Week 9, Term 1 | 2022

WORD FROM MS ADDISON

Kia ora, e te whānau - parents, caregivers and families of Whitby Collegiate,

What a terrific week we have had. We farewelled the amazing talents of artist Michel Tuffery who has spent invaluable time with our students. I was so impressed with the work that the students presented and saw the inspiration that they had drawn from such expertise. Michel will continue to check on our students’ progress and will be back with us for another week early next term. We look forward to displaying the students' finished material.

Our sports teams have also been to the fore this week and we are so very proud of our girl’s softball team that took out the CSW Regional Championship by defeating Wellington East Girls in a thrilling final. The Junior Girls Volleyball team also finished as the Division 1 Northern Zone winners, capping off a great season for all teams. Our Junior Cricket team was also outstanding, winning the CSW T20 8 aside competition. We are very grateful to all those who have coached, managed and supported our teams this summer. We head into the winter season with excitement and many of our teams have already begun winter team training ready to start competition play in earnest.

Whitby Collegiate has again competed in the Education Perfect Languages Championship 2022, with nearly 5000 schools competing globally. Well done Señorita Huertas and our Spanish students scoring 1st in NZ in the category of similar sized schools and number 4 in Spanish in NZ of schools of all categories. A special mention must be made of Emma Evans who was awarded the Elite grade which 0.02 students globally attain. A simply outstanding effort. Well done Emma!

Our senior debating team continued their impressive form at the inter-school competition with a win over Paraparaumu College this week, so congratulations to Ruby Scott, Jade Lin and Sam Cribb.

In assembly this week we honoured a number of students with the Pastoral Dean Awards. These awards recognise those students who uphold the Whitby Collegiate values and it was wonderful to see the number of students gaining this recognition. It was also a highlight to have the junior leaders contributing to the assembly with performances by Victoria Song and many thanks to Paige Lilo for instituting the class challenge, a highlight of the assembly.

School Spirit Week saw the tug of war competition providing a lot of participation and fun with the teachers trying their best in taking on the prefects, sadly to no avail. The week has culminated today with a mufti day and a bake sale to raise funds for children caught in the conflict in Ukraine.

We are also very proud that the Ioane Fiso Pavilion block has been named a finalist in the Wellington Architecture Awards. Congratulations to Andrew Sexton, the architect of such a beautiful building, and we look forward to the results after having a visit to the school by the judging panel. We are also looking to finally be able to celebrate the official opening of the building next term.

Wishing everyone a restful and safe weekend.

Ngā mihi nui,

Shelley Addison
Executive Principal

DEPUTIES’ UPDATES

From the Deputy Principal (Academics)

Kia ora e te whānau o Whitby Collegiate,

We are excited to announce that we will have started Live Reporting via the KAMAR portal. Please make sure that you are able to access the KAMAR portal by following the instructions found here.

Students and Parents will be able to view grades and feedback/feedforward comments from teachers as assessments are completed. For seniors working towards Internal Assessments, there may be no grade associated with the comment. Live Reporting is a valuable tool for us to give real time feedback to students that parents also receive.

As this is real-time / Live Reporting, not all subjects will be publishing results and comments at the same time. There may already be results/comments in students’ markbooks available for viewing, and from next week we will be rolling out the automatic email notifications to let you know when new results are published. Results can be found under Results / Current Year Results.

We are looking forward to using this feature in KAMAR. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Take care everyone,

Debbie Mitchell
debbie.mitchell@whitbycollegiate.school.nz

From the Deputy Principal (Pastoral and Wellbeing)

Tēnā koutou e te whānau,

What an amazing effort from our student leaders (both senior and junior) to provide such a generous amount of baking for our Bake Sale fundraiser for the children of Ukraine. Our Head Boy Sam Sexton had promoted the Bake Sale during last week’s assembly and shared a fitting scripture from 2 Corinthians 9:6-8: “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” Thank you to all our student leaders and for the good example you set for our junior students to follow.

We are nearing the end of a very busy term and I have encouraged our students to check in with Mr Atkinson or myself if they need support in finding a good balance between school work, extra-curricular activities and family responsibilities. Student wellbeing continues to be a priority and with quite a number of internal assessments and end of topic tests coming up, students also need to find time to unwind and do something relaxing. Stay safe everyone and I look forward to seeing our parents of senior students at next week’s Parent Interviews online.

Noho haumaru me te hauora.

