Term 2: Week 8

Its been a busy couple of weeks in the senior school with loads of celebrating of learning. We saw the conclusion of our Speech and Sparks programmes. All classes in now in the throws of completing requirements for our Space inquiry and explanation writing. Below is a summary of all the highlights for the past few weeks. Please feel free to leave a comment below for the team.

PPP Celebration.

It was fantastic to see a huge turn out last Friday to view our Personal Passion Projects. Many of the students were immensely proud of their achievements and it was great to see them share the process they went through with the younger students and parents. They have made honest reflections on their journey and eager to have another go so they can make adjustments and improvements. Look out in Term 4 for another round! It has been an excellent learning opportunity for our seniors to explore their passions!

Speech Finals.

After our PPP sharing we went straight into our biannual Speech Competition. This is a conclusion and celebration of 5 weeks work where each student had to plan, research and present a 3 to 5 minute speech on a subject of their choice. Every student gave 100% in class and delivered really impressive speeches. It was a tough decision for each teacher to choose the top three from their class to represent them in the finals. The standard this year was incredible, along with a huge variety in subjects from the difference between chimpanzees and humans, Heroes, Parents to Diapers and Miners strikes. It was an incredibly tough job for our judges Mr Bird and Mrs Hooke too but winners were announced… Congratulation to Alice for coming third with her well delivered speech on Heroes. Tessa was runner up with her very entertaining speech on ‘How to deliver the perfect speech'. Check it out below:

 

This year, the winner of our speech competition was Tom who delivered an outstanding speech on 'World Records'. The speech was very entertaining, informative and was linked together nicely. Top job Tom! Check it our below:

 

Kapa Haka

Our Kapa Haka group have been working incredibly hard over the past few weeks with Mrs Hooke and Mrs Algar preparing for Polyfest in a couple weeks. There is still lots of work to be done but they are well on tracked for their performance in a couple of weeks time.

Mural & Mike Weston

By Joshua in Room 24:

 Last Thursday, Room 24 was graced with the appearance of Mike Weston, a famous New Zealand artist! Mike Weston was kind enough to come into Room 24 on Thursday to teach us about how he became such a successful artist!

His career as an artist began mainly with photography and photo-shop as he worked to create posters for his music gigs. Unfortunately, he found that most of the time, all of his work would go to waste after his show, as he had to scrap the posters afterwards.

He decided to do full time art, but his real career began when he started to work with his friend, Otis Frizzell, and acted as a sort of 'Art Producer' like how a music producer might work.He would tell Otis what to paint, how to paint it, and when. Otis used to be mainly a street artist, but with this new setup, he could paint on canvas's instead of walls, and so, get paid.

Later, Mike Weston became famous for his 'Behave' piece of Artwork. He drew the original draft on a napkin at a dinner party, and later made a rough draft on the computer. The piece of artwork consisted of the Beehive matchboxes logo, with the Beehive company brand below changed to 'Behave' in stencil writing. The original black and red stripes were changed to have four white koru's in-between them to add some Maori cultural influence. The piece was made during a time where the country was trying to figure out how to be multi-cultural, the art piece saying that the solution is to 'Behave'.

However, when he presented it to his wife, she said that it was dumb and wouldn't sell. After many iterations he abandoned the idea and let it sit for awhile. A few years later he re-visited the idea, and he decided to dump his box of sharp metal pieces, nails, bolts, screws, rocks and sandpaper all over the piece of art. Surprisingly, it made it look much better, the scratched and bruised 'Behave' looking much better than the clean and non-damaged one. He brought it to an art exhibition where it quickly sold for $1500 to the Labour party leader at the time, who quickly displayed it in her office within the Beehive (House of Parliament). It sold quickly after that first time as the price was set, and many copies were sold, even requiring them to find a printing press so that they could mass-produce copies. Eventually it even managed to become a sponsoring brand, going on to win an award at a wine awards ceremony.

The 'Behave' brand was Mike Weston's crowning achievement, making him $1.5 Million over the ten years since it was first launched in 2004. However, Mike Weston has worked on other projects despite the fact that 'Behave' is still making him money today. Some of his other more interesting projects include artwork on Woolworth's recycle-able and a large mural depicting Auckland's most famous landmarks.

Because we were so inspired by him, Room 24 will be making a 'Behave' mural on our bland breeze block wall, which is quite fitting for a school! Room 24 gives many thanks to Mike Weston for spending some of his time to come to our class and teach us about himself and his art. 

- Joshua (Half-dead) Class Blogger.

 The mural is slowly taking shape... watch this space for the finish product!

OnTV

From Aless and Lea On Wednesday our technocraft group went to Capital E, to On TV. We had to act out a small play/news focused on the Wahine disaster. At school, before we did anything we had to learn about the Wahine disaster and some of us had to write our own scripts.

The Wahine disaster happened on April 10, 1968. Fifty one people lost their lives that day after it hit Barrett reef and capsized. Mostly everyone had deep cuts, gashes and hypothermia was one of the major problems.

 On Wednesday we all met at Days Bay wharf to catch the ferry across to Wellington, from there we had to walk to the Capital E centre and to meet Kit who would help us with the props and filming. We went upstairs to get started. When we got there we were amazed at how professional the studio looked. After we settled down and Kit had talked us through what was going to happen that day, he showed us the costume room and we all got dressed into what our characters might have worn. We had one hour to practise our lines and acting - that time went really fast!

 When we knew our lines well enough and the time was up we finally started filming. We had two practices of real filming to get the hang of everything, but after that we had to start with the real stuff. It was really nerve wracking to know that we were on camera and to think we might forget our lines and ruin the filming. Finally after another mucked up show we had one last go left. With only one mishap in the middle we filmed the perfect show!

 After we watched our finished product, we went to the Food Court and we all went off to find food. Slowly the table started filling up and we all talked and laughed together. Before we went back to the ferry, we had a quick trip to the City and Sea Museum and then we slowly walked to the ferry and nearly missing it.

 This is our finished product.
 

 By Lea and Aless.

  Muritai TV.

 Our Muritai TV Team have been working hard over the past couple of weeks packaging up some short clips on promoting our school values. This week Sammy, Xander, Theo and Arie shared two clips in assembly on what students at Muritai think Respect and Curiosity means.

Term 2: Week 5

Field Trip to Wellington City

A couple of weeks ago the syndicate jumped on the bus and headed to Wellington City. We had two locations on our itinerary; firstly Carter Observatory to get the 'juices flowing' for our inquiry on Space Exploration then to Te Papa to visit the new WW1 exhibit 'The Scale of Our War'. Both events were extremely entertaining and thought provoking. We were all particularly blown away by the giant models in the WW1 exhibit created by Weta Workshop. They looked so real, almost like they were about to come to life!

Using WW1 to inspire our writing

After visiting Te Papa some of the students used the stories from the real life characters in the exhibit as motivation for their own diary writing. Check out Saxon, Rosa and Joshua who presented theirs in assembly.

  Shrinking the Solar System

To start our Space Exploration inquiry for Science we wanted to get a sense of just how huge not only our solar system is but the entire galaxy. Often one of the best ways to get a good understanding of massive distances is to actually shrink things down in scale then relate it to what we already know. In this activity we shrunk the Sun to have a diameter of only 1km. We then scaled down all the distances each planet is from the sun to match. We used Google Maps to show the orbit of each planet. Below are some examples from Samantha in Room 24.

SPARKS - PPP

Last Friday was our final session on our Personal Passion Projects. We all had so much fun with these projects. It has been amazing to see such a huge variety of topics studied and seeing everyone so engaged in their learning. This week is a time to reflect on the learning journey before we share our work with the everyone. On Friday 6th June we are inviting parents and students to come and see our wonderful projects but if you can't wait, here's a taste on what will be on offer - an interesting proposal by Kieran and a brand new Jump Jam dance by Rosie and Helena. Top job guys!

Term 2: Week 3

We have made a great start to Term 2 in the Senior School. The students are full steam into their learning and the teachers have been super impressed with the commitment they are  giving to their work. Below are just a few of the highlights from the past fortnight in the Year 7/8 team.

OnTV - Across the Trenches.

Last Wednesday Ruth Hooke took her Technicraft group across the harbour on the ferry to visit the OnTV studio at Capital E. In this cycle the group had to learn a detailed script focusing on the events of WW1. They not only had to present in front of the camera, they needed to co-ordinate EVERYTHING behind the scenes - not an easy task, especially in such a short time period!

 

... and check out the final product - well done team!

 

 Wacky Hair Day

Last Tuesday our charity team organised a wacky hair day for the school to raise money for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced from the devastating earthquake in Nepal. Working with the East Harbour Kindergarten we raised $1007.40 for the Red Cross Nepal Appeal funds. Excellent effort on the crazy hair styles too everyone!

Writing

At the beginning of the term the students have been focusing on developing their creative writing skills through a series of 'quick writes'. They have been using a variety of tools for motivation such as interesting YouTube clips and images that get the imagination charged. Here's a couple of samples from Room 24. Great job Eva and Josh!

Monkey Symphony by Josh

I ripped the dusty sheet off of the worn piano. My colleague, a burly gorilla by the name of Sherman, looked at me encouragingly before stepping back, listening for the marvellous music soon to come out of the piano. I sat down on the wooden stool, and it creaked like an old cabin in the woods. My fingers brushed some dust off of the old ivory keys of the piano, and I settled into a position I so remembered. Hearing my friends melodious song, I waited for the right note, and my fingers touched the cold ivory keys.

I began with a more upbeat tune of the original song, which alerted my friends mother and teacher. As she neared the curtain, I stopped, and sucked in a breath as big as a whales, waiting... no... hoping for a reply as I hid behind the curtain, obscuring me from the stage he was on. And then I heard it, like water to a man in a desert, I was instantly listening, sucked in by the tune. I could hear the footsteps of his mother getting closer to him, and as he stopped, my fingers came down for another reply. Sherman pulled up the curtains as we began to play on different pianos but as one, a melody of music, a storm of sounds. Ever more reassured by the sight of each others face, we began to play faster, stronger, like a forest of trees, roots interlocking and sharing nutrients, becoming stronger with each other. Sherman blocked my friends teacher, as she targeted me as the one who destroyed her forced march of a song.

My fingers danced across the pianos surface, and made the song like an ever-evolving creature, never stopping for fear of getting left behind. A harmony of sound burst from the two instruments as I channeled my emotions into the song, my sadness, my fears, and my happiness for us finding each other once again. Even Sherman, a normally very closed off gorilla, was dancing to the beat of the song, like a bull on a bad day. My friends teacher marched off, disgusted with both of us.

Finally, he stopped, and I heard his footsteps coming closer, gliding across the ground like a bird in the treetops. He sat down next to me. No words were needed, as we played together, just like old times. We forgot the troubles of the world, forgot the teacher, forgot everything, all that mattered, was the piano in front of us, and the beautiful music spouting from it like a waterfall.

Forest Writing by Eva

He hadn’t spoken a word, and yet I knew exactly why he’d led me here.

I reached for the tree trunk ridden with layer upon layer of frosted fungi, the ice seeped through my loosely knitted glove and left my fingers cold and uncomfortable, much like the rest of me. This place brought back unwanted memories, nightmares that gave the same panic and distress every evening, “There was nothing we could’ve done...I'm s-sorry”, I whispered, leaving a faint cloud of breath that loomed over my head, hung in guilt and despair. I lifted my chin a little to watch it slip away, and an unwanted tear fell from my eye as I realised the significance. It was almost as if everything I’d ever had, ever loved, had simply “slipped” away, was I going to lose him as well?

I began to drag my scuffed boots along the sea of autumnal leaves, following the trace he had left with his. I glanced up and saw his silhouette surrounded with hazy blue fog.

I carried on.

I took another peek from underneath my obstructing fringe and between the strands of auburn hair I could make out a rigid figure… this time it seemed he had only moved an inch. I took one last step.

One last look, and… he was gone.

As quickly as the night turns to day, he had left, disappeared like a cruel magic trick. I fell to my knees, this time the tears were intentional, they streamed down my pale cheeks, a crashing waterfall, a salty stream. I threw my head back towards the cage of branches that lined the roof of this unforgiving forest, I cursed and screamed at them, but the only response I was given was a slap of vicious wind, bursting through the vein-like trees.

It had finally happened, I was alone, all alone.

PPP - Personal Passion Projects

For the first half of this term our Year 7 and 8 pupils are spending Friday mornings focusing on their passions. Each student developed a proposal to present to their teacher on a project they would like to carry out for 5 weeks. They were required to plan and manage their time effectively, think about what resources they required, problem solve to overcome challenges and reflect on the progress they are making. There is a huge variety of projects that the students are working on from fishing, cooking and movie making through to science and history inquiries, teaching PE skills and visual art projects. The teachers have been blown away with the motivation of all the students and how well they are managing themselves in a less structured classroom environment. Below are some snaps of some of the students in action. We will keep you posted with progress throughout the rest of the term!