No images? Click here Message from the Executive Principal Kia ora koutou, good afternoon, 下午好, 안녕하세요 It is exactly one year since we entered our longest lockdown. I’ve just come across an email I wrote to the whole community on August 18th 2021. It’s cheerful, explains that we are running our full online programme straightaway, and makes a point of urging everyone to be kind to themselves, especially if there are small children in the house. We didn’t know, back then, that we would be in a version of lockdown for the rest of the year; we couldn’t foresee the remarkable way we would manage to run our Cambridge exams; and we had no real idea what we would be doing in a year’s time. We all need to look backwards every now and then in order to contextualise our current moment, as well as to understand the next steps we need to take. We read history to know ourselves better, and sometimes to help us craft a narrative for our lives. Right now, I think, we should pause every now and then to grasp the significance of the last two-and-a-half years as we set our direction for the next stages of our lives. Covid has made life more complicated, and a little more difficult to navigate, certainly. But it’s also added some urgency to our lives: our children continue to grow up and experience childhood, and so we have all become risk managers. As parents, of course, we are always assessing risk on behalf of our children, but the process of making decisions about risk has become more explicit. In school, we manage that risk by running every single activity that we would normally run, using masks and RATs to provide some additional security. I see, also, that same approach being taken by our community: our students are very busy, taking part in every activity under the sun, managing risk through masks, testing and vigilance. So we have come a long way. We can see that the last year or so has had an impact on some of our students: a few of our younger children have taken a little longer to develop the social skills we would normally expect to see, for example. And we can certainly see a little more anxiety in our students, often connected to a hyper-awareness of potential Covid symptoms. We’re working with our students at the moment in both areas: in Primary, for example, we are talking to children about kindness and social connectedness. This is a standard part of our curriculum, and we’re placing a little more emphasis on it right now. My thinking, though, is that the ultimate result of these past years will be that our children have developed a dash of extra resilience and, perhaps, a stronger awareness of the close connections that make up our world. I am hopeful and optimistic, actually, as I always am! Next week, our Year 8 students head off for the week to Ruapehu for our annual Ski Camp (let’s hope for a little more snow!); the week after, many of our College sports teams are competing in national tournaments; the week after that is AIMS, at which we will have a huge presence: 75 students representing the school. You can see why I’m so optimistic! Each of these events is a fantastic opportunity for our students, and they learn so much when they are away from home, out of their comfort zones. We have continued to see many parents in school this week. Thank you to everyone who attended the A Level Information Evening on Monday, or the Year 6-7 Transition Evening on Tuesday. Both were attended extremely well, and I hope that you found them useful. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions that arise from those evenings. Mrs Sullivan, Mr Wiggin and I will be very happy to hear from you. Congratulations to our College Chess team, who came 5th in the North Shore competition. This follows placings of 1st at the Intermediate level and 2nd at the Primary level. Congratulations to everyone involved. Well done, too, to our U17 Basketball team, who won their league last week. I’d also like to mention our badminton players, who continue to perform magnificently: last week, the Junior Boys beat Kristin A 7-1, and the Junior Girls beat Rangitoto A1 7-1. We have some superb badminton players, and the sport is now one of our biggest and most successful. The Year 11 Mocks have already begun, and the Year 12 and 13 students join the fun next week. Good luck to all the students. Next week is also the final week of rehearsals for the Primary Production: I’m really looking forward to seeing the Year 5 and 6 students in full voice (and very snazzy costumes). 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 Tuesday 22nd August
Tuesday 23rd August
Wednesday 24th August
Thursday 25th August
Friday 26th August