Kia manuia,

Ainslie Sauvao
ainslie.sauvao@whitbycollegiate.school.nz

We are actively following the information and advice being provided by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education with regard to COVID-19.

Please get in touch with us as soon as you can if your child, or a parent helper/coach has tested positive for COVID-19. You can contact our Health Administrator Mrs Angela Taylor between 8am and 4pm weekdays on 04 234 1070, or send an email to office@whitbycollegiate.school.nz. If anyone in your family is confirmed as having COVID-19, you will be asked to notify your close contacts yourself.

Click here for Whitby Collegiate’s COVID-19 response

UPCOMING EVENTS

Key dates are located on the website calendar. Please check for your activities.

Subscribe to the Whitby Collegiate calendar and the events by copying this URL and entering it into your calendar such as iCal, Google Calendar, Outlook:

• + Add to iCal

• + Add to Google Calendar (to add the calendar to your Google Calendar, click on the link above and then click the ‘+’ button located on the bottom right corner beside the Google Calendar logo)

You can also easily subscribe from the school website calendar page here by clicking the button that reads “subscribe to this calendar”.

Term 1 Activities/Events (Week 10)

Pasifika Parents’ Association Meeting - Monday 11 April, 6.00pm

Tālofa lava, Tāloha ni, Mālō e lelei, Kia orana, and Ni sa bula vinaka to all our Pasifika parents, You are warmly invited to attend our Pasifika Parents Association meeting on Monday 11 April at 6pm. Our Pasifika students will be sharing how NCEA works, the opportunities they have at Whitby Collegiate, and ways in which families can be of support to our students and their overall success. Our Pasifika Cultural Club will perform as part of our programme. Please bring a plate for a light supper at the end of our evening.

SCHOOL NEWS

Year 7-9 Parent Teacher Interviews (Postponed)

Parent Teacher Interviews for our Junior students in Years 7 to 9 have been postponed due to staff and student absences. We will reschedule this event to early in Term 2 and will confirm the dates and provide further information closer to the time.

Year 10-13 Parent Teacher Interviews (Thu 7 & Tue 12 April)

Parent Teacher Interviews for students in Years 10 to 13 will be held on Thursday 7 April and Tuesday 12 April. This term we will be hosting the interviews online via a video conference with each subject teacher. Appointments will each be 5 minutes long and will be available between 4pm and 7pm. We strongly advise that you include your son/daughter in the Parent Teacher Interview so they too can hear the feedback and feed forward offered by their subject teachers. 

Bookings interviews will open this evening, Friday 1 April at 5pm and close Wednesday 6 April at 5pm. Event Number: ghg7m

Please go to schoolinterviews.co.nz. This will take you to the booking site. Please follow the prompts on screen. If you need assistance, please contact the school office on 234 1070 for help with the system.

Should you be unavailable for either of these evenings, we encourage you to make contact with your son/daughter’s subject teachers.

Full event information is available here

An Introductory Course to Game Programming - April Holiday Programme

This is a first course in game programming. We will start our journey by creating some classic games using the Pygame source library to create graphical 2D computer games. The emphasis will be on learning the techniques needed to be able to move on to computer game programming using software like Unity, Godot and Unreal Engine.

By the end of the three days, the course members will have moved beyond beginner level Python programming and will have developed two games as a group. They should have the skills needed to customise these games and be able to create simple games of their own. We also plan to run a more advanced course later on in the year.

DATE: Wednesday 27 - Friday 29 April 2022
TIME: 9:00am - 4:30pm
VENUE: Whitby Collegiate
AGE: 10 +
COST: $250

Students must have a laptop, a Chromebook cannot be used. Students must be able to install software on the first day of the programme - Python & PyGame.

There is an optional fee for lunch of $10 per day - pizza or fish and chips available.

Lucky Book Club

Students in Year 7 and 8 will have brought home Lucky Book Club flyers several weeks ago. Should you or your child wish to purchase anything from the flyer please do this online at https://www.scholastic.co.nz/parents/lucky-book-club/. We will not be accepting cash orders. Orders are due today, Fri 1 April. Any questions please contact: megan.keenan@whitbycollegiate.school.nz

YUMMY Sticker Competition

YUMMY fruit stickers help us purchase sports equipment for students to play with at lunch times. We will be running a competition between tutor groups to collect the most YUMMY fruit stickers so put the stickers on the sheets in your tutor class. There will be a prize for the winning tutor group (on a pro-rata basis so the small classes aren't penalised) and we the whole school will all be winners by receiving sports equipment for the lunchtime bin and the PE cupboard.

