Walt Hamer to be republished

In the last three years, Toitoi Magazine has published over 1000 young writers and artists - one of our students, Walt Hamer, had his illustrations published. 

From Toitoi magazine to Walt:

To celebrate your courage, curiosity and creativity, we have created The Jillion — a collection of some of the most amazing writing and artwork from Toitoi.

The Jillion will be a beautiful, hardcover book that will be enjoyed by readers all over New Zealand and even the world. I am delighted to tell you that your incredible illustrations for 'Make Our Voices Count' from Toitoi 10 will be published in The Jillion. Congratulations!

PAT Assessments this week

All students will be sitting the PAT Maths and Reading Comprehension assessments this week.  This is a great opportunity for the students to see their progress across the year as they compare these achievements with those from Term 1.

A short but busy week behind us...

Here's an update on the groups Mrs Dunn works with:

Mathletes from Teams 3-4 have begun exploring Game Theory.  This is mathematical study of social interactions in games that have payoffs for the players. Team 2 will begin this learning this coming week. Team 1& 5 Mathletes are continuing development of their algebraic thinking and how it can be used to solve problems, before the Game Theory unit.

Ext(reme) Writers have a wealth of learning experiences ahead of them this term.  After much exploration of Shakespeare's language and themes, the students are creating their own script Shakespeare-style of part of a known oral, written or written text, such as a movie of book scene, a nursery rhyme, etc.
In addition, they are preparing to present their Slam poems to family and friends (date to be confirmed), as well as reflecting on the year's achievements.

A small group of Manawanui Originals got together this week - the Smiling Mind app was explored some more and positive feedback came from the students who are using this themselves now.  The discussions revolved around knowing what things we have control over and accepting there are some things that we don't have any "control" over but that we can choose how we respond to them.

Tournament of Minds International Team planned fundraising events for this term and have submitted them to Mrs Brown.  They have also been invited to the Board of Trustees Meeting on 5 November to make a presentation about their representing Raroa and NZ in Darwin.

Our Chess Teams Trijal, Daniel, Adam, Mitchell, Sarthak, Alex V, Richie and Chloe joined the Hutt Intermediate Exchange team from Raroa on Thursday.  Normally, a sporting exchange, it was GREAT to see our Chess Teams competing this year.  We await the results....

Mrs Dunn was lucky enough to be invited to the Raroa Wargaming Club this week - the group meets on every Wednesday at lunch - we are in the process of getting support from Games Workshop who has a School ALliance Programme on offer.

Otago Maths Finalists

Finalists in Otago Maths Problem Solving Competition

Over the course of the year, some students were invited to participate in the Otago Problem Solving Competition.  This involved 5 challenges across Terms 1-3.

Due to their results, these students were selected to sit the New Zealand Finals Paper in Week 2 of this term:

Alex Hay, Tuhina Sambhus, Sarthak Singh, Aidan Wheeler, Nathan Adamson, Scarlett Stallworthy, Trijal Pednekar, Michael Ling, Tom Jacobsen, Richie Man and Lara Haslam

Congratulations on this achievement - all the best when the results are announced.

Term 4 GATE Timetable has been updated

Check it out.......

                                                                                        

ICAS English Results Announced!

Congratulations to the 94 students who took part in the ICAS English Competition in July!

The students were assessed on their ability to locate, identify, sequence, explain, interpret, analyse and infer information. A variety of types of texts were used including extracts from picture books, short stories, novels, poems, play scripts, transcripts of interviews, letters, diary entries, advertisements, webpages, feature articles, opinion pieces and comic strips.

The outstanding results showed that:

• just over 6% of the Raroan students who sat ICAS English this year, were in the top 1% of NZ participants.
• 13% of the Raroan students who sat ICAS English this year, were in the next 2 -11% of NZ participants
• 30% of the Raroan students who sat ICAS English this year, were in the next 25% of NZ participants

Special congratulations go to these students who gained a High Distinction Award (in the top 1% of NZ participants in their year level): Aidan Wheeler, Izzi Anderson, Avin Chen, James Lee-Guard, Tuhina Sambhus and Arabella Tries

Special congratulations go to these students who gained a Distinction Award (in the top 2-11% of NZ participants in their year level): Cole Baker, Amy Cable, Jessica Kinsella, Trijal Pednekar, Savannah Pittaway, Tom Robinson, Nathan Stacey, Charlie Wragg, Tait Keller, Flynn Cursons, Lily Harward Jones, Jan Munro and David Zhu.

And to the following students for gaining a Credit Award (in the next 25% of NZ participants in their year level): Ben Adamson, Adya Bhargava, Brian Deng, Max Doherty, Matthew Douche, Georgia Goldsmith, William Gong, Josh Harford, Tom Jacobsen, Michael Ling, Orla O'Meara, Daniel Soh, Sophia Xu, Taylor Adamson, Sophia Boulieris, Alex Brown, Nicole Clemente, Guy Curry Stanton, Ellen Hammond, Dmitry Joffe-Devoy, Shannon McCormick, Ken Milne, Richie Moon, Sarthak Singh, Samuel Smith, Elizabeth Tam, Alex Vannucci, Alice Verkade and Janelle Woolley

All students who participated have received a certificate and an individual report detailing their own results in each skill area. Congratulations to everyone!

Epro8 Engineering Challenge

Well done to the squad of 16 which competed in this engineering challenge. For most, it was the first time ever, being in the noisy, hectic environment, mainly competing against the formidable Tawa Intermediate teams in the Western Zone Heats on Wednesday night.