As the year has progressed, so has the construction of the Pinehurst Theatre and College 5. The walls are finally up, and the site is beginning to take real shape, looking less like a construction site and more like the theatre we have only been able to imagine through artist impressions. The state-of-the-art facility is still on track for completion in March 2023 and we can’t wait for the Theatre to offer regular musical and theatrical performances, whilst giving our students a unique opportunity to gain valuable skills – both on and off the stage. The site tours will take parents into the heart of the construction (yes - time for hard hats and hi-vis!), to see in real time how things are progressing; take a sneak peek into the future of Pinehurst and of course learn about the ways in which you can support us We currently have the following tour dates and times available (spaces are limited): Message from the Principal of CollegeKia ora e te Whānau o Pinehurst College Last week finished with a sporting highlight as our U17 Boys’ Basketball team won against Long Bay College in the final for their league on Friday evening. I was able to present the team and their coach with their first-place medals after the game; the boys demonstrated tremendous resilience and strength of character in a very hard-fought match. On Saturday morning and Wednesday evening, I witnessed more groups of students demonstrate similar attributes. Our Netball Team 1 drew against Westlake Girls’ Highschool, never giving up the fight and scoring in the final 20 seconds and then just missing another shot in the last 5 seconds. Our Boys’ Hockey Team narrowly lost after a full-time draw and then a penalty shoot-out against Westlake Boys’ Highschool. All members of these teams represented us brilliantly, showing great team spirit, determination and courage. We have many other Pinehurst College sports teams reaching the end of their winter season and I am confident that they too will represent us wonderfully. At the beginning of this week, we held two parent evenings. On Monday Mr Wiggin presented an A level information evening for our current Year 11 students and their parents and on Tuesday we held a Year 6 to Year 7 transition evening for our current Year 6 students and their parents. Once again, both evenings were very well attended (despite the rain on Tuesday) and I would like to thank all of those parents who came to school with their children for each of these evenings. We will send out the presentations for those who were unable to attend and please do get in touch if you have any questions. Friday lunchtimes have seen our students compete in interhouse ultimate frisbee and benchball so far this term. We regularly have very good attendance for interhouse events and there is always a sense of competitiveness and fun. The Mathematics Faculty introduced a new House event this year; Mathex, and I was fortunate enough to be a part of the staff Mathex team along with Ms Anderson, Ms Rea, Mr Reynolds and Ms Perrin. Ms Perrin had usually given the answers before the rest of our team had finished reading the question and, together with Mr Reynolds taking the role of runner meant that we competed well against some strong student teams. Currently, Kauri House are ahead in the interhouse competition but we still have more events to come. Mock examinations are now underway for our Year 11 students and our Year 12 and 13 students will join them next week. Students in these year groups are allowed to study at home when they do not have an examination but I know that I will see many of them studying together in the school library and study area. It is important that students sitting examinations study in a way that suits them best whilst also maintaining healthy habits. A good diet, sensible sleep and taking regular exercise are very important for them at this time and they may need gentle reminders about this at home. Next week we will be farewelling our Year 8 students for the week as they head to Mount Ruapehu with Mr Reynolds, Ms Peters, homeroom teachers and parents. I expect a large part of the weekend for these students will be spent excitedly preparing themselves for the camp, packing their ski gear and looking forward to some fun and excitement. Students continuing at school next week also have much to look forward to with a visit from MOTAT, another Zone Day, a trip to the Writers Fesitval for our Year 7 along with our usual school programmes. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and for parents of our Year 11 to 13 students who are embarking on Mock examinations, please remind them that we are here for them if they need help. Ngā mihi nui Dawn Staff VS Students - Rippa RugbyWednesday lunchtime saw some brave staff members taking on the Year 13 students at a game of Rippa Rugby! The staff started strong scoring the first two tries, before steadily going downhill as the students caught back up to win the game 9-7. Well done Year 13s! Life 101In the Year 12 Life101 lessons this week, the students were fortunate to have a Practical Skills session with Juan and Tony from Pinehurst’s Property Team. They took them through changing a tyre, checking under a car hood and securing a trailer load – all valuable skills to learn! MathexLast week we celebrated Maths Week. Every day a challenge was placed in the newsletter with correct problem solving rewarded by house points. On Tuesday this week we had our inaugural interhouse Mathex. House teams consisted of five players, one form each year group. We also had a very enthusiastic staff team consisting of Mrs Perrin, Mrs Sullivan, Miss Anderson, Mrs Rea and Mr Reynolds running very competitively! Our winning Year 8 Mathex team also took part and scored a very impressive 65 points. Kauri and Rimu tied for first on 70 points, the staff team also scored 65 points with Totara coming third and Matai Fourth. See the below Maths problem! Answers to be given to your math teacher for house points. A-Level Global Perspectives and ResearchDr Jamie Gillen, Director of the University of Auckland, Global Studies Bachelor’s Degree, spoke with the A-Level Global classes on Thursday about the importance of being a Global Citizen – Be different, make a difference. He encouraged the students to view the world and to look at problems with a “glass half full growth mindset” to find sustainable solutions using local knowledge and global perspectives = professionalizing aspiring global citizens. Dr Gillen discussed how the Bachelor of Global Studies degree was designed to help students make a difference by applying their knowledge to the big issues of our increasingly globalised world. He mentioned how students will be exposed to new ways of thinking about the world while gaining an in-depth understanding of contemporary issues, and learning another language deepens the students understanding of other cultures and perspectives. Finally, the students who undertake a Global Studies Degree will develop skills for future careers that demand leadership, teamwork, public speaking, critical thinking, research, and intercultural communication. Job opportunities are considerable – Diplomacy (government representatives - Diplomat, intelligence officer), Non-Profit Organisations (public policy, advisors, human rights advocate), Ministry Work (MFAT, MBIE – policy analyst), Local Councils, Corporate work, Private Consultancy, Journalism (foreign correspondent). And he encouraged the students to be part of the solution … not the problem. North Shore Secondary Schools Chess CompetitionOur Senior College Chess Team, in rank order - Kevin Guo, Kohtaro Nozaki, Kevin Jeong and Tim Bao, played some of the best chess players on the Shore, between 9am until 2:30pm on Monday 15th August at Carmel College, to finish 5th out of 15 teams. This is a great achievement for a team that only started ‘training’ during lunchtimes last year, and against much larger secondary schools! The top teams were just too powerful for our ‘development squad’ but they have shown that Pinehurst can stand beside and hold their own against some of the best. Badminton North HarbourA huge thank you to Badminton North Harbour, who donated a full kit of badminton gear including rackets, shuttlecocks, and nets, to our school. These have been greatly received by our PE Department as well as students in our afterschool badminton programme, who are learning to play. Year 7 Fitness Fun!Year 7 students have been exploring ways to make fitness activities more fun! Students have played games such as snakes and ladders, monopoly and fitness roulette. This week, some classes tired their hands at fitness scrabble. Students had to work in teams to ‘earn’ letters by performing different exercises. They then had to use those letters to make increasingly longer words, getting bonus points for multiple words out of the same letters. The record in Miss Murray’s class was by David, Daniel, Jerry and Stanley who made multiple 7 letter words and 15 different word combinations overall Poetry WorkshopLast Saturday, twelve keen English students came to school to take part in a poetry workshop. Our visiting poets were Johanna Emeney and Ros Ali. This is the second poetry workshop run by both these experts and they brought fantastic enthusiasm to the students that morning! At 10am everyone sat around the library conference table and were asked to collaborate with a partner to understand the poem The Dollhouse by Joanna Preston and the short story Hailman by Leanne Radojkovic. This was quite a task for our two Year 7s, a couple of Year 8s, a bunch of Year 9s and three Year 10s. Jo and Ros were impressed with the ability of all the students, to read intelligently and come up with insightful interpretations of the pieces. The conference table was then scattered with a variety of unique antiques, a hand-knitted dog jumper, an antique children’s toy, an old mirror, a chipped compact mirror, retro Christmas lights, an ancient Indian chickpea grinder… to name a few things. The task was to choose an item and through a poem or short story, make the item significant to the main character. One student compared peg-men on a seesaw with the monotonous life of a washer woman, another used a chipped compact mirror that reflected a different ego each it time its owner used it. All the students came away inspired and motivated to continue to read widely and write regularly Basketball Zone Day Year 7-8 BoysOur AIMS Boys Basketball Team recently competed at the North Harbour Basketball Zone Day which was held on Tuesday 16th August. It was a tough day for the Pinehurst Team, taking 3 losses in a row against some tough opposition. Nevertheless, they rebounded off these losses to produce a win against Kingsway in their final match of the day, taking the win 16-17. There were some outstanding performances on the court by the AIMS Team and this tournament has exposed the team to a high level of competition, in which they will be facing at AIMS Games in few weeks. Badminton North Island/ Wellington North U15 Open 2022Tony Yu went to Wellington last weekend and participate in the North Island / Wellington North U15 Open. He won the Champion titles for Boys Single and Mix Doubles and the Runner Up for Boys Doubles Jack Zheng (Year 9) also attended and won gold for the Boys Double Championship! Well done to both athletes for their excellent achievements. Message from the Principal of Primary Kia ora, The excitement is building in Year 5 and 6 and everyone is busy with rehearsals. The week before a show is a time to work through last minute positions, lines, and choreography , it is messy at times and then everything starts to come together. Watching our students this week was delightful, they were