No images? Click here Message from the Executive PrincipalKia ora koutou, good afternoon, 下午好, 안녕하세요 I escorted a group of staff around the College 5 and Pinehurst Theatre building site on Wednesday after school. We looked fetching in our hi-vis vests and bright yellow helmets, I’m sure, as we gingerly explored the classrooms and the Theatre. We’re exactly half way through the project at the moment; the structural work has pretty much been completed; and we’ve begun the first fix, with wires arranged in formidable arrays, neatly waiting to be sent on their ways to power sockets and network access points. Over the next few months, we’ll start to see the cedar cladding go up on the outside walls, and large amounts of GIB cover the indoor spaces. I won’t be here to see the very end of the project, but I’m delighted that it’s on schedule, and I’m very excited to see what it will add to our school. A reminder that you can sponsor a seat, a brick on the donor’s wall, or the Grand Piano – we’ve so far raised around $200,000 in donations in this way, and it would be great to celebrate the names of more of our families in a permanent way. You can donate through this link: https://www.pinehurst.school.nz/contact-us/donate/ I’ve spent some time this week thinking about the future, actually. And the future was on glorious display in the Arena on Wednesday night: we had our first ‘Ensemble’ concert for a couple of years. It was huge! And thank you to all the parents who came to support your children. The Primary Choir had about 60 children in it; the Primary Orchestra (a first for us) made a really impressive first appearance – I can’t wait to see how they develop; our amazing Harp Ensemble (all 11 of them) were stunning; and our Chamber Group were, once more, quite brilliant. I want to mention our Orchestra in particular, though: they have moved to a new level this year, and have worked incredibly hard to get there. Reynald Yang, in Year 10, was a charismatic and technically superb soloist for the Weber piece, and the whole orchestra were a pleasure to listen to. I became quite emotional as I listened, and am looking forward to seeing them play on Monday afternoon at the KBB Festival at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell. Our new Theatre will be a venue worthy of their talents. Thank you to all of the parents who have attended College Parent Teacher Conferences this week: I hope they have been useful, and that they have supported you to have useful conversations with your children as they set goals for the second half of the year. We enjoy them immensely, and the atmosphere was really positive on both Tuesday and Thursday. On Monday next week, we have our annual IGCSE Information Evening. This is for students who are currently in Year 9, and who are about to make decisions about what subjects to take as IGCSEs in Years 10 and 11. It’s always a useful presentation, and I recommend it to parents of Year 9 students. The following Monday, we run our annual AS and A Level Information Evening for students currently in Year 11, so please mark that in your diary too! 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 8th August
Tuesday 9th August
Wednesday 10th August
Thursday 11th 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 PrimaryKia ora, We are at the end of week 2 already and there is a wonderful feeling of being settled into the term and making the most of the opportunities on offer. It is fun to watch the early football game on the junior playground each morning, dodging the ball as I make my way to the deck. The grass covered tunnel is a great place to chat with friends and the climbing frame is always busy. Year 6 take advantage of the courts for games of 4 square and sit on top of their climbing frame surveying the roofs of their classrooms. Once upon a time that space was the Year 3 playground before we moved the classrooms around and Year 6 made it their own. In fact, they loved it so much we built a new playground just for them. Our students are very talented in the arts, and it was a treat to see them perform on Wednesday night’s ensemble concert. There were lots of very excited choir members waiting in the Dance studio for their turn to perform. The juniors were first and had props on hand to add to the fun. Some of the tubes and inflatable instruments became objects to look at the audience through at one stage instead of to pretend to play and one lovely boy announced quite loudly that he hadn’t had any dinner! The singing though was joyful, ambitious and in tune. The senior choir had harmonies, sounded beautiful and it was clear that everyone had spent time on their performances. The Primary orchestra was next, playing some very ambitious pieces. We haven’t had an orchestra in the Primary before and so it was very special to see them perform so well. There are great things to come in our music programme and we want to say a huge thankyou to Ashleigh Pope especially, and to Cherrie Leefe and Hadley Ronayne for their work in the Primary. It was lovely to spend some time with the parents of our newest new Entrants at our Meet and Greet on Monday morning. We talked about how well P23 students had settled and what to expect from 5-year-olds who have just started school. As parents we will all probably remember those days as being special times but also a transition into the next stage of our child’s life. We ask ourselves questions like are they happy, learning, have they made any friends, and have they eaten enough? It was a chance to reassure everyone that they are all doing a great job and these things are a natural part of starting school. In the classroom, students are learning sounds and letters and recognising CVC words which means consonant vowel consonant, and will be reading and writing at a sophisticated level in no time. Year 5 and 6 are very busy at the moment, reminding themselves of their lines and learning dance moves for Madagascar. With only 3 weeks of rehearsal left before the show, it