Term 3: Week 6

Things are heating up heading into the second half of Term 3 - especially with school production just around the corner. Not many photos this week but there's still a lot happening. Here's a run down on some snippets from the last fortnight.


HRSA Netball

 Last Tuesday the Year 7 & 8 Netball teams went to the Hutt Valley Netball Tournament. Both teams played 6 games in a row and by the end we needed a rest. The Year 8 team won one of their games and drew another and lost four. The Year 7 team won two games drew one and lost three. Overall it was a very fun experience and all the girls had a ton of fun! We hope we get to do it again next year.

 By Ella and Neve McKay

Hutt City Council Reusable Bag Competition

 In our last post I shared some photos of bags that some of our students made for this competition. Great news! Sally Bird and Orla Longdon both received awards and prizes for their fantastic creations. They will hopefully get presented with their prizes by the mayor next month. Top job girls!

Flip the Classroom

Some students in Room 22 Maths Class decided to have a go at teaching last week.



What an excellent way to reinforce concepts by having to explain your working.

NIWA Science Fair

 Our Science Extension Team were on show this week at the annual NIWA Science Fair at Victoria University. The day started with the group taking a relaxing trip on the ferry across the harbour then up the cable car to the university. The pressure then went on as our students were grilled by the judges for most of the day. We received exciting news on Friday afternoon what several of our students were awarded top prizes:

• Emeline Gray won the NZ Institute of Food Science and Technology Award for her investigation on 'Do lightproof milk bottles have any effect on the taste of milk?'
• Lily Griffiths won the Geoscience Society of NZ Award for her investigation on 'Does the temperature of the air effect the temperature of the sea?'
• Mia Treadwell-Burke, Hannah Moffat, Emeline Gray, Helena Cvitanovich and Lily Griffiths won the Special 50th celebration Phillip Alve Futures Prize for there joint investigation.
• Alexander Cox-Turk, Alice McFarlane, Emily Daymond-King and Emeline Gray recieved a Highly Commended for their efforts.

Top job everyone!

Careers Education

Last Thursday we held our final Careers afternoon for the term. We had another 3 parents come to share their experiences of their profession with us; Jayne Barlow a fingerprint analyst for the police, Matt Comesky a publisher of educational text like our School Journals and Alistair Roger an All Black analyst. A bit of a star-studded line up! Once again it was fantastic to listen to what they do in an average day and think about the common skills all three of them needed for their jobs. Communication and paying close attention to detail are essential for all of them.

Thanks again to all the parents who have come along to share their experiences with us. We really value your time and contributions to our learning.

Sporting Achievements

Some of our students have achieved great success outside school over the past month or so. We have heard through the grapevine that 4 Year 7 boys; Tom Flynn, Callan Hughes, Lincoln Moffat and Tobias Knight have been selected to play for the Hutt Valley Rep Under 13 squad. The boys will travel to Dunedin to compete in the national competition in October.

Lincoln also played lock for the second consecutive year for the Hutt Valley rep rugby team (Under 12 -2014 and under 11 -2013) which was unbeaten in the inter and intra-provisional competitions in both years. He is the only Eastbourne boy to be selected. 

Callan is also a HV representative tennis player.

Awesome effort boys! If anyone has other student successes they would like to pass onto we would love to hear so we can congratulate and celebrate at school.


The Importance of Bees

You may have seen this great clip already on the Muritai TV blog but its worth sharing again. Our Muritai TV and Enviro teams have joined forces for this latest project to highlight the importance of bees in our environment.

 

Term 3 Week 4

Apologies this latest post is a little delayed. The Senior School has been hit with a nasty flu bug over the past week, we have had several students and teachers off sick because of it. It still has not stopped any of the action. Below is a run down from the past couple of weeks.


Basketball

 Our sport ambassadors were lucky enough to have a session with ex-Muritai student Stella Beck. Stella has a pro basketballer. She recently won an American College scholarship and will soon be trialling for the NZ Tall Ferns. We really appreciate Stella giving up some time to give something back to us.

Parliament

Two weeks ago the students from our Senior School had a day out in Wellington City. The focus of the day was visiting Parliament  where each class was taken on a guided tour of the buildings. They visited the beehive where they met with local MP Trevor Mallard and then visited the media theatre where John Key is often grilled by the journalists. They also had the opportunity to enter the Debating Chamber where the MPs debate current bills to then be made law. We also visited the the very grand looking Legislative Debating Chamber which is now used for formal occasions, in particular for the formal state opening of Parliament by the Queen or the Queen's representative, the Governor-General. 

The rest of the day was made up off visiting the National Archives where they viewed the original Treaty of Waitangi and the Women’s Suffrage petition, then Te Papa to complete a scavenger hunt with a Matariki focus. 

It was a great day out with exceptional well behaved children! A special thanks to Clare, Janelle, Ang, Susan and Rodney who assisted with supervision on the day.

Science Extension

Our science extension group have been working incredibly hard over the past four Fridays with Melissa Coton on their individualised science projects. There has been great self-directed learning happening including a group working with members from our local Dune Society while a group of boys created their very own seismograph to measure earthquake activity - very impressive!

Murals

Our Art Ambassadors have continued with their creativity in producing another quality mural for our school - this time its an interactive Howie! They have also been working hard on creating some awesome props  and a backdrop for  the up-coming production - looking good!

Art

Continuing with the art theme, our students have created some excellent creations through a couple of Hutt City Council initiatives. Firstly recycled bags and secondly new logos for keeping Hutt City beautiful.

Gardening

We have started to give our gardens at the front of the school a well deserved spruce up! Special thanks to Nancy Barclay for coming along to lend a hand

Technicraft

Our latest cycle of technicraft is drawing to a close. More cooking, sewing and woodwork!

Disco

We all had a great night at the disco last Friday night - everyone looked very sharp and made some shapes on the dancefloor!