Bring in the stickers, or cut out the label on the big bag of apples to put on the collection sheets in your tutor class. 

YUMMY fruit can be purchased from New World, 4 Square, Pak n Save, your local fruit retailer as well as Fruit World.

• Apples: Genesis, Lemonade, Granny Smith, Ambrosia, Sweet Tango, Mariri Red, NZ Rose, Red Delicious, Royal Gala, Smitten, Ballarat, Braeburn and Fuji.

• Stonefruit: Nectarines and Peaches.

• Pears: Packham, Belle, Morettini and Beurre Bosc.

SPORTS UPDATE

Join the Whitby Collegiate Sport Facebook Group

Keep up to date with all Whitby Collegiate sport news, draws & results, achievements, and LIVE updates at facebook.com/groups/whitbycollegiatesport

Hockey

Whitby Collegiate’s hockey pre-season training has begun.  Training will be held at the Elson turf in Porirua from 4:00 - 5:00pm during Term 1. Students must wear school PE uniform to training.  

Hockey pre-season match dates:

• Wednesday 6 April - WC vs Paraparaumu College 2nd XI (boys) at Kapiti turf at 5:00pm.

• Wednesday 13 April - WC vs Aotea College 2nd XI (mixed) at Elsdon turf at 4:00pm.

Hockey training in school  - Our senior hockey students will be hosting a skills session in the gym at lunch time on Thursday. All registered hockey players - YR 7 -13 must attend the weekly sessions in preparation for the team’s pre-season matches. Please wear your school PE uniform.

Football

Football training starts on Wednesday 6 April on the school field with Mr Gledhill.  Please wear your school PE uniform and shin guards to training.  

Football pre-season match date:

• Saturday 9 April – WC vs Rongotai 3rd XI at 11am at Rongotai College.

Netball

Netball trials will be held on Monday 4 April in the school gym at lunch time.  Please wear your school PE uniform.

Basketball

• YR 7/8  - Year 7 & 8 mixed basketball training starts on Tuesday 5 April.  Training will be held in the school gym during lunch. Please wear your school PE uniform.

• YR 9/10 BOYS - Year 9 -10 boys basketball team training starts on Thursday 7 April with your coach, Arno Reichenvater. Training will be held in the gym from 3:30 – 4:30pm.

• GIRLS – Capital Basketball will be visiting the school on Friday. Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 GIRLS are invited to join the skills and drills sessions in the gym during lunch time. It’s a great way to learn the game in a fun environment. There may even be a lolly scramble at the end of the session! Please wear your school PE uniform.

Golf Academy

Unfortunately, Golf Academy has been cancelled and will restart in Term 4.

Rowing

Mana Rowing Club’s 6-week Learn to Row programme starts Sunday 3 April.

Sports Clubs

• RUNNING/FITNESS CLUB – Join Mrs Parish and her fitness group on Fridays at lunch break. Students must wear their PE uniform and running shoes.

• VOLLEYBALL – Every Monday lunch break there will be a volleyball scrimmage in the gym organised by Ciaran Bailey and Sheila Tui. Change into your PE uniform and put your name in a hat to play in a lunch time team. Please be prompt. The scrimmage will not be held on Monday 4 April due to netball trials.  

• TENNIS – Join the tennis Club for skills, drills and mini games on Monday lunch break. The group meets outside the gym at the start of lunch and walks up to the Whitby tennis courts with a staff facilitator. Please be prompt. Tennis club will not run if it rains.

For all sports information, latest draws & results, sport clubs and registrations please click on the appropriate link below.

We are currently at Covid-19 CPF Red, please remember:

• NO SPECTATORS /PARENTS at matches/training.

• Contract tracing is advisable at venues. 

• Warmups should be completed outside the venue before entering.

• Please use a face mask/covering when if you are not actively playing.

• Please sanitise when entering and leaving the venues.

• Please cough/sneeze into your elbow.

• Stay home if you feel unwell.

• Teams must leave venues as soon as their game finishes.

Stay Safe Whitby Collegiate families

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS

We love to celebrate our students’ achievements. For inclusion in the Whitby Collegiate newsletter or on our Facebook page, please forward student achievements to communications@whitbycollegiate.school.nz and sporting results to the Sports Coordinator, sally.rose@whitbycollegiate.school.nz

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