is all systems go. Tickets are on sale now and we would love to see you there. Enjoy your weekend. Noho ora mai, Sian Year 3 and 4 Syndicate News for Term 3Year 3 Learning in Term 3 Another exciting learning term has begun in P9, 10 and 11 this week. Despite the raincoats and winter weather the classes have been very excited to be back with their friends and teachers to commence the term. Writing The writing mission this term is called ‘The Mystery Cave’. The students will be learning how to write a myth or legend. Alongside this, they will be exploring the writing of an information panel and developing their understanding of writing reports. Through this context they will focus on how to write paragraphs and expand their sentences using phrases and clauses. Reading Our shared novel for the term is Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. Through this novel the students will be developing their understanding of how to identify the main ideas the author has included within the chapters. They will also discover connections between the text and their own experiences; the text and other texts and the text and their knowledge of the world around them. This will support the student’s understanding of the story and enable them to think critically about the messages that the author includes. We are also very excited to have a class set of ‘Charlotte’s Web’ to share. This means that the students can follow the story as it is being read, using their own copy during shared and guided reading times. We all love the excitement of the story unfolding and it is always a challenge for the students not to read ahead independently and find out what is going to happen before others in the class do!! There is nothing so exciting as the reading of a novel together, wondering what will happen next together in class!! Maths We begin the term with further exploration of addition and subtraction and developing strategies when calculating solutions to equations that involve money. In homeroom maths we are learning ways to collate and record data when investigating a question in statistics. Global Perspectives During Global Perspectives the students will begin the term researching and discovering the importance of homes as shelter around the world. We will focus on the different climates and environments in different countries and how this impacts the types of shelter needed in different parts of the world. Further on in the term we will be learning how to read a weather map and keep a daily record of the weather here in Auckland, discussing how this affects our housing (heating and cooling etc). This will certainly be very relevant to what is currently happening with our weather! Art In art, the focus for the term is cardboard construction. Through this media the students will be exploring a range of materials, tools, and processes. They will be learning to construct 3 dimensional artworks using paper, cardboard, and other materials: experimenting with and incorporating techniques such as layering, feathering, concertina, curling, twisting, folding, cutting, gluing, and attaching. Throughout these processes the students will be collaborating with others and sharing their skills in creating 3D folded paper objects. Science During Term 3, our science focus is on exploring life cycles. The students will be developing their understanding of how different animals are organised into groups and will learn to identify the distinguishing features of fish, reptiles, mammals, birds, amphibians, and insects. Through these experiences and activities, the classes will learn about the lifecycles of animals that belong to some of these groups (including humans, frogs, and butterflies) and develop understanding of food chains and the relationships within these. Year 4 Learning in Term 3 This week P12, P13 and P14 returned after a lovely holiday break excited to re-join their teachers and friends for another term of learning… even though it was a very wet return with umbrellas and coats!! The term ahead is also very exciting because the classes will be attending camp at Peter Snell. They will also be visiting the art gallery as part of the Term 3 art programme in which their art experiences are based on the study contemporary NZ painters and collage artists. In Writing… The focus in writing this term for the Year 4 classes is persuasive writing techniques. Through this context and lens the students will develop their understanding of how to write a persuasive argument, presenting points for and against through the Big Write Mission. They will also be writing their own speeches to present to the class on a topic they will choose themselves. This is a very exciting part of the Year 4 programme as the students also have the opportunity to develop public speaking skills when presenting their speeches to their peers. In Reading… This term the classes are reading the novel ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ by Michael Morpugo. Through shared and guided reading of the story the students will be developing their understanding of how to identify main ideas and supporting detail in what they have read. They will also be learning how to synthesize new information by summarising the text accurately and making judgements about the information they have read. This all supports the students to think more critically about what they are reading. The Year 4s also has a class set of ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ to share. This means that the students can follow using their own copy during shared and guided reading times. Although the students find it challenging not to read ahead independently to find out what is going to happen, they also value the excitement of discovering the twists and turns in the story together and sharing predictions and ideas during reading about what will happen next. It is so beneficial to be able to collaborate and share the reading of the novel together within class! In Maths… The term commences with a