Kia ora whānau, our year 7/8 Deans Mrs Shehata and Mr Mitchell have the following important information to share with you:

Learning Conferences:

Thursday the 15th of August Hornby High School held parent/teacher Learning Conferences. We had a massive turnout from the families of Year 7 and 8 students for this event. For Learning Conferences this term students created a presentation of their learning to share with their family. This provided an opportunity to celebrate students’ learning over the last two and a half terms. Students had the opportunity to share their reading and spelling progress, maths strategies they have been learning, and their current and past Hurumanu. They also had an opportunity to share examples from their blogs. This was a very engaging and rewarding opportunity for parents/whānau to interact with their child regarding their learning progress.

Thank you to all the parents who attended their child’s Learning Conference. If you were unable to attend the scheduled time for these and you would still like to attend at a later date please make contact with your child’s homeroom teacher for an appointment.

New Buildings:

By the last week of term three (the week beginning 23 September), we will have moved into our new buildings, with your child’s class having moved to one of the three new Kahui buildings. This is a very exciting time for us all and has been a long time coming. Our teachers and other staff will be doing their very best to ensure that the transition into our new home will be as smooth as possible.

Have a look at the “Upcoming Events” section of this newsletter for an outline of what is planned for the week of the shift (16 - 20 September). We will be providing you with more details about these events a little closer to the time.

The importance of being “Learning Ready”

In the Year 7/8 team we talk to students about the importance of being “learning ready”; being in the right place at the right time with the right gear and ready to learn.

This includes:

• Having a good night’s sleep and a healthy breakfast so that brains and bodies are charged and ready to go

• Arriving at school before the first bell goes at 8.25am so that children are organised and ready prior to the first bell

• Having the correct equipment including stationery

• Having a fully charged chromebook

• Wearing the correct uniform including PE and appropriate sports gear

Community Impact Projects

Students in the “It’s Cool to Be Kind” Community Impact project worked on wellbeing letters to someone important to them. 8Bh student Bryce shared his experience:

“Today in CIP we had to create a letter to someone who is important to us and I wrote to my mum. In my letter I wrote "thanks for organising sport and school". I thanked her for raising me. I thanked her for feeding me everyday, I thanked her for putting up with me when I’m naughty and I also thanked her for comforting me when I'm feeling down. I also told her why I chose to write about her. We did this activity because the point of this CIP is to make people happy and other things. This made me feel happy because she responded like five minutes after I had shared it and her response looked like it made her happy.”

Our Principal Robin Sutton also wrote a blog post about how this activity showed our Manaiakalani pedagogy of Learn, Create, Share. You can read his thoughts here, and see some other examples of whānau commenting on blogs. https://whakataukihewakaekenoa.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-wonderful-mix-of-learn-create-share.html

Hurumanu

In Week 5 of this term the Year 7 & 8’s started their next Hurumanu rotation. In this hurumanu, 7/8 Mt and 7/8 Ts are learning about ‘Changes & Challenges’. This is based around drama and our hauora (wellbeing). Last week the students were involved in a range of drama based games which are designed to build up their improvisation skills. Along with new drama skills we began to look at the 4 areas of wellbeing. Here is a blog post from Emily (8Ts) about what we did during our first week. https://shsemilyr.blogspot.com/2019/08/changes-and-challenges-games.html

Wellbeing

Wellbeing is important for everyone's health. In some Year 7 /8 classes mindfulness has been adopted at the start of the day. This gives the students a chance to get into the right frame of mind for learning. These 10 minute activities are based on the '5 Ways To Wellbeing'.

Restorative Circles are also an important part of our Wellbeing programme. These circles are a time for the class to connect together as a whole and share how they might be feeling and why. Both of these activities are having a positive effect on students and their ability to learn.

Winter Sport:

Our winter sport tournament is drawing to a close with the last Friday of winter sport being Friday 30 August. It has been wonderful to watch the students who have tried new sports and worked hard to refine their sporting skills. The number of students arriving with all their sports gear has risen to over 95% which is a testament to their commitment to this important part of our curriculum.

Summer Sport:

Starting from Week 7 (6 September) we will revert back to one period of sport each week (Period 5 on Friday) and the students will be engaging in a variety of sporting experiences, including volleyball, cricket, softball, touch, handball, and orienteering.

Badminton:

There are a number of Year 7/8 students who have been learning the fundamental skills of playing badminton after school on Wednesdays. They have now entered a tournament phase where they can play against each other to put these skills to good use.

Basketball:

Our two Year 7/8 basketball teams have been doing extremely well each Friday evening, with the Blue team being undefeated over the first three weeks of the second round of their competition. There are no games scheduled for 6 September and their final games for the season are on 13 September. Good luck for all involved!

Intermediate Schools Sport Tournament:

Mr Hilliard (PE Head of Department) is looking to send basketball, volleyball and badminton teams to the two day South Island Intermediate Schools Sports Tournament in the first week of Term 4.

Blogger of the week

Here is an outstanding blog from one of our amazing learners. Elisha Mae is always creating fantastic blog posts with lots of detail and awesome DLOs. Follow the link to view her blog:

http://hpselisha-maeb.blogspot.com/

Citizens of the Week

This week we acknowledge the Year 7/8 Ambassadors. These students are always ready to represent the school, sometimes at a moment's notice. They are consistently bringing their best selves to the fore. This week they greeted invited guests at the blessing for our new Kahui and meeting with parents from the client schools who come to Hornby High School for technology. I am always impressed by their can-do attitude and professionalism. Well done and thank you to Chloe W, Lasa, Nature, Khush, Evan, Skyler, Chloe M, Neveah, Cody, Talia, Maia, Tasharn, Jarrod, and Lucy!

Deputy Principal for the Day

Hamid and Jrae were successful winners of Mr Scott’s prize draw and won the privilege of being Deputy Principal for the day! This most important role involved starting the day with a hot chocolate, checking that staff were on task and that all year 7 and 8 students were settled into their learning for the day. They also facilitated a meeting with Mr Scott to discuss rewards for Bh and Tz including lollies and free time!

EPro8 Challenge

Earlier in August two teams of Year 7 and 8 students competed against teams from other intermediate schools in the EPro8 challenge at Middleton Grange School. Our teams worked hard to construct a range of challenging tasks against their competitors and represented Hornby High School with pride. The combined Year 7/8 team were: Hope , Jackson, Jayden, and Addyson. The year 8 team included Khush, Axel, Vann, and Lars.

Wananei teams!

Hui Awards:

Congratulations to the following students who have been demonstrating our school values and are Week 4’s CARR card winners.

Congratulations Zayd, Cody, Ricci, Logan, Taylor, Danielle, Mikayla, Hayley, Shania, Jayden, Aliyah, and Lyan.

Delicious homemade plum jam for sale

In Term 2, the Tāne Mahuta Community Impact group made plum jam with fruit collected from the tree in the garden at the back of the school. We still have jars of jam left! For $3 per jar you can have some fabulous jam, and help Tāne Mahuta fund the community garden they are currently working on establishing. Please see Mrs Allan-Fletcher to pay and collect your jar of jam.

Important Dates:

Thursday 5th Sept - Hauora CIP bake sale at morning tea - all proceeds will be donated

Thursday 12 Sept - International Foods Festival at Hornby HIgh School

Thursday 19 Sept - Fri 20 Sept - Learning from home days (Details)

Monday 23 Sept - Wed 25 Sept - Year 7 & 8 Orana Park trips

Friday 27 Sept - End of Term 3

Monday 14 Oct - Beginning of Term 4

Junior Social - 31 October - more information to come

Tuesday 5 November - Kids for Kids concert, Horncastle Arena