Hillary House News

Term three has been a very successful term for Hillary, with students striving to achieve to the best of their abilities. Each individual has been motivated and challenged to accomplish the goals they have set for themselves. We’ve had a number of opportunities to succeed in many areas of the school including culturally, academically, in our community, and within Hillary house, the wider house competition, and in a variety of sports.

In week 4  Hillary house competed in the 2019 house choir competition. We performed 'Jessie’s Girl' and 'Hareruia' as our waiata. There was a very lively atmosphere and overall it was a very fun, positive day for all participants. Big congratulations to Lydiard for taking out the win while we were awarded 5th place. Fabulous work and massive thanks to all those who ran choir, especially Ella Gray for all her hard work and dedication.

Another house competition that we have participated in is the senior public speaking competition which took place in week 5. Our representatives included Sarah Calley (Year 13) and  Zach Roberts (Year 12) . Hillary was the overall winner and Zach Roberts was the overall individual winner with his speech on "How ignorance is not bliss”. We are so proud of these seniors for all of their hard work. The junior public speaking competition will be held in term four and we are hoping for more promising results.

Every year Hillary participates in Filmfest, this is yet again another house competition within our school where groups of students from each house come together to create a short film which is then judged based on the quality of the film. This year we had 6 students, Ella Gray, Zach Roberts, Ruby Smith, Chloe Riley, Sarah Calley and Haylley Carter who created a drama-packed, humorous short film.

Recently Rangiora High School has created a student volunteer army that plan to make a difference in our school and the wider community through volunteer work. They are currently in the process of making themselves well known and are exploring different project ideas. The Student Volunteer Army has applied for funding from Mainpower and were selected as finalists. Any funding received will go towards resources and overall projects that involve high expenses. Mainpower is sharing out $20,000 between other community charities and schools. The number of votes each finalist receives determines the share they will get from the $20,000 on offer. The money  has the potential to make a huge difference for our SVA so they would appreciate it if you can please vote for them. The link is provided here https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CommunityFundVote2019. Thank you to those who have made the effort to vote.

Hillary House would like to commend and recognise Hillary students and their achievements since the last newsletter. We’ve had Ben Calder-Lee win the New Zealand Powerlifting title: 205 Kg lift, Josh Campbell was the winner of the New Zealand Japanese speech competition, Savannah Haehae was selected for the Canterbury boxing squad to compete at Nationals in Hastings, Quade McLachlan was the Secondary schools duathlon winner in 14 and under class, Ethan McLachlan placed bronze in the under 16 category, James Paterson and James Parker placed 12th and 13th in the Secondary Schools' National bouldering competition, Lily Forbes is in Toronto for four months on an ice hockey scholarship, and Jermaine Pepe our Deputy Head boy has made the New Zealand Secondary School Rugby Bavarians Team. Congratulations to all of these students, we are very proud of what you have achieved.

Keep up the hard work everyone, we are looking forward to see what else our students can accomplish before the end of the year.

By Stella Webster and Alicia Bloomfield Yr 10