Kia ora koutou and warm greetings to all of Hornby High School community. I would like to welcome you all to the Year 7 & 8 newsletter which will now be a feature of the school newsletter.

This will give you an insight into what is happening in Year 7 & 8 in the classroom, on the stage, on the sports field and also in our community. This is our opportunity to showcase all of the amazing things that are happening in your school.

I want to give a special mention to Raewyn Davis and Tracy Allan-Fletcher who are putting this together.

Term 3 is already looking like an extremely busy term with lots of exciting opportunities for our students. We have students representing our school in EPro8 competitions this week, Friday night basketball, Cantamaths competitions, and Friday sports.

Students and teachers are all very busy preparing for Learning conferences which are being held on Thursday 15th August from 1:00pm till 7:00pm. It would be great to see you all there to celebrate and share students’ achievement.

I would also like to give ‘Mr Scott’s Mission Possible’ a bit of a plug. Each term two classes get to set a challenge that I need to work on for a period of about 5 weeks. The challenge is to be done in front of the entire Year 7 & 8 team firstly when the challenge is set and then after a few weeks of practise. Last term’s challenge was to learn to play the ukulele and play alongside our very talented ukulele group performing the song ‘Let it Be’ by the Beatles. This is a lot of fun, but the purpose of this is to demonstrate to the students that failure is ok. In fact failure is a really important part of learning. If you are not failing in your learning then you are not stepping outside of your comfort zone. All of my challenges have started off with a failure in front of all of the students whether that’s been attempting to do 100 press ups, learning my mihi and speaking confidently in Te Reo Māori or learning the fortnite dance. This also demonstrates that we are all learners and as a learner we all experience a range of emotions when we try something new or stepping outside our comfort zone and failure is part of this process as long as we learn from our failures.

I will keep you updated on what my next challenge is, which is being set by 7/8 Ts. Hopefully they will be kind.

Ngā mihi nui

Simon Scott
Deputy Principal

Resilience

Each Term Year 7/8 focuses on one of our school values (Respect in Term 1 and Achievement in Term 2). In Term 3 our focus is on Resilience.

Our Principal Mr Sutton tells us that in order to learn new skills we need to be prepared to fail sometimes, because learning new things is hard and we won’t always get it right first time. He told us that if we don’t fail once in a while we probably aren’t really learning something new, just doing something we already know how to do.

Mr Mitchell defines “fail” as First Attempt In Learning and suggests that we should always try new things, fail early, and learn from our mistakes, because this is a key way we show Resilience.

These are the ways that 7/8Mt have agreed to show Resilience:

• We will always say “We can do it” and “There is no such thing as never or can’t”.

• We will always try again even if we fail the first time.

• We will always try to improve things, work hard and never give up.

• We will always complete our challenges, no matter how difficult they seem.

• We will always have the confidence to try, and we will believe in ourselves.

Mt Cards

In Term 3 there are a number of students who will be on “Mt Cards”. These are students who are having some difficulty showing our school value of Respect, or who are having difficulty completing work or staying on-task in class. Each student is given a weekly target to achieve and they receive a reward when they reach that target. It is early days, but so far this scheme is proving very popular with the students concerned and we are already seeing some significant changes in behaviour. Keep up the good work!

Community Impact Projects: It’s Cool to be Kind!

In Term 2 Bh, Sh and Tz organised a colouring in competition as a ‘Random Act of Kindness” and to build on the wellbeing for three local primary schools. Students planned the event, wrote sponsorship letters to local businesses to collect prizes, drew colouring in templates and distributed packages to the participating schools. We were able to select three winners from each school with the number of generous prize donations we received! Thank you Paper Plus Hornby and The Warehouse.

Hurumanu

Throughout Terms 2 and 3 students from Al and Wh have been looking at climate change, weather patterns, and what we can do to help save our earth. Don't be surprised if you suddenly get asked to walk to the dairy instead of taking the car! We have been looking at different forms of energy - both renewable and fossil fuels. Students have been completing experiments that have harnessed some of this energy e.g. windmills, solar heating with water and methane gas production. Check out your child's blog for more information.

Student Wellbeing

This term, we are having a big focus on ‘Restorative Circles’ within our Year 7/8 classes. This is an opportunity for teachers and students to build some strategies in order to develop and foster relationships with one another, to build communities and to manage and deal with conflict that may arise in our everyday life. We are very lucky to be working alongside our RTLB’s, and learning from experts, as we explore this further.

In 7/8Sh we are currently working on developing an equal opportunity for everyone to have a say and to be listened to. As a class we have created guidelines as to what this may look like for our classroom. This is a great opportunity for you to ask your child more about our development of Restorative Circle time in Sh.

Basketball:

The Year 7/8 A grade basketball team ‘Hornby Gold’ recently won Round 1 of their Friday night competition. Well done to all involved, including their coach Tim  (Year 12). We also have a Year 7/8 B Grade team ‘Hornby Blue’, and they have a new coach, Brandon (Year 12) who is assisting Jordana (Year 13) this term. Both the Blue and Gold teams won the first game in Round 2 of their competition, so we look forward to some great games over the rest of the season.

Friday Sport:

Students and their families are reminded that participating in sport each Friday is a compulsory part of our Year 7/8 curriculum. The only exception to this is if students have an injury or illness that prevents them from taking part, and we expect those students to bring a note from home to explain the situation.

Students must bring the appropriate uniform and equipment each Friday, and during the Winter Sport season this is:

• Football: PE uniform, shinpads, boots (or sport shoes)

• Hockey: PE uniform, mouthguards, shinpads, boots (or sport shoes)

• League: League shirts, PE shorts, mouthguards, boots (or sport shoes)

• Netball: PE uniform, sport shoes.

In future any students who are unable to participate due to injury, illness or the lack of appropriate uniform/equipment will be required to complete other curriculum tasks such as Reading Plus, Lexia or Mathletics.

Amazing Blogs this Week:

Through the course of Term 2, 8 students in 7/8Al read 'Night Vision' by Ella West as a novel study.

These students then completed letters to Ella and placed them on her blog, along with links to their book reviews on their blogs. Ella has replied to each student and is now coming to visit us in early September. We are all really excited about this. Check the students’ blogs! They are Axle, Skyler, Kody, Callum, Hope, Nici, Rieya and Addyson. Great work team!

Hui Awards:

Congratulations to Alliah, Jasmine, Kyla, Keyanna, and Hayley, who were last week's CARR Card and Resilience award winners.

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 15 Aug - Learning Conferences 1pm - 7pm. Check your emails for information on making a time. Please make an effort to be at these, particularly if you have not yet attended one.

Tuesday 27 Aug - Blessing of the new Kahui buildings

Wednesday 28 Aug - Cantamath Competition, Horncastle Arena. Year 7 competition begins at 4:00pm, Year 8 competition at 5:00pm and Year 7 & 8 prizegiving at 6:00pm. Year 9 & 10 competitions follow on.

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 - Start of Term 4

Other Events:

Junior Social -beginning of Term 4 - more information to come