to Fairview Rest Home was an incredibly enlightening experience. The residents were exceptionally sweet and fascinating to talk to! Although I was initially assigned to one resident, I ended up conversing with six, as they were already gathered together. Each of them had fascinating stories to share, ranging from experiences as prison guards to running a successful sewing business. It was interesting to compare their childhoods to mine, as the circumstances have changed so significantly over the years. They were all wonderful people, and it was heartwarming to see them knitting baby clothing to donate to families in need. Overall, it was a 10/10 experience, and I’m eagerly looking forward to my next visit!

- Inyoung Joung 

Trees for Survival

A whopping 866 trees were planted on Thursday by keen Year 8 students.

You might remember that the same 25 students potted up tiny seedlings Term 4 last year.  The same students bused to Whenuapai airbase  golf course to plant the little trees.  New food sources and homes for insects and birds will be created.  We had lots of assistance from the Trees for Survival coordinator Deb Ross, and superb help (and sausages) from Flight Sergeant Taylor and many golf club members.  The pictures speak for themselves, we had a great time, and look forward to returning one day to see how the trees flourish

Operation Refugee 

This week we had Dori Lloyd from Operation Refugee come and visit Year 7. Year 7 have been learning about forced migration in their Human Cargo Unit. They have learned why and how people become refugees and the difficulties they face because of this. Year 7 are now completing inquiry projects on migration, some students have chosen to look further into refugees around the world. Thank you to Dori for coming in today to help Year 7 learn about what life is like for other people less fortunate than ourselves. 

Orienteering – Eden Park Sprint

Last week, we took a team of 18 students from Year 7-10 to the Auckland Schools Eden Park Sprint competition. This is the first time Pinehurst has entered this event and the students were bubbling with excitement! The race which started on the middle level of the Eden Park grandstand and took the students all the way down to the field where they completed one full lap of the best field in New Zealand. The students then entered into the home changing rooms in which they were able to absorb the atmosphere as their time was paused while they were in the changing room so they could have a good look around. The students then exited the changing rooms and headed up to the top of the Coaching boxes before coming back to the finish line on the middle grandstand. The students really enjoyed this event and some students performed exceptionally well, smashing out the course in an impressive time and coming in as the top 6 runners in their respective age group. Please see the students below that finished in the top 6 in their age group:

TOP 6 PLACINGS:

A huge thank you to Mrs Rea for her help at this event and to our amazing Parents that came and supported the students at this exciting event.

AKSS Golf Strokeplay Day 2 Individual & Overall Team Placing

The Day 2 competition of the AKSS Strokeplay Championships was held on Tuesday at Redwood Golf Club. 10 of our students continued their success from the Day 1 competition earlier in the Term. Although the students competed as individuals, their combined school from Day 1 and Day 2 was calculated with their other team members scores to produce an overall score for their respective team. Our Team 1 (Lingyao, Yicheng, Sophie & Grace) placed 2^nd overall in the North Harbour Teams competition for the AKSS Strokeplay Team Championship. This is a great result for our team and we are really proud of all the students that represented Pinehurst at this tournament. A huge thank you to Mr Boden for his support on the day with our team and all of our Parents that took the time to support the students.

Edward Niu had an awesome round at the Strokeplay competition, topping it off with a hole-in-one which is the 2^nd time he has done this in his career to date. A huge congratulations to Edward on this amazing achievement. 

Please see the top 5 placings below for the individual results:

Girls U19 Nett: 1st Place: Milly Ma and 3rd Place: Felisha Zhao

Girls U19 Gross: 4th Place: Sophie Yu

Pinehurst Sport Scarves 2024

We would like to congratulate the following students who will be receiving their sport scarf during Assembly today. These students have earned their sport scarf by representing Pinehurst for a minimum of 3 full years/seasons in their respective sport and by continuously putting in the work to be better by turning up to trainings and games, as well as being a leader on and off the field. A huge congratulations to the students below and we hope you wear your scarf with pride.

Reena NZSDC Debating

I had the privilege of representing Auckland at the New Zealand Schools Debating Championships in late May. After being selected to be on the Auckland squad after Auckland Schools' Regionals, which the Pinehurst school team was the runners-up to, it was so exciting to finally come down to Wellington to compete at nationals. After 7 rounds, my team was ranked second leading into the semi-finals, which we very closely lost. It was very fulfilling to meet so many sharp students from all across New Zealand and to step inside of parliament for the finals. I was lucky enough to be awarded a Highly Commended Speaker award. 

From the use of AI technology to police theft to New Zealand's economic policy and the decisions that govern international relations, the debates we had were super exciting and interesting to think about. 

