Newsletter 4 - 2013

Kia ora koutou

Our academic assembly for this term celebrated those students who achieved an overall Merit or Excellence endorsement in their NCEA. Twenty six students received these awards from our Board Chair Maxine Knowler and it was a pleasure to acknowledge their studious efforts. Students gaining Merit received $200 and those gaining Excellence received between $400 and $500, the money being generously provided by our Community Business Sponsors. The pride and respect in this assembly reflects the considerable prestige and mana these awards carry. It is also evidence of the ever increasing desire our students have to achieve academic excellence. Congratulations to you all.

NCEA ENDORSEMENTS AND COMMUNITY BUSINESS SPONSORS SCHOLARSHIPS Level 1 Merit Level 1 Merit Level 2 Merit Level 2 Excellence Kelsey Alexander Sophie Patton Leroy Bird David Borrie Craig Birch Caitlin Walker Campbell Ali Carline Hugh Cocks Level 3 Merit Gabe Eden Level 1 Excellence Josh Honeybone Adrienne Gooden Sammie Gordon Tomas Burai Chanel Schippers Jacob Young Jordon Milne Rachel Clark Jonathan Streeter Hannah Moyle Liam Crum Josh Thompson Level 3 Excellence Jacinda Morton Jonathan Smith Jamie Crum Jed McDonald

Well done to our Everest Base Camp team of students and parents on their fundraising efforts catering for the Northburn 100 event and helping with the clean up after the opening of the Highlands Motorsport Park. It is only 3 weeks until they depart for Kathmandu. The students have had their vaccinations and are now doing final gear preparation. Thank you to everyone who is providing sponsorship, encouragement and support for the team. There is a more detailed update on the EBC group’s fundraising activities and progress on the back of this newsletter.

I have enjoyed visiting a large number of classe s over the past 3 weeks and it is one of the highlights of my work as Principal. I have been particularly impressed by the variety of activity being provided by teachers and the enthusiastic and focussed efforts of our students. Our tracking this term indicates that there have been further improvements in behaviour, attendance and punctuality this term. All of this creates a learning environment that, I believe, is ideally suited to our students learning and achieving their best.

It was good to see a number of parents at our Year 7 lunchtime barbeque last week. Parents were given tours of the junior area and had the opportunity to attend the period 5 class. Year 7 continue their peer support programme with Year 13 students. Their recent se ssion focussed on understanding the 3 key values in our Kawa – Respect, Courage and Personal Excellence.

Our new house flags were raised for the first time two weeks ago in the order of the current house points. Raising the flags will be a regular event during the year, aimed at building house spirit and school pride. We have purchased new internal Merit certificates to reflect the status these awards have in our school and house points will also be allocated for these.

On Wednesday evening the Year 8 Half Day School group shared their ‘Micronation’ projects with their parents in our school l ibrary. I particularly liked sampling the national foods on offer and seeing the pride that students had in their work. I always admire the creativity and joy of learning demonstrated through this programme and I sincerely thank Jil ly O’Brien for her passion, dedication and commitment to our gifted and talented students.

Mason Stretch Principal

Whaia te taumata - Deserve Success

NEWSLETTER 4 5 April 2013

UPCOMING EVENTS:

9 April - Parent/Teacher interv iews 10 April - Muf ti Day: gold coin Donation - Phortse Primary School 10-11 April - Y13 Geography Trip 11 April - Board of Trustees Meeting

17-18 April - Y13 Outdoor Leadership Expedition 19 April - Last Day of Term One 19 April - Formal Permission forms due 24 April - 17 May - Ev erest Base Camp Expedition

6 May - First Day of Term Two

25 May - School Formal Y12 & 13

House Flags

Peer Suport teaching the kawa with balloons

Year 9 Science with Mr Pearson

Guitar tutoring with Pete Stevenson

Bob Wardill, ‘Bobotropolis Micronation’

ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE

Are you interested in spending a year overseas living in a new culture and

learning a new language? Destination countries for New Zealanders – Sweden, Denmark, Germany,

Switzerland, Austria, France, Chile.

Rotary Youth Exchange is looking for young people currently aged 15-17 to be a part of this wonderful

opportunity.

Talk to Timo about it (he’s on one). Information from Nick on email [email protected], or

see Mr Streeter at Cromwell College. Applications for a 2014 year close 30th April 2013.

YEAR 12 BIOLOGY FIELD TRIP Last week the Year 12 Biology class headed away to the Catlins to investigate the rocky shore on a two day fie ld tr ip . The work completed will result in work c o n t r i bu t i n g t o two Achievement standards. We arrived late morning to inves tigate the rock y headland and the organisms living there. Once the students had a clearer understanding of the rocky shore habitat and the needs organisms have for living there, they drew up their plans and then in groups put together their record sheets. After a dinner of fish and chips and the teachers cleaning up the class in Trivia l Pursui t (maybe because it was the 80s version of the game!), the class returned to the shore early the following morning at low tide for the completion of their investigations. This saw them each contributing to their groups data gathering of the species living on the various parts of the rocky shore. By lunchtime all of the class had gathered enough information to complete their assessments and we headed home. My thanks to Chris Greenwood for accompanying me with the group and to the class for being such a great bunch of people to be with. Ali Jackson

CONGRATULATIONS

Otago/Southland Athletics: Ezra Berridge 3rd 1500m, Emma Smith 2nd 1500m, Anton Schroder 3rd Javelin, David Beck 2nd Shot AWD ID Ryan Francis 1st 100m, 2nd 200m, 3rd Shot Put, 3rd Long Jump AWD ID. All these students plus Brooke Helms compete at the South Island Champs on the 6th April in Invercargill.

Sw imming: Sarah Hogan competed at the South Island Country & Tow n Competition in the Women’s U12 section. She came 1st in 200IM, 50 free, 100 free, 2nd place in Otago relay, 50 f ly, 3rd place in 200 free, 200 back and 4th in 100IM.

Karate: Michael Manson won gold medals for both Kata and Kumite at the Southern Multistyle Martial Arts Competition recently.

BMX: Josh Smith made the NZ U13 BMX team to compete at the w orld championships in Auckland in July after competing at the BMX National Championships in Cambridge at Easter.

The NZ Tournament Waterski Championships w as held on Lake Karapiro at Easter. There w ere 6 skiers in the Southern Region Team in slalom. Georgia and Blake Hamilton w ere the only Southern skiers competing in both

slalom and trick events. Georgia w as awarded Silver in the Junior Girls’ Slalom (under 14 years – 7 girls qualif ied nationw ide) – she missed Gold by just one buoy. Georgia also progressed to the Junior Girls’ Trick Final. Blake skied in the Junior Boys’ Slalom (under 14 years – 15 boys qualif ied nationw ide) and just missed out on progressing to the slalom final in a run-off. He then skied to his personal best to w in the Plate division.

CO PRIMARY SCHOOL

TRIATHLON

The Pr imary Triathlon w as a great success w ith such a w arm day and hundreds of school children all taking part in this event. The College had 35 year 7 & 8 students.

Congratulations to the gir ls’ white team; Georgia Buchanan, Hayley McAuliffe and Maddy Ainsley who placed second. Well done to Bob Wardill and Lana De ak e r w ho did the individual event. Great day out.

Tania Murray - Sports Coordinator

HALF DAY SCHOOL

Year 9 Half Day School students recently took part in a model, or mock United Nations As s em bl y. Res ol ut ions proposed included lifting the IWC ban on whaling, setting limits on CO2 emissions, b a n ni n g o f r e l ig i ous heads carves in s ecular institutions such as schools, contributing to an international fund for AIDS research and for disaster relief, and censuring China for not allowing internet access to its citizens.

All students were exceptionally well prepared and spoke well on all issues. They were able to understand and act as their country would act and react in the real world. which is a difficult task, especially if you do not agree with the issues you must support.

Best overall delegation went to France, followed by Italy

second, and Spain third. Thanks to Mrs Scott and Hugh as Secretary Generals.

YEAR 9 HALF DAY SCHOOL POETRY Hal f D a y School students in Year 9 have been spending time with Liz Breslin, a real live poet, working on poems for entry to the NZ In ternational poetry competition. Liz spent t i m e c o a c h i n g , suggesting, supporting and convincing students of the point of writing villanelles (and if you've ever tried to write one of these almost impossible poetic forms, you'll know that a bit of convincing is

quite necessary!) One student was overheard to say that it was even too hard to be boring, which I think Liz can take as a compliment. Thank you to Liz for offering us her expertise and we look forward to the results.

Jilly O’Brien - Half Day School Coordinator

STEWART ISLAND HOLIDAY ADVENTURE

YEAR 6 TO YEAR 8 27 April to 1 May

Learn sailing, kayaking, snorkelling, exploring aboard the yacht Elwing.

Email [email protected], phone 0272768817.

DEFENSIVE DRIVING COURSE

The next AA New Zealand Defensive Driving Course will be held at Dunstan High School on April 23,26 & 30th & May 2(inclusive) from 6.30-8.30pm. For further information please contact Kaye

Rowell Lakes Driver Training 03 4427073, 027 623 3534 email [email protected] .

France

New Zealand

Korea

Egypt

PARENTING SEMINAR Personality types - a key to understanding your-

self and your children.

Do you struggle to understand one of your chil-dren? Gain an insight on your own personality type so you can understand your child’s. Learn about the unique personalities of all your children and how to parent them to enable each of them to de-velop their full potential. Explore four different per-sonality types and understand why some children respond to one way of parenting and some just don’t. Come and enjoy an evening of fun, interac-tion, humor and hopefully some light bulb mo-ments!

Tuesday 9 April 7-9pm

St Johns Rooms, Link Way, Wanaka $5 entry, bring a pen

BOARD OF TRUSTEES PARENT ELECTION

Nominations are called upon for five parent representatives to the Board of Trustees. Nomination forms can be obtained from the school office.

Nominations close at noon on 16 May 2013 and may be accompanied by a signed candidates’ statement and photo. Nominations received after noon can not be accepted. There will be a list of candidates’ names, as they come to hand, for inspection at the school. Voting closes at noon on 30 May 2013. Megan Christensen

The Subw ay Kids Duathlon is back for another series. This gives a fun, safe and supportive environment for those under 14

years the chance to compete in an individual and team event!

Where: Andersons Park CROMWELL When: 7th April 2013 Cost: $20 +$5 late fee applies for entries received after 3 April 2013. Price includes T shirt race day. 7 & 8 year olds: run 1km, bike 1km. 9 & 10 year olds: run 1km, bike 2km. 11 + year olds: run 2km, Bike 2km. Race registrations from 9.30am. Race briefing at 10.45am. Racing starts at 11.15am.

Register online at www.morefm.co.nz or pick up an entry form from SUBWAY Cromw ell.

It’s M y Turn To Cook Tonight Bosch School Holiday Program – April 22 - 24

The It’s My Turn To Cook Tonight Bosch School Holiday Program is FREE, ONLINE, FUN and unique with great prizes. It is available ANYWHERE there is Internet cov-erage. This means no travelling, no pick ups or drop offs – kids get food savvy and learn to cook in their own home, using their food, cooking their dinner. Find out more www.itsmyturntocooktonight.com.

Cromwell College Everest Base Camp 2013

It is hard to believe that in three weeks our team departs on an expedition to trek to Everest Base Camp via Phortse Primary School, Gokyo Lakes and Cho La Pass. We leave from Queenstown on 24 April, travelling to Auckland, then on to Singapore before touching down in Kathmandu on 26 April. From there it will be a short fl ight to Lukla where we begin our trek up the Khumbu Valley.

There have been a couple of changes to our team and it now consists of: Dave Borrie (Team Leader) Will Douglas (2nd Team Leader), Will Harrison (Flights/travel), Jonathan Streeter (Medical), Elsa Mannering (Phortse liaison), Bryn Gibson, Hugh Cocks, Liam Crum and Leroy Bird. They are being accompanied by Kim Logan (Team Manager and guide), Pauline Murphy (Elsa’s Mum and fundraising coordinator) and Mason Stretch (Principal).

One of our goals is to spend half a day at Phortse Primary School, about 6 km north of Namche Bazaar. This is one of the Hillary Himalayan Trust schools and we will donate around $2000 of our fundraising, including money from a school mufti day to be held on 10 April. Our students will be taking some touch and soccer balls and each of them will be teaching the Phortse students about some aspect of New Zealand and Cromwell. We will be practising our National Anthem and may perform our school haka.

From Phorste we climb into the Gokyo Valley before heading over Cho La Pass (5420m). From here we join the main Khumbu Valley heading towards Everest Base Camp. We aim to visit Everest Base Camp on 8 May and hope to call into the Adventure Consultants base run by Wanaka’s Guy Cotter. We then head back down valley through Lobuche, past the famous Tengboche Monastery and Namche Bazaar, flying out from Lukla on 13 May. We arrive back in Queenstown on Friday 17 May and will be back at school on Monday. For those interested in tracking our progress we have a blog linked to the school website www.cromwell.school.nz.

The biggest focus for parents and students since our ‘launch’ in July last year has been to achieve our aim of raising half the cost of the trip, around $30,000. This has been an enjoyable adventure in itself and there has been a great camaraderie within the group of parents and students as we have been involved in a wide range of fundraising activity. Two of the memorable highlights have been our evenings with Guy Cotter, Peter Hillary and Apa Sherpa. All the students have had summer jobs to cover costs and on top of this they and their parents have also installed irrigation, washed cars, weeded gardens, supported the Legends Golf Tournament, helped with food and waitering at a Wooing Tree wedding, labelled fundraising ‘Sagarmatha’ wine, run a mountain film festival evening, cleaned up the race course 3 times, and most recently, catered for the Northburn 100 event, set up the Easter Art Show and cleaned up after the opening of the Highlands Motorsport Park.

As well as fundraising we have had amazing support from a large number of businesses and individuals who have contributed cash, equipment or prizes to help us reach our goal. This support has been huge for the team and we are extremely grateful to all who have contributed.

The team have been working on their fitness and last week had an initial gear check and received their vaccinations. With 3 weeks to go our focus is organising our full complement of gear including favoured snacks and medication. For six of the team this will be their qualifying expedition of their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Hillary Award which is fitting given this is the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Mt Everest by Hillary and Tensing.

This journey is a courageous undertaking for the students, their parents and our school and I have great admiration and pride for the efforts of parents, their children and our community for making this expedition a reality. A special thanks also to Kim Logan for his quiet confidence and guidance. It has been a pleasure to see the hard work, excitement and character exhibited by our team. A true adventure awaits us all and it is aptly captured in our school motto,

Whaia te taumata (Pursue the highest peaks) – Deserve Success

Mason Stretch

Liam & Leroy - Northburn 100 event