It takes significant teamwork and experience in understanding and following the judging requirements when tired and under pressure using equipment that you have never seen before. 

 As the competition goes through to year 10 (Onslow College support it) there will be plenty of opportunities for keen participants in the years to come. 

One team managed to gain a creditable 4th (they almost won - but didn't quite follow judging criteria in the last few seconds) which puts this team into the semi’s in several weeks time starting off on equal footing again. 

Well done to everyone, in particular to  Izzy Rm 1 & Jesse & Trijal Rm 11 and Tuhina Rm 22 and thanks to Mr Devine for training the teams.

Team members:

Izzi Anderson Rm 1 

Warner Nash Rm 2

Daniel MacInroe Rm 2

Arjun Chandram Rm 2 

Gabby Davy Rm 5 

Alex Vannucci Rm 7 

Ben Neville Rm 11

Cameron Jaine Rm11

Trijal Pednekar  Rm 11 

Jesse Free Rm11 

Alif kusuma Rm12 

Sarthak Singh Rm 15

Thomas Neville Rm 16

Danny Gordon Rm16 

Tournament of Minds: Internationals

Our amazingly successful Tournament of Minds team is back from competing at the International Tournament in Darwin, Australia. Being one of only 6 teams to represent NZ was a real honour.

Huge thanks to our staff, Rachel Johnson and Jimmy Steele, for accompanying the team, and a huge thanks to the parents for getting the students organised with only 4 weeks notice! This allowed little time for fundraising due to the school holidays, so you'll be seeing a few fundraisers coming up this term that you might like to support.

Here's a summary of the event:

On the last Wednesday of the holidays, Izzi, Daniel, Tuhina, Matthew, Louis, Richie and Alex survived 11 hours of travel time Wellington - Darwin; a very tired bunch arrived at their accomodation at 1.45am! A rest day followed...exploring Darwin with the highlights being the man made lagoon (free from jellyfish, sharks and crocs!) and a visit to the WW2 Oil Storage Tunnels beneath the city that were used during the Darwin bombings.The following blog posts by Jimmy Steele sum up the following days ...

Friday: Ceremony, Crocs and Collaboration 

Today was the first taste of the ToM international competition for everybody. We met in the hotel lobby with hoards of other teams from all of the Aussie states, Hong Kong and Thailand, often hearing “OMG they’re from New Zealand” from other excited teams. Students quickly started receiving requests to swap tournament badges - something they would receive frequently throughout the day.

A quick bus ride took us to the Darwin Convention Centre for the Opening Ceremony. A quick welcome was made outside before all participants took part in a ‘Smoking Ceremony’ in which they walked through clouds of smoke to wash away negative energies. Inside the Convention Centre, the 500 students and their facilitators were welcomed again, this time in traditional Aboriginal style and the ceremony got started. The ceremony represented the different seasons present in Darwin and how these are characterised throughout the year. We are currently experiencing the ‘Build Up’ season, characterised by extreme humidity and high temperatures until the rainy season in November. Each of the 7 seasons was explained through audience participation, dance, musical performances by local schools and speeches. It was an interesting, creative and educational opening ceremony.

Morning tea was followed by the first official activity where our students took part in the ‘Thinking Carnival’ - a thinking session with Lee Watanabe-Crockett. This session surrounded problem solving and ideas the teams would need to embody to be successful in their lockdown challenge. They brainstormed ideas, collaborated with other teams and were given lots of great information from Lee. Lee’s ideas linked really well to the Design Thinking Process and Wabisabi learning which the kids could relate to from their work at school.

The first session led to a quick lunch then another bus trip, this time to Crocosaurus Cove! This was an awesome experience with HUGE crocs seen up close and lots of reptiles too. The kids were able to hold baby crocs and an albino carpet python. There was plenty of excitement around and a feeding show which showed the power behind a crocodile bite. Luckily the crocs that some of the kids fed were much smaller!

The kids were keen for bed as they knew they had a big day ahead of them. It would be an early start and a long day but the team is ready for their big challenge.

Saturday: The Main Event

7:30am - bags are packed and they’re ready to go! An early checkout and straight onto the bus to Charles Darwin University. The general consensus from the students was that they were ready for the day and no nerves were tugging yet.

The students were taken to their preparation room at 8:30am. We eagerly anticipated their reaction when they were released and hoped that their challenges were everything they hoped for. It was 12:20pm before we saw them again.
We saw smiles on their faces and they said they felt confident in what had been accomplished. As their facilitators, we had no idea what their challenge had been and they were forbidden to discuss this until after their presentation. So after lunch in the shade we filed back into the presentation hall and wished them all luck. Raroa was the final team to present. As they moved onto stage, we received some confident thumbs-ups and some nervous smiles and we began to be amazed at the costumes they had created during their prep time.

They really made us proud and we could imagine Lynne there with a beaming smile and thunderous applause.
When the presentations were complete we were bussed to Nakara Primary School for dinner, festivities and excitement before the Award Ceremony and Closing of the Tournament. We found out that Raroa was not placed in the top 3 teams.
It’s now 10pm and the bus is about to pick us up for the start of our journey home. Bring on the 1am flight to Melbourne!

Tournament of Minds Team has left for Darwin!

We wish our Tournament of Minds Team all the best as they represent Raroa and New Zealand at the International Tournament in Darwin, Australia.  

Feel free to follow them on their blog https://herewecomedarwin.blogspot.com/

We wish you all the very best!