On the 26th of September, 450 senior students attended the Casino Royale school ball! We hosted the event at the beautiful Gallagher Performing Arts building at the University of Waikato.

Currently our senior students are sitting their school exams in preparation for their NCEA exams next term. They should also be making the most of the other opportunities, such as tutorials, reassessments and to work on their practical based assignments, which staff have provided.

Do you have room for another young person in your family?

Important dates can be found on the school website. However see below for some important dates approaching.

Advising the School of an Absence and Requesting Leave Passes after Midday

Friday 27th October. Details below:

Hillcrest has recently established the new position of Director of Pastoral Care who will be overseeing and supporting the work of our Deans. Shane Singh joined us last week to start in the role. Read about Shane's background below:

It was the collision of two goals that led to the creation of Kai Kitchen this year. The first being the wish to do something with an ongoing impact in the head student role, the second being an understanding that many students missed out on kai to start their day, and wanting to respond to that.

After faithfully serving Hillcrest High School for decades, the trusty boilers that have kept the school warm and cozy are set to retire. Starting from September 15th, these stalwart heating systems will be decommissioned, marking the end of an era.

For the month of Mahuru (September), kaiako across the kura have set themselves a wero (challenge) to use more te reo Māori. For some staff, that has meant leading the school karakia in staff briefing, or beginning their classes with a te reo Māori starter.

Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori has been a very successful event. To celebrate one of our national languages, as a council, we have been running a range of different events throughout the week.

Some of our kaimahi received some PLD on Thursday around te reo Māori pronunciation and te ao Māori values.

The English Department begins their professional development sessions with some te reo Māori upskilling. This session they also worked on learning some new NZ Sign Language signs to add to their kete!

In total we had 15 people donating or shaving their hair, and have raised over $1300 so far for Leukemia & Blood Cancer NZ!

Garage Sale Success

Week 4 was National School Library Week and we joined the rest of Aotearoa with some fun activities to highlight our library and try to entice students who aren’t usually library users to come in and have a look.

We will be selling a variety of baked foods with the aim of our students learning to plan, make and sell products. A % of the profits will be donated to a charity. Details below:

Jennifer Guo has created a large scale painting for the meeting room. The work is a personal interpretation of Taha Wairua and Taha Hingengaro and Jennifer describes this as ' a vibrant manifestation of diversity, joy and happiness'....a reflection of the school's focus on student well-being at Hillcrest High.

In week 6 our talented music students performed at the ITM Festival at the Gallagher Performance Centre at Waikato University.

In week 5 our Yr 13 drama students presented their production 'Blood Wedding' to appreciative audiences.

Our Music Department Concert that took place in Week 7 was a massive success! It was so wonderful to see the auditorium filled with supportive whanau cheering our students on.

2023 saw the return of leavers' tradition, as the Year 13 Showcase made a comeback.

A massive well done to our Yr 11 Drama classes who successfully presented their Children’s Theatre Performance to a very entertained audience of kids from Silverdale Primary.

Hillcrest had six teams head away for their respective tournaments this year, 3 football teams, 2 basketball teams and a netball team.

We had two girls teams this year: the Premier and B team. Both teams played extremely well throughout the season. Our prem team came 6th in their division and the B Team came 7th. It was a bit of a rocky start with alot of our girls going to Great Barrier but we pulled through. Each week they improved so much with alot of our girls being selected into Waikato Rep Teams.

Josh has again had some great success in his cycling endeavours.

Our Junior Girls Premier team were very unlucky not to win any trophies this season after they made it to half-time in the WSSFA Junior Girls Knockout Cup final with the score still 0-0 against a very strong HGHS team.

As our season comes to a close, we are pleased to share with you the remarkable journey of our Hillcrest High Under 15s Rugby Team, throughout the last season.

Hillcrest entered a Mixed Team into the Senior Water Polo Competition in Term 1 and 2.

2023-24 Honey season - TE WHAREKURA O MAUAO - Tauranga

Kayla Bryant, Dawson Hillary, Isabelle Huang and Emilia Shyra represented Hillcrest High School exceptionally well at the semi finals for this national competition on the 11th of September.

At the end of “En Casa” - At home - Unit of work our students learnt about the mosaics of Antonio Gaudí. He was a famous architect who designed amazing buildings in Spain with some beautiful mosaic art in many of them. Spanish students experienced making mosaics in class. They enjoyed this creative activity and some are already planning to participate in more challenging projects.

Over the last six months we were given the opportunity to take part in the Waikato University Leadership Academy. Here we worked alongside other school groups from the Waikato, Tauranga and Bay of Plenty region, collaborating on the Introduction to Leadership paper.

The International Languages Week is just about to be over and the French Day was first up last Monday.