Hillary House News

 “It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves’”, can be taken to mean not having to be a fantastic hero to do certain things. You can be just an ordinary person, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals. The intense effort, the giving of everything you've got, is a very pleasant bonus.

Hillary House students are finding that out this year with a huge amount of involvement in house competitions from all year levels.

The inter House Competition has provided opportunities in Term Two with our Winterfest, both senior and junior. A slightly altered program saw mixed netball for Winterfest being hotly contested. Hillary seniors came away with a very credible 5th place, while our juniors placed 4th overall. It was great to see students pushed out of their comfort zones playing a different code and showing off some impressive transferable skills.

Our Year 13 Student Leaders continue to do an amazing job and we are very appreciative of the time and commitment they have given us as a House. We’ve seen some changes in Term two with the departure of Jelena Mrkailo, for overseas travel and Charlotte McDonald for further study. We thank both girls for their time and effort and welcome Chloe McCartin and Chloe Riley to the executive. We are also pleased to announce the appointment to our Junior Executive of Lily Gerrard, Stella Webster, Daniel Prager and Oliver Kelly. They have already proven themselves keen and organised in their support of the house.

The Year 10 Hillary students recently undertook some cross curricular learning with a trip to the Rakahuri river to complete some trigonometry around the length of the bridge. This led to the design and building of their own bridges with one bridge holding 55 kilograms of weight! It’s great to see the students engaging in such hands on learning and making the most of our local environment.

Term 3 is already shaping up to be a busy one with House Choir in Week 3, and Filmfest the following week. It’s great to see so many students already signed up to these competitions as they are a lot of fun. Also in Week 3 is the Ronald McDonald House Fair, our combined fundraiser with Sheppard House. It should be a great time with every form class contributing a stall of food, activities and games. We look forward to our students making a wonderful contribution to this worthy cause.

Also in Term 3 are the senior school  exams. Running from the 16th -20th September, this is a good chance for students to get valuable feedback on how they are tracking for the finals in November. A good regime of study and focus on classwork now will help in easing the pressure later.

To both staff and students thank you for your efforts in the first half of this year and I hope you manage to get some time to relax and unwind after a very busy term.

If you have any concerns or questions please contact Ms Hackler or myself in the Hillary Office.