focused, ready on cue and will no doubt put on a spectacular show. We mustn’t forget just how great it is that we can run a production this year. We were in the final stages of rehearsal for Pirates Past Noon with Year 3 and 4 last year when the country went into lockdown. It was so disappointing; everyone had worked very hard for months and we were ready to go. Costumes were made, props built and ordered, and tickets purchased, we were so close. Next year our Y3 and 4 students will get their turn and you never know it might be time to bring out the pirates again. We will be able to use our new theatre too which is very exciting! Tickets for Madagascar are selling fast, if you haven’t purchased yours, it is time to make sure you get a seat. Giving our youngest students a new place to play football on the back courts has been a big success this week when the weather allowed. They take their games very seriously and have enjoyed the space and the freedom to make long shots across a bigger court. Learning how to play together is a huge part of growing up and being able to get back outside in larger groups is giving our students the opportunities to learn to cooperate, win, lose and still remain friends. You may have heard your child talk about the kindness initiative where our peer mediators are looking to catch people being kind. When they do, the person they see receives a special kindness band to wear to show everyone they have made a big effort to take care of others and demonstrate our school values. Mrs Jones Hill has been teaching classes about kindness and teachers have been sharing great ideas to encourage kindness around school. Zone days are happening again, and we are looking forward to three next week with basketball, hockey and gymnastics. Plans have been made for cross country competitions for New Entrants to Year 4, the Swimming Gala for Year 5 and 6 and Supercluster netball hosted by Pinehurst. Our students love sport, and they are very good at it in the various competitions they take part in. This wasn’t always the case in Pinehurst’s early days due to the size of the school at the time, but it is wonderful to see our current students competing at such a high level. It is probably going to be a windy and wet weekend, great for a run around in the park though if you are brave enough! Noho ora mai, Sian Fun in P4!In P4 we have been talking about addition and subtraction fact families. We love working on our fact family triangles with a partner. We’ve also been working on identifying our tens in ones in numbers to 50. For example, the number 45 has 4 tens, and 5 ones. Our favourite part is using the materials to help us work out the problem! In Art we have been experimenting with different types of lines; thick, thin, zig zag, spiral, short, tall etc. With artist Michael Tompsett as our inspiration, we camouflaged a black and white zebra on a bar code. Our main focus for Art is really thinking about what we want to do and making creative decisions. We plan out our art work just perfectly before we get started. This way we can decide if it looks aesthetically appealing or if we want to change something. Below is another example of how we are making creative decisions in P4. Madagascar RehearsalsThe Year 5/6 Syndicate are deep into rehearsals for their upcoming stage production, Madagascar - A Musical Adventure Jr. Costumes are being collated, makeup is being designed and students are well into learning the songs and dances. Performance nights are the 30 August and 1st September, tickets are on sale and available here: https://pinehurst.nz/madagascar We would love your support and hope to see you there. What have P14 been busy doing this week?We began our busy week in P14 with a spelling test to check we understand how to use the spelling rules we have been learning about. In Maths… We have moved on to learning about the perimeter of rectangles. We looked at a short video showing us 3 similar but slightly different ways to calculate the perimeter of a shape. We voted and all decided which we thought was the most efficient way of calculating the correct amount. Then we proceeded to quickly work through the questions - we are now all experts! In Cross Group Maths… We have been working on multiplication using the partitioning method and the partitioning grid method. The students have been practising estimating their answers before calculating them. They have been using ‘Math Talk’ to explain their methods and question their peers sharing if there is anything they do not understand. In Reading… This week we are continuing with our shared novel, Kensuke’s Kingdom. After we summarised what had happened so far in the last chapter, we investigated unknown vocabulary and began to write a very interesting list of items we would like to take with us if we were stranded on a desert island. Interestingly when we shared back, there were so many different ideas. In Health… We have been learning all about healthy eating. We looked at the food diaries' each student had been completing and decided P14 has a very healthy diet (mostly!). We looked at a healthy balanced diet and used the Food Pyramid to create a healthy balanced meal. We also were split into groups for a sorting activity, sorting foods into the different food groups. In Art… The week to begin to glue has finally arrived! This week we have been busy beginning to glue our collages in place on to the canvas. We spent the first few weeks of term learning about collage as an art form, then planning and gathering the materials we would need for our finished product. In Writing … This week we are using all our terms' previous learning about persuasive writing to compose a clear speech aimed at Year 4 students, trying to persuade the listeners about something. The process will include using persuasive techniques throughout the 3-minute speech. This will be their very first experience of delivering a speech for the competition in week 10. They will need to speak clearly with appropriate volume, make eye contact and have a confident body language. Facts will be used to support any points being made. We also began identifying the difference between a fact (something which is truthful and can be proven) and an opinion (someone’s point of view of/about something that is not based on fact or knowledge). An Update from P9!P9 have begun Term 3 with a can-do attitude, and this is certainly evident in the schoolwork that they are completing and the activities that they are participating in. We have had four weeks consolidating our knowledge, learning new concepts, and of course reconnecting with our friends. It does seem hard to believe that we are already nearly halfway through the term. This also means we are closer to warmer weather and hopefully less rain! This term, our class novel is Charlotte's Web and our learning focus for the first half of the term is, determining important ideas. Using skills such as skimming and scanning, identifying key words and beginning to distinguish between fact and fiction enables students to gain deeper meaning from the text. Determining important ideas within a text helps to identify the main points or gist of what they are reading. Mrs Gren has been helping us identify once lived, living and non-living things. We had a debate whether fire was living or non-living. It was interesting to hear some ideas on why they thought it was living. Fire moves, it is sensitive to water, it grows, it excretes smoke, it feeds on things around it when it burns (nutrition). However, it does not reproduce. This was the identifying key that classifies fire as non-living. Yesterday, we began to look at the life cycle of a frog and a butterfly. We have learnt that frogs are classified as amphibians and when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly this is called metamorphosis. A snip it of what we are learning in maths: Dr Ravenscroft has found some exciting cave paintings in our Big Write this term. The Big Write agents have asked students if they can write an exciting myth or legend about a magical golden dragon, a gleaming orb, a sinister hunter and two brave children. We have accepted this mission and have been learning how to use noun phrases, higher level connectives and identify a main clause and subordinate clause in a sentence. We are also building on our knowledge of how to use a clear story structure. On Tuesday, P9 had a class assembly. We began with the National Anthem and students that wished to share an item were able to. Students shared photos of their animals, a riddle or a joke, art and even a basketball singlet they had sown for their teddy. It was a lovely way to finish off the day. P18 in Action!It’s been a very bust start to the term in P18 with lots of learning happening in, and out of the classroom. During Maths, the students enjoy working with a learning buddy to share thinking and develop their understanding of math concepts. They are now experts in converting different units of measure involving weight and in our cross group lessons they have learnt to use many different strategies, such as partitioning, the grid method, expanded written method and the formal written method when multiplying and dividing a 3- digit by a 2- digit number including decimals. In Writing, the students have been finishing off their chapter stories and working on editing and up levelling them. At this stage, the students are encouraged to check their work against the success criteria to see what they have done well and what they need to do to improve on. Some of the criteria that they will be checking to see that they have included is; sophisticated vocabulary to add detail and atmosphere, techniques such as flashbacks, future gazing and cliff-hangers and senses to engage the reader. In our Big Reading lessons the students have been probing and investigating an extract of text to gain a better understanding of how the writer uses different language features and discuss what effect does the language used have upon the readers. We have begun our foam block printing in art, working on our passing and catching skills in PE and developing our understanding of the rules in Touch Rugby. Everyone is very excited about Madagascar and looking forward to the production in a couple of weeks! Three lads build a giant catapult in their dads garageThree students from last year (James Harrison, 19, Daniel Hickey and Philipp Lyangzuov, both 18), have built two trebuchets and made it into the news for their efforts! "The trio, who knew each other from school, sketched the designs for their later contraptions on the back of homework sheets and planned them out when sitting next to each other in Physics." See the full article here: Three lads build a giant catapult in their dads garage Dad’s Fantail & Turtle!Bring a friend or two if you want! if you would like to attend please complete the RSVP Form or contact sylva.lum@pinehurst.school.nz. |