The Languages department held a school sleep-over on the 21 May with the students who are studying French, Te Reo Māori and Japanese.

90 students from Year 9 to Year 13 gathered at the brand new collaborative building, Ngātahi, and competed in the Language Perfect world championship overnight. Students could earn points by answering vocabulary questions online. We came 219th place globally out of 1111 schools and 5th in New Zealand in the 251-500 students category out of 39 schools. This year there are 59 certificate receivers which is the highest number ever.

Elite award: Rahmat Azimi

Gold award: Samuel Paquier, Makoto Niino, Sean Takai, Marcus Shore

Silver award: Lucas McDonald, Herrick Zhang, Seryozha Sanin, Isaiah Faletolu, Mitch McMillan

Bronze award: Luca McLeod-Watts, Awe Diaz-Tomasi, Ben Comfort, Cade Ranger, Brodie Richards, Kahurangi Weerden-Sweet, Izak Dobbs, Ben Lewis, Matthew Croft, Henry Beeby-Zeier, Kerry Campbell, Adam Lewington, Baxter Colyer, Regan Shore, William Osai

Plus 33 credit awards receivers.

On the night, the students also enjoyed playing board games using their target language and watching the haka and waiata performances from the Te Reo Māori class. There was also an hour of language immersion time when English was not allowed. The atmosphere was very positive during the immersion time. Students were talking in their target language and conversing with their peers in different languages. After pizza at 11:30, some went on Language Perfect all night and some went to sleep in their sleeping bags. It was pleasing to see boys making new connections with students from different classes and different year levels. Many thanks to Ms Lemalie, Mr Dixon and parents who came and supported us. The first languages camp ended very successfully.