Week 9, Term 2 2019

The shortest day has been and gone, and we can now look forward to 1 minute (approx.) extra of daylight each day!

Matariki begins this week - students not in Kapa Haka have been learning about this special time of the year.

A huge congratulations to Rahil who won the Rotary Speech competition on Thursday night with his speech on "Grown Ups are a Weird Species".  Abigail also represented Avonhead in the Year 7 section with her speech on "Why Books are better than Movies." 

Van, Thomas B. and Matthew A. enjoyed an afternoon of science at the University of Canterbury on Wednesday afternoon.  They did all sorts of chemical experiments based around colour.
                    

Congratulations to our cross country runners who competed at the Centrals on Wednesday.  Mrs Moore was really impressed with the huge effort put in by all the runners along with the amazing sportsmanship shown in the cold conditions.  Important to mention was Charlotte P's placing of 18th out of 188 Year 7 girls in her race!

Thank you to Mrs G and the Student Council for the disco on Friday night!



We have a bit of a busy week coming up...

Monday
*NW Festival participants (choir and chorale only) need to collect their performance uniform.
*Last day to order sausage sizzles (for Thursday) - $2 - please order from outside Room 27.

Tuesday
*After technology we are going to Riccarton High School to watch their musical production of Grease.  We are bussing there (straight from technology, so no extra charge) and back ($2 cash - please give this to your homeroom teacher by Monday).  A notice came home last week and was emailed to parents too.

Wednesday
*Room 27's visit to the city - Room 27 students please make sure your permission and payment is back on Monday.

Thursday
*Eric, Shivam, Bentley and Uros will be competing at the Year 7/8 Canterbury chess tournament - good luck boys!
*NW Festival rehearsals from 9am-12pm, with the concert at night starting at 7pm
*Sausage Sizzle
*Mr Rodger returns

Sunday
*Zumba in the hall from 1:30 - 2:30pm (school fundraiser)

Darelle and Karalee :)

And the Year 7 Speech Winners Are.......

Congratulations to all our Year 7 speech finalists.  You were all AMAZING.  The finalists have been selected:

1st place - Abigail H with her speech "why books are better than movies" (centre)
2nd place - Helen L with her speech "why social media should be banned for under 13s" (right)
3rd place - Talia F with her speech "why books are better than movies" (left)

Like Rahil, our Year 8 speech champion Abigail will be competing in the hall on Thursday night at the Rotary inter-school speech competition.  We wish her all the very best!

Wearable Arts Afternoons - look out America's Next Top Model!

Each afternoon Monday to Thursday the Senior HQ comes alive with seamstresses, designers, model, rummagers and technicians.  If  you would like to lend a hand and come and join us, just pop into the HQ on any one of these days from 2pm to 3pm.  Have a look at what we get to be a part of:

Drum roll please.........

We have just held our Senior HQ speech finals today in the meeting space.  Selected class finalists from Mrs G, Mrs B and Mrs Moore's classes were chosen to present and what a high standard they demonstrated!  The teachers had a tough time picking the top Year 7s and the top Year 8s.  With one student away today and yet to present, we haven't finalised our top 3 Year 7s.  We can however announce the Year 8 finalists:

1st place - Rahil Udin with his speech on 'Grown ups are a weird species!'
2nd place - Mia Anderson with her speech on 'Social media should be banned for under 13 year olds'
3rd place - Isaac Wilson with his speech on 'Grown ups are a weird species!'

Rahil will present his speech as the first place winner this Thursday night in our school hall at the Riccarton Rotary Speech inter-school competition.  We wish him all the very best!

Year 7s will be announced later this week.  Watch this space!  Congratulations to all our finalists - you should be very proud of yourself and your amazing ability to entertain, persuade and stand in front of so many people and speak confidently.  You certainly wow'd us!

Week 5, Term 2 2019

Talofa!

This week is the (almost) half way point of the term and we are well under way with our learning for the term.  Our theme this term is Exploration which we are doing through Art.  You may have heard there will be a school wide art school in week 10 of this term.  Team 7/8 will be doing wearable arts as well as an individual piece for this.  Student have selected their groups for their individual piece from Photography, Landscapes, Masks, Picasso and Zentangles and have begun working on these.  We also began the term looking at art from different cultures...

It was great to see so many of our students take part in the Cross Country, and run most of the way! Well done to the team who went to Zones and those who placed and will run at Centrals soon.
Year 7 girls: Charlotte, Kathryn, Christina, Lena, Kayla and Neve
Year 7 boys: Aidan, Thomas E, Rupert, Tyler, Matthew and Joe
Year 8 girls: Nicole, Zoe, Mia, Nyella, Arabella and Jasmine
Year 8 boys: Ngakau, Neeraj, Tyler, Aidan, Daniel and William

We are into our second week of winter sport - a reminder to bring your gear for a practice during the week and a game on Fridays.  Note: there are no games this coming Friday.

Other key dates this term:

Week 5

Samoan Language week

e-asTTle testing (reading and maths) begins

Wednesday 29 May - school is closed due to the Strike

Thursday 30 May - National Young Leaders Day (Student Council and House Captains)

School performance of Aotearoa, no te katoa for NZ Music Month

Week 6

Monday 3 June - Queen's Birthday (public holiday, school is closed)

Wednesday 5 June - NW Festival rehearsal (TBC) - rescheduled due to the strike

Week 8

Thursday 20 June - Otago Problem Solving #3; Music Soiree 6pm

Week 9

Thursday 27 June - Sausage Sizzle, NW Festival rehearsal (9-12), performance (6pm)

Week 10

Wednesday 3 July - Avonhead Art Adventure

Thursday 4 July - Avonhead Cultural Concert

Reports come home

High School Open Nights

Open Nights 2019

ANZAC Events Day 1!

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Senior HQ for Week 1 of Term 2!

Today we had a great day, even if it was VERY wet, hearing all about everyone's holiday period.  So many people have seen "End Game" at the movies.  This was certainly a popular holiday activity.  All the new hair cuts look great too!  We are sorting out new monitor & duty people tomorrow (Tuesday) so listen out for what you may have been allocated.  If you want to add your name to a duty or responsibility then see Mrs Moore ASAP so your name can be added to her doc.  We kicked off cross country training today - well done to the people that pushed themselves.  We will be running daily to improve fitness for the upcoming school cross country event as well as for winter sport.  Parents need to provide a note if there is a medical reason for a student not to run.  It is really good for our wellbeing to be active and as best prepared for sporting events as we can be!

Today we talked about ANZAC day celebrations and the events and themes surrounding this special day for New Zealand.  We made some delicious ANZAC biscuits (with the sneaky addition of some chocolate chippies) and started some poppies.  Some students learnt some more about ANZAC day by listening to stories and watching youtube clips.  Give your child a pop quiz! 

Here are some snaps from our first day back together: