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Gisborne Girls’ High School Newsletter

JUNE 2016

Success

Te Kura Tuarua o Tūranga Wāhine

Coming Events

Gisborne Girls’ High School

Post PO Box 249 Gisborne 4040

Phone 06 868 6092

Fax 06 868 4226

Email info@gghs.school.nz

Celebrating

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Deans andForm Teachers

These people play a critical role in your daughter’s success. If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to call her form teacher in the first instance. To arrange this please call the school office (06) 8686092

The Deans for this year are:

Ingrid Meister Year 9Chrissy Bevan-Hutana Year 10Justine Ward Year 11Ian Loffler Year 12Hana Crawford-Bowden Year 13 Wendy Kirkwood International Students

Debating Recently, myself and three other Girls’ High students attended the Russell McVeagh debating competition. For two of us, this was our first debate since year ten and it is safe to say we were shocked by the standard of performance. We were lucky to have an experienced debater on our team, however, and we left with two wins. The style of debating was vastly different to what I was used to, but the challenge was welcomed. With only 30 minutes to prepare, we were forced to condense our ideas and think on the spot. I feel Russell McVeagh has helped me seriously im-prove as a debater. I have developed an ability to think quickly, and the feedback given by adjudicators has allowed me to look critically at my style and take actions in areas of weakness. During our time at Russell McVeagh, we were given a range of motions to argue. A favourite of mine was arguing that children in the foster system should be placed into homes with similar backgrounds. This motion sparked an intriguing and con-troversial debate, which kept us thinking long after the debate ended.In light of our trip, a ‘friendly’ debate with Boys’ High was set up. While they won our first debate, we took our own back the second time around. The debates we engaged in were as much battles of intellect as they were battles of ego.I look forward to participating in more debates as the year progresses and gaining more experience and skills for next year’s Russell McVeagh competition. Lucy Anderson

Dear students, parents and caregivers,He kura ao, He ao kura ko Turanga Wahine. Nga mihi aroha ki nga kaitiaki a o tatou rangatira.

It is amazing to think that Term Two is nearly finished. Time has cer-tainly gone quickly this term. We have enjoyed continuing lovely weather and now that the first of our two new boilers is up and running we are ready if it turns cold. Our new system is so efficient that it remains on at all times maintaining a warm, dry school for our students and staff. The second boiler will be installed in the next holidays and should set us up for the next fifty years.Term Two always has a large music focus as our Rockquest and Paci-fica Beats bands, choir and Chamber Music groups are all involved in competitions. We had an outstanding 18 bands in Rockquest and every one produced a quality performance in the heats. Girls’ High had 8 bands qualify for the finals with Wahine Toa placing second and Kurawaka third. Kurawaka is a group of students from Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Kawakawa Mai Tawhiti in Te Araroa who come down every Friday to study music with our excellent teacher, Jane Egan. We were very proud of their performance as they also won the Pasifica Beats section. Both Wahine Toa and Kurawaka now have to produce a music video to apply for a place in the national finals. Elle Williams also has a video to produce to apply for a place in the solo/duo category. We wish all of these students all the best for their next steps.The choir travelled to Napier to compete in the Big Sing and came home with the Adjudicator’s Prize after an excellent performance. With 88 students from across the year levels the choir is the largest participatory activity in the school. Well done to you all - we look forward to your performance at the end of term music assembly.

Then came the Nga Manu Korero Speech and Kapa Haka Competi-tions. Our speakers, Tahua Pihema, Summer Maynard, Bree Rangi-uaia and Eden Tata all did us proud with strong presentations. In the kapa haka, Turanga Wahine Turanga Tane put on a very pol-ished performance and took out first place as well as many other component prizes. Well done and thank you to all the students, tutors, teachers and whanau for all your very hard work over the past weeks. Also busy representing our school this term has been our group of Cross-country runners, coached by Graham Lawson, and our Gym-nasts, managed by Grace Davidson, who have all been very suc-cessful. Special mention goes to Briana Irving who took out second at the National Cross Country Champs last weekend. Senior student reports have been posted home this week. These will contain details of the students’ NCEA credits achieved to date as well as feedback from each teacher with valuable advice for next term. Coming up on Thursday 30th June is an opportunity to meet with subject teachers for individual conversations. Please make the most of this evening to ensure your student knows how to complete a successful year.Finally, I would like to thank all those whanau, students and teach-ers who are coaching and managing our many sports teams this winter. Your support allows us to offer a wide range of sporting opportunities to our students. Being part of a sports team provides many valuable life skills such as tolerance, leadership, empathy and responsibility, in addition to skill development and fitness. Our stu-dents are very lucky to have your support.

Nga mihi nui ki a koutou.Jan Kumar

Ko te mata tēnