Significant achievements for celebration at Bluestone School this year include... 

The South Canterbury, Canterbury and South Island ePro 8 Challenge Tournaments

Our Year 7 and 8 students Alex Dunn, Haibin Chen, Nakeisha Austin and Jacob Wederall  placed runners up at the recent South Island Epro8 Tournament in Christchurch. This event is a Science, Technology,  Engineering and Math based Problem Solving tournament. They competed against the best of the best schools from all across Canterbury, Otago, Southland, West Coast and Tasman. This is an outstanding achievement by these students who had won the South Canterbury ePro8 and Canterbury ePro8 competitions on their way to this major South Island schools tournament. We also had another team from Bluestone School place runners up in the South Canterbury tournament.

The NZ Children's Literacy Quiz Competition

On Tuesday, 28 March we hosted the South Canterbury Kid’s Literature Quiz in our school Library and Hall. Mrs Ross (former School Librarian), Mrs Amanda Hawker (New School Librarian) and Mrs Genet (Room 13) supported our students and their involvement in this event, in which we had several teams representing our school.

Twenty one teams hotly contested this heat for the chance to compete in the NZ final in Wellington on 17th June. 

Bluestone teams came first and second in the South Canterbury region.  Well done to Mary Thorp, Haana Thorp, Ruby Stone and Logan Dunn for gaining first place. Right behind them in second place came Dominic Eddington, Nikolai Waters, Gus Genet and Nakeisha Austin. This is truly an amazing result for our school.

We were thrilled to announce that our school finished first and second in this regional school competition. Congratulations to our students Haana Thorp, Logan Dunn, Mary Thorp and Ruby Stone who went to Wellington to represent our school and South Canterbury.  

This national literacy educational event where the best of the best across NZ compete for the ultimate honour of being crowned NZ Children’s Literacy Champions in NZ for 2023 is a highly coveted title.

Our school finished seventh at the NZ Schools Lit Quiz on Saturday 17 June in Wellington. We are ranked the 7th best school in NZ. For some perspective, there are approximately 1,900 schools across NZ. 

Congratulations to our students on this outstanding honour and achievement.

The Timaru Mitre 10 Mega Interschool Go Kart Challenge

A group of students from Year 6 competed in the annual South Canterbury Interschool Go Kart Challenge competition. We won this year's 2023 challenge with the fastest go kart and  we were also judged the best dressed team amongst all the schools who took part. The students had to build, decorate and race their go karts against the very best schools that Timaru could offer. Congratulations to 

The Southern Schools Cross Country Championship

A huge congratulations to our Y7/8 students who represented Bluestone School in the Southern Schools Cross Country Championship on Sunday the 28th of May in Timaru. They all ran exceptionally well. Both our boys and girls cross country teams, ended up placing 2nd in the event. An awesome achievement by these dedicated runners!

The Sandford's South Canterbury Schools'  Science Fair Competition

Our school sent a number of Science Fair entries this year to the South Canterbury Science Fair competition, after hosting an exhibition at school. Two students whose entries were sent to the regional Science fair competition won a number of significant prizes. Emma Carson-Iles (Year 7) and Brie Chamberlain (Year 6) won the following awards: Opuha Water Limited, receiving the Top Year 7 Team Prize and also received a  Gold Award Year 7 Team Prize. Both girls also received prize money for their entry. What an amazing result girls for their research into Oil Spills. They were third equal overall for the South Canterbury Science Year 7 & 8 section.

FLAVA Festival South Canterbury Schools' Kapahaka Competition 

On Saturday 9 September, our Bluestone School Wapouri Kapahaka group performed in the competitive section of the South Canterbury Flava Maori Performing Arts Festival held at the Caroline Bay Sound Shell. This was our first year of taking part for some time and some time since competing in the competitive section of this event. We were thrilled to be judged the winners of the South Canterbury Primary and Intermediate Schools section as a group and to have Nakeisha Austin judged the top female lead of a kapahaka group in the same section.