Here we celebrate student achievement and showcase activities our students are involved in around college.

COMMUNITY ACTION IN YEAR 9 AT MAC

Year 9 Humanities students are undertaking a Community Action Project where they have been asked to positively impact an aspect of their school or community. This is in alignment with our school SOAR (SELF, OTHERS, ATTITUDE and RESPECT) values and our Curriculum's goal to encourage life-long learning. Students have set up their initiatives and are recording their progress and communication with others in their Humanities classes. The initiatives are impacting environmental, social, physical, mental and emotional aspects of school and community life. Please look out for some of these amazing projects that will be advertised in the coming weeks. Many of the student groups are raising money for local charities. Their group work so far has been inspirational. 

YEAR 13 PHYSICAL EDUCATION

On Monday, the Year 13 Physical Education classes completed their duathlon for Achievement Standard 3.4. Mr Stuart and Miss McCone were very impressed by the positive attitudes demonstrated by students. The race consisted of a 2.5km run, 8km bike and a further 2.5km run. The course began at the Scout Den and followed the Eely Point track to two turnaround points. A special mention to Levi Fletcher who finished with an impressive time of 33 mins 44 seconds followed by Lukas Schafer. These students along with Julie Autet were awarded Excellence grades. Photos by Gareth Hodges. 

ROWING

Wanaka Rowing Club attended the Aoraki regatta, their first of the season, over the weekend with a squad of 19 competitors and four coaches including nine novices who have never raced before. The Aoraki regatta is the first introduction for these novice rowers to rowing in lanes, racing and the whole experience that is a rowing regatta. Novice rowers are allowed to team up with the older, more experienced junior rowers and learn the ropes as well as rowing in their own novice race events.

As a club we did exceptionally well on both winning a few races and teaching our novices some valuable lessons of competition rowing. The novice rowers were Ella Kaler, Kelly Quirke, Amelia Craig, Jess Gould, Anton Jones, Max Good, Jem Curtis, Matai Wells and Torben Craig as well as a first time coxswain, Thomas Mitchell.

Neve Faed and Lyla Chamberlain teamed up with Amelia Craig and Jess Gould in a couple of double scull races and did remarkably well both making the B final with Amelia and Jess gaining a huge amount of experience and Neve and Lyla gaining satisfaction out of passing on their experience. Pipi Horan and Ruby Boyd teamed up with Kelly Quirke, Ella Kaler and Thomas Mitchell in a quad to race a 50% novice crew and won their heat to place 3rd in the A final.

Tao Hawkey-Hight had a great race in his under 17 single sculls race to qualify for the A final in which he placed 3rd. He also teamed up with Anton Jones, Matai Wells, Torben Craig and Neve Faed as cox to row a mixed novice quad which gave Torben and Matai a huge amount of experience having only started rowing 6 weeks ago. Tao also teamed up with Jem Curtis in a 50% novice double scull and came second in their heat and went on to win the A final which was a huge effort.

Pipi Horan and Ruby Boyd won both their heat and the A final in the girls under 16 double in typically emphatic fashion while Lyla chamberlain and Emily Findlay achieved the same feat in the girls under 17 double sculls event. That same girls under 17 double sculls A final had two other Wanaka crews in it as well with Neve Faed and Bella Sarginson finishing a very close 3rd and the Samara Goodall- Hayley Ambrose combination coming in 6th.

The squad also had huge laughs and entertainment watching their coaches Rachel O’Connell, Matt Rickard, Dave Ayres and AJ Humphreys compete in the Masters quad sculls event with that crew coming 1st in the A final and Rachel O’Connell winning her womens single scull heat but being cruelly robbed of competing in her A final on the Sunday when the regatta was finally called off due to high winds.

This regatta was also the first time the Junior girls competed in our new eight kindly donated by the Sargood Bequest to come fifth in their heat which was a mens and womens open event. They showed a huge amount of potential beside crews of their own age and they took a lot of encouragement from the experience.

Overall the regatta was a great success for Wanaka and we qualified for fifteen A finals (including two masters A finals) and twox B finals which is a great weekend by anyone’s standards!

YEAR SEVEN - INQUIRY - PRIYA WHITE

Kia ora,

My name is Priya White and I am a Year 7 student at Mount Aspiring College. For our topic inquiry in Term 3 we were looking at the topic of IMPACT. I chose the impact of homelessness.

I became aware of people living on the streets when we visited my grandparents in Spain. We spent some time in Barcelona and when we first arrived we were all jetlagged so were up really early and so each morning we went to a park where there was a man sleeping on a bench.

Then, when staying in Auckland and Christchurch I became more aware of people begging on the streets and decided last summer I wanted to do something to help. I made a list of things that I thought would be useful and bought some items like shampoo, socks, sanitizer, tissues and some food and went with my mum to donate it to a homeless man on New Years Eve when we were staying in Christchurch.

Choosing homelessness for my impact inquiry was an obvious choice for me and as part of the 'action' required for my project I have set up a display at the Wanaka library with information about homelessness and am collecting donations of toiletries that I will take to one of the homeless charities that helped me with my work. If I can get more people thinking about the reasons people become homeless and what can be done to support them then that's great too.

People can drop items into the library such as:

• Shampoo and Conditioner

• Soap bars

• Sun screen

• Lip balm

• Plasters/bandages

• Hand Sanitiser

• Toothbrush and toothpaste

• Sanitary products

• Deodorant

Here is a link to my information displayed at the library in case you need more detail about my learning.

I hope you can help me spread the word about donating and am happy to talk to you more about my project.

Thanks so much.

YEAR SEVEN SOAR AWARDS

Lucas Haig, Reuben O'Sullivan, Tarn Currie, Lachy Thomson, Jimmy Knight, George Sargood-Ross. Millie Slaven, Lukas Latimer, Lewis Briscall, Chantel Rudhall, Ruby Smith.

MAC RUGBY PRIZEGIVING RESULTS

MAC 1st XV Players Player: Jono Watson, MVP: Rhys Hughes, Most Promising Player: Lachy Moore

MAC Girls 1st XV

MVP: Olive Pujol, Most Promising Player: Phoebe Bron

MAC U15

Players Player: Eligh Hollegien

MVP: Harry Gilbertson, Most Promising Player: Will Collins

MAC U14

MVP: Will Miller, Most Promising Player: Jackson Clark

We would like to once again thank all the coaches, managers, players, sponsors and supporters of our MAC rugby teams in 2020. If you interested in coaching or managing a MAC team in 2021 please email Hamish Crosbie crosbieh@mtaspiring.school.nz