focus on adding and subtracting numbers up to 4 digits, using formal written methods to record calculations. The students will be practising estimating to check that their answers are correct. They will be further developing these skills through solving a range of two-step problems, in which they record each of the steps required to find the correct solution. The classes are really enjoying sharing their thinking and writing their own word problems. Through homeroom maths the focus for the classes is on answering questions in a statistical investigation. The students will be using information presented in scaled pictograms, bar charts and tables to solve problems. In Health… Exploring the concept of ‘How Healthy is My Diet’ the classes will be discussing, reflecting, and researching factors contributing to the physical health of people of their age, including diet, exercise, and a range of environmental factors. Working collaboratively and using a variety of graphic organizers to share their research, the students will also plan a campaign to raise awareness among children of their age about a chosen unhealthy aspect of their diet. In Global Perspectives… This week the Year 4s first lesson was an exciting, practical lesson exploring different food products. The students wanted to find out the origin of these and quickly discovered that many of the food items that we buy in New Zealand have come from countries all around the world. Next, they will be inquiring into the concepts of food miles and the globalisation of food. What’s happening in P20 this Term?To start with a little bit of Cambridge testing practice to ensure the students feel comfortable and prepared ahead of this terms Progression Tests and then next term’s Checkpoint. Alongside this, just to keep a balanced education, we are learning to pass a rugby ball and learn how to play Touch and Rippa Rugby. In Art, the students are taking inspiration from Andy Warhol’s pop art to create their own printing designs. In Maths and English, we continue to build and consolidate their learning. Of course, there is also a rather big show happening this term, which is keeping us all very busy too. At the same time, many students are participating in sports teams and music groups and performances. Every year 6 student is also a leader with a responsibility to do a duty at
lunchtime or whenever required. So, in Year 6 it’s all about being organised! And in P20, we do it pretty well. Growing our learning in P12!In Reading, we enthusiastically started reading Chapter 2 of Kensuke’s Kingdom. In this chapter we learnt about Michael’s adventure on the boat Peggy Sue! Even though Michael has started his voyage with his family, yet this did not stop him from doing his school work and keeping a journal about things he sees. Michael also tells us that water covers two thirds of the earth’s surface. We worked in groups to skim and scan to retrieve specific information about Chapter 2! In Maths cross-group we started adding and subtracting tricky two-step word problems. The lesson started by re-creating the success criteria, when answering two step word problems. 1. Read the instructions I am proud of all the students for this week for reconstructing the success criteria and showing a great understanding. We then worked in partners to solve tricky words problems, making sure to refer to the success criteria as we conversed and shared our answers with the class. In Health this week we are learning about what contributes to making a healthy life style. We first started with our ‘Wonder Wall’. Healthy food, such as fruits and vegetables as well as exercise were top in our class. This was a perfect opportunity to grow our learning further where we talked about having a positive mind set and friends. I will be sending home a daily meal chart for a week, where P12 can track their eating. In ICT we are learning how to create a stop motion video. Our learning for the past fortnight was to understand that stop-motion is a series of pictures that are slightly different and they appear to moved when play one after another. Today we grew up learning by working in pairs and created a stop motion video using imotion on the ipads. P12, I am proud of your team work and continuous enthusiasm throughout today’s lesson. Take a look at this awesome iMotion created by Xin and Ben. Busy Week in P1!What a busy week we have had in P1. We are learning about nocturnal animals and this week we have been focusing on owls. We loved reading the fiction book Owl Babies and we have also used some non-fiction books to learn some really cool owl facts. Did you know that owls don’t have teeth, they use their strong beaks to eat their prey with? Ling has drawn an excellent story map to use to help her with her Big Write. Can you guess the owl facts she has written about? During our art lesson we recycled some old CDs and used them to make huge owl eyes. The owls are sitting on the tree in P1, but they will only come out at night when we are asleep. Some of us have been singing in the choir with Ms Pope. We practice every other Friday and on Thursday evening this week we will be performing some songs in the Arena. We are really excited as we absolutely love singing. Thumbs up for choir! Cookie the cat lives in P1 and each day she looks for children who are being kind, working hard and trying their best. At the end of the day she chooses who to go home with. We get to write in Cookie’s book and tell the rest of P1 what Cookie got up to. She is really excited to go along to the choir performance this week. A Week in P6!P6 has had an exciting week. In our literacy program the activities have been focused on the book ‘Traction Man meets Turbo Dog’ by Mini Grey. Activities such as learning about written language features like similes, powerful verbs, using ellipsis and bold text to show drama, writing interesting openers, making predictions and practicing summarising the text that we have read. In Maths our focus has been fractions. The