I urge the students at Pinehurst to join debating and to give it a go! It's such a fulfilling and exciting extracurricular. Of all the wonderful opportunities offered at Pinehurst, debating is one that can offer some very cool opportunities. 

 - Reena W, Year 13

SPIKE Kits

Last week, the Robotics Club concluded their 4-day fundraiser over the span of 2 weeks, raising a grand total of $2234.00. With further school funding and support, we managed to purchase the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime Competition Group Pack, for the upcoming FIRST Lego League Competition this December.

The members who helped fundraiser include Michelle Hao (Year 11), Kevin Zhou (Year 7), Oscar Wang (Year 7), Daniel Kong (Year 7), Doris Xiao (Year 8), Ella Ahn (Year 9), Stanley Wu (Year 9), and Charles Shen (Year 12).

The FIRST Lego League is a competition where a prompt/theme is given out and teams compete together to complete the challenges. Last year’s theme was Masterpiece and included multiple missions located in different areas of a playing field. Robots were to go around each area and complete the task, earning a number of points depending on the difficulty of the mission as well as the quality of completion. Speed also adds points for the teams. Overall, the team with the highest number of points, wins.

The Competition Group Pack included 3 original SPIKE Prime kits and 1 Expansion kit, helping both our competition teams build their best robots for the tournament. These kits include a Programmable Hub (CPU), motors, wheels, sensors, base plates, and other intricate parts allowing the teams to build strong robots. The software backing up the SPIKE kits are also more advanced, containing extensive libraries with inbuilt functions, available to speed up and improve the efficiency of coding the robot.

We are grateful for everyone’s support during our fundraiser and these kits will stay in school for use in later years. If entering robotics competitions sounds fun to you, be sure to join our club next year!

 - From Michelle Hao

Stay Dry with DropDrift at Pinehurst School

DropDrift is a new initiative aimed at keeping everyone dry and comfortable on rainy days. With umbrella borrowing stations strategically placed around the school, you can now borrow an umbrella when you need one and return it when you're done. This initiative not only helps you stay dry but also fosters a sense of community and responsibility.

Stay Dry, Stay Connected!

Cultural Market 2024

The Student Council is thrilled to be announcing the iconic Cultural Market for the 26 June raising funds for Starship. 

It will be held across the gym and dance studio at lunchtime, and our currency for the day, stamps, be available for you to buy on Monday 24 and Tuesday 25. One stamp = one dollar: there will be no monetary transactions on the day - trading will be done with stamps only.  Unfortunately this is a student only event. However, please enter our raffle, containing prizes from Underground Skate and Surf, Bounce, Mad Hatter Bakery, Altura, $200 worth of goods from The Warehouse and more.

CASE Ocean School

Pinehurst School is excited to announce our participation in the CASE Ocean School International Study Program during June-July 2025. All Pinehurst School students currently in Years 7, 8 & 9 are invited to join CASE Junior Ocean School! This program is recommended to all students pursuing any study path.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for your child to explore the wealth of the ocean, learning beyond the classroom in an inspirational and life-changing environment.

For further information & to RSVP for the Information evening please visit: actura.co.nz/pinehurst

Information Evening: 6:00pm, Tuesday 25 June 2024, in the Pinehurst School Theatre

Pinehurst School is excited to announce our participation in the CASE Ocean School International Study Program during July 2025. All Pinehurst School students currently in Years 10, 11 & 12 are invited to join CASE Senior Ocean School! This program is recommended to all students pursuing any study path.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for your child to explore the wealth of the ocean, learning beyond the classroom in an inspirational and life-changing environment.

For further information & to RSVP for the Information evening please visit: actura.co.nz/pinehurst

Information Evening: 7:30pm, Tuesday 25 June 2024, in the Pinehurst School Theatre

• University of Otago Auckland Information Evening. June 18 6.30 pm at Ellerslie Event Centre
• Seminist Event at University of Canterbury – online or in person on June 27. Seminist will highlight how a career in STEM can help young women make a difference in the world. Parents welcome. Register here.
• Interested in studying in the USA and worried about SAT preparation? The following preparation course is happening in Auckland. Facilitator has 20+ years of SAT preparation experience. Full details and registration link here:  http://www.testtakers-sg.com/program-registration​

Matai House Captains

Hello everyone, we are Charlotte and Amelie, your Matai house captains! We are thrilled to have the opportunity to lead such a fantastic group of people. We have been incredibly proud of all our house members throughout the year for their dedication, enthusiasm, and hard work. It has been truly inspiring to see everyone come together and give their best effort in all our activities and competitions.

We have achieved so much together, and it’s all thanks to each member's collective effort and spirit. As we look forward, we hope to see even more participation from our Matai house members at Interhouse events. Your involvement is crucial in helping us strive for excellence and aim for that big win at the end of the year.