Congratulations to Molly who ran the block run in a super quick 9:51. Molly is the first girl in year 7 to receive her elite badge. Well done on a great effort.

Congratulations to these students from Room 14 who have been chosen to represent their sport for Otago. Well done!

Huge congratulations to Kiana and her team who placed 1st in the teams event at the Dunedin Schools Triathlon last month.

This Korowai displays what we value in Room 14. The korowai “is a particular type of kākahu (cloak). The korowai-cloak has been chosen because of its significance within Māori culture and the symbolic relevance of a cloak in many rituals and for cultures all over the world. The definition of ‘korowai’ comes from The Curriculum in Action – Everybody belongs, Heal

Just before dinner the whole class went for a walk into the bush. It was about a 7min walk but when we were up there Miss Bates explained what we were doing and she said we are building a bivvie. We split into our activity groups and started building. First we built a frame in between two trees then our ground went around gathering sticks to put on the frame. Once all the sticks were covering the frame we all used our hands and feet to sweep up leaves off the ground. We threw all the leaves on the sticks until there were no gaps. Connor found what he called the Conner corner. While my group were working together making a door nick was building a fake campfire. It was cool until we smashed it and built a bigger and better one in the bivvie. After we did that Noah and I moved a giant log beside the bivvie to make a lovely seat. We cleared all the leaves off the ground and found a big stick and a leaf and made a flag. The bivvie was called the High Five hut. Our hands were really dirty because all the sticks had dirt and moss on them. Our heads were dripping with sweat. After that we walked back to camp and had some lovely burgers for dinner.

For the Otago schools cricket tournament the Tahuna cricket tea went to play Fairfield intermediate at Bayfield school. The Winner of our game will play the winner of DNI v John McGlashan. Fairfield won the toss and chose to bat. We bowled them out for 118 of 19 overs soon after Fergus and me went out to chase the runs.We got a 72 to run partnership before.I got clean bowled but will still chased it down with two overs to spare. So next we played John McGlashan b team with them betting first and getting bowled out for 9 runs. I took 4 wickets for 5 runs of 4 overs. So now we move onto the quarterfinals against Southland boys.

My favourite part of camp was the ten kilometre tramp.I made lots of new friends and it pushed me over my limits. I felt as thought I achieved a lot and I was proud of myself. At first it was really easy but after about the fourth kilometre it felt like my legs were about to fall off but then we luckily had a lunch break. I ate a little bit of food and I felt energised for the other 6 kilometres. There was a big creek that we all had to frolic over. In the middle of the track there were a lot of steep bits. Afterwards we turned back around and we all made it back to the bus. Everyone used one last burst of energy and sprinted onto the bus.

My personal favourite part of camp was the Yabby hunting. It was interesting to watch them swim up the stream, and super sonically swim away whenever someone tried to grab them. Yabby hunting is like playing a game of patience, that never ends. When you see one, you have to approach it slowly, outstretch your hand and arm, then go slow, slow, Fast! Using that technique, I caught myself three Yabbies! If you decided to pay a visit to camp Tirohanga, I suggest trying some Yabby Hunting, who knows? You could become an expert!?

Room 14 headed out to sunny Outram for camp last week for 3 days of adventure, team building and fun! We started off our camp with a walk along the Outram Glen track. It was a long walk , but Room 14’s motivation and perseverance paid off as we made it right to the end. It was a very fast sweaty walk back and one quiet bus ride to camp. Following our walk we drove to camp to unpack and try out the waterslide. With a bit of a run up and dishwashing liquid this slide was able to get some speed, even enough to make it off the waterslide. Cooking was an exciting time and everyone had the chance to go on the camp cookers. We were responsible for cooking our nachos, pancakes and burgers. Pancakes were a real hit, with a few uncooked and burnt smells, but overall some delicious looking pancakes smothered in maple syrup. On Monday night we had the star lab, which was very exciting. We watched as the newly launched satellites travelled towards and through Orion's belt. Amedao explained how these satellites would affect night time photography as it takes 30 seconds of exposure to take a night sky photo. With the satellites moving past so consistently all we would end up with would be a line of light. The class had a great time with the confidence course and the wall, using determination and strength to get to the other end. Great teamwork and creativity skills were used to build awesome bivvies up in the forrest. We finished off camp with an exciting game of spotlight, some lovely commando skills down the hill which made the children the overall winners against the adults. We would like to thank all our camp parents and teachers who made our camp fun.