students have learnt to demonstrate how one half and one quarter can be shown as division. They have also completed activities to find and recognise a third. In Art we have been looking at paper collage techniques and our focus has been creating own impression using inspiration from the artist Henri Matisse. We also linked our art with our global perspective’s topic (Listing different sports, a sports collage, and founding out about sports that are played locally and nationally) and included silhouettes of different types of sports that we can see in the 2022 Commonwealth Games. An Update from P10Global Perspectives and Science Yesterday morning, P10 students were fascinated by the fog so they didn’t waste any time jotting it down on their weather record sheet for this week as part of their Global Perspective data collection. They transferred the data analysing skills they have learned in Science class to interpret the data. In Science, we have been learning to distinguish between things that are living, used to live, or never alive. We went to the field to collect specimens for studying using the classification criteria. Big words were read and understood in those classes, such as taxonomy, phytoplankton, protist, and monera. Their brains are absolutely stimulated by the interesting topics and challenges, and we often joke about how we could see steam coming out of the ears when we think hard! Computer Science It has always been one of their many favourite subjects. This week we have successfully tidied up Mrs Huang’s laptop desktop by creating hierarchy folders and of course, decluttering, putting things into the “Recycling Bin”! P10 thought it was magical when the “Recycling Bin” became empty after deleting all the unwanted documents. They also did a fantastic job by grouping the applications on their iPads to make the homescreen nice and tidy. Basketball We have many talents among our basketball players, and this week has been phenomenal. Oliver Chen won the Player of the Day for the Team Hawks and his friend, Jayden Chang, also performed to a high standard. “They persevered, never gave up, gave their all, and were amazing,” commented the Team Manager Mrs Boniface. Message from the Principal of College Kia ora e te Whānau o Pinehurst College Week one of Term ended on a high last Friday evening with our College production of Annie. The whole show was spectacular and reflected the hours of focused preparation that our staff and students had put in. The cast provided us with wonderful performances and the set, hair and makeup, and sound and lighting were all excellent. Whilst adding a real live dog to the cast seemed like a risk, he behaved beautifully and certainly added a cuteness factor. The prospect of holding our next school production in our own theatre is very exciting, especially given the obvious talent we have amongst our students and staff. We had some superb sports results over the weekend including wins for senior girls’ and boys' badminton, U17 basketball and 1st XI girls’ and boys’ hockey teams. At the New Zealand Secondary Schools Swimming Championships, Jack Potier and Yeenok Zhang were both medal winners and Osbert Gu won eleven medals at the event! Thank you parents for supporting your students to represent Pinehurst College in sport, they work very hard and make us proud. Our teachers started the week busily preparing for our second set of parent teacher conferences of the year and making sure that they were ready to make the most of the time they had with each family. Both conference evenings were very well attended, and I would like to thank parents for taking the time to come in to school and meet with your child’s teachers. This regular connection allows us to work together and ensure that we are giving your child the best possible support to enable them to gain success. I was very impressed with the way our students conducted themselves at the conferences, looking after their parents and respectfully taking advice from their teachers. They will now have some good feedback to think about over the coming weeks. On Wednesday of this week, The Pinehurst Music Department hosted an Ensemble Performance Showcase in our school arena at which both Primary and College music students performed. Again, our children were extremely well supported by their families and teachers, and the effort that had been put in to prepare for their performances was obvious. We were treated to some outstanding musical performances from our College students and our orchestra was given the opportunity to have a practice performance ahead of the KBB Music Festival on Monday. This weekend, as well as our usual sporting fixtures, we have two senior College teams entered into the New Zealand Engineering Science Competition which is organised by the University of Auckland's Department of Engineering Science and sponsored by Orion Health and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare. On Saturday, the teams will arrive at school where they will receive an open-ended science related question which they will attempt to solve using mathematical modelling techniques. There are around 200 teams in the competition from schools all around the country and the skills needed have been taught in their mathematics and physics classes. Both of our teams are very keen to do well, and I will keep you posted on their progress. They are given eight hours to prepare their solution so I am expecting that they will be exhausted at the end of the day. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. We have an IGCSE information evening planned for Monday and it would be wonderful to see all of our Year 9 students and their parents at that event. Ngā mihi Dawn New Zealand Secondary Schools Swimming ChampsLast week swimmers from around the country, including 10 from Pinehurst School, descended on Te Rapa to participate in the NZSS Swimming Champs held at Waterworld. They competed in a variety of individual events as well as some team relays. This is the first time we have had so many eligible swimmers attending. They did us all proud, breaking their own personal bests (PBs) as well as coming back with an impressive amount of medals between them. Being able to enter the relays this year was an added bonus and a bit of fun with our students placing a credible 4th in two events after being pipped at the post in both. Pinehurst placed 6th/64 overall out of the Co-Ed schools at NZSS Swimming which is an incredible accomplishment! Osbert Gu - 13 year age group (11 Medals) Jack Potier - 15 year age group (2 Medals) Yeenok Zhang - 14 year age group (1 Medal) YTech SymposiumOn Monday the 1st of August 2022, the Year 12 and 13 Computer Science students attended the annual YTech Symposium at the Vodafone event centre. This year the event was focused on Beyond the Code, sharing information from various industries on how Technology is driving almost every type of industry, from agriculture to healthcare and construction. After Dan Walker from Microsoft opened the event, explaining his journey and the ability to drive his passion through technology, the students and teachers were separated into separate venues. Teachers received Professional Development from Subash Chandar from Infinity Plus-one and the ability to network and share various Digital Technology and Computer Science resources. Students attended lectures on Fujitsu, Cardano, Techxperts, Halter and Rocket Lab, the last two lectures being the favorites. During the break they had the ability to visit several stalls exploring different types of digital technology equipment. The highlight of the day is always at the end when the students all participate in a giant Kahoot, creating competition between all the schools. Link to the official site. North Harbour Netball Zone Day 2022Last Friday, the AIMS netball team and 7/1 netball team competed at the North Harbour Netball Zone Day. It was a great day of competition, and it was awesome to be able to send two very competitive teams to the tournament. There were some strong performances on the court from both teams and there were a few nail biting games that could have gone either way. This was the first year we have entered the 7/1 team in the tournament, and they did extraordinary well against some tough opposition which are placed in higher grades in their weekly competition. This tournament was a great opportunity for our AIMS team to come up against some tough opposition in preparation for the AIMS Games which is fast approaching. A massive shout out to all the coaches, managers and parent helpers who made this day a success. We are so lucky to have such talented people supporting our netball teams. IGCSE HistoryStudents are working hard in IGCSE History, revising content and learning new skills to help them succeed in their upcoming examinations. Analysis is the ability to demonstrate an understanding of the elements that contributed to the creation of a historical source. It answers the question: 'Why does this source exist in its current form?' Students are revising the treaties that followed WW1 and the peace they were supposed to bring to Europe and the rest of the world. Students need to interpret each source correctly, analyse the provenance and utilise each source to argue both for and against each question. We have had some enjoyable lessons where students share their ideas with each other and work collaboratively to answer each question. As they are discovering - the more they talk about each source and really analyse it - the more they understand about it and the history behind it. Tony Yu - Auckland U15 Open 2022Tony took part in Auckland U15 Open 2022 last weekend. He won the Champion titles for Boys Single, Boys Doubles and Mix Doubles. Congratulations Tony!! JC Debating‘Fast Food Should Be banned’, much to the disappointment of many students! Congratulations to Nicholas, Carlos and Simon who narrowly beat Bruce, Cesar and Jerry in our latest Junior College Debate. Both teams brought well thought out arguments, had some great rebuttal and entertained the audience well. Year 11 General PEIn PE the Year 11 students have been working cooperatively in groups and experiencing new games and cultural pastimes from around the world. This week the focus has been on Kabbadi and Buroinjin. Kabbadi is an Indian game, where points are scored for each player tagged by the raider, while the opposing team tries to earn a point for stopping the raider. Buroinjin is an Australian game that used to be played with a ball made from kangaroo skin and is a fast-paced invasion game. Students are thoroughly enjoying this unit so far and it has been pleasing to see the enthusiasm when learning new cultural games from around the world. How we communicate in BusinessThis week, Mrs Mann’s Year 10 Business class is studying communication. To demonstrate the perils of poor communication, we played a few rounds of Telephone Charades. This game teaches us that it is not just the message that is important, but how a message is delivered and interpreted that makes communication effective. AnnieLast week ended on a high with our College production of Annie! Check out the students in action below: Defensive Driving CourseOffered at Pinehurst by an external provider Shore2Pass. Four sessions after school (must attend all!) 12, 14, 19, 21 September 3:30-5:30. Currently only open to Pinehurst Students but will be opened up to other schools from 15 August - get in quick! Details and registration here. Use the “Book a Course” tab. Dad’s Fantail & Turtle is Back!After popular demand and many requests, we are hosting our first Dad’s F’n’T for 2022. It’s been a year since our last Dad’s F’n’T, but after so many postponements we are finally able to say it’s back. This is a fun and casual way for our Pinehurst Dad’s to meet and network on a business or social level. We’ve had some great conversations, ideas and social groups come out of these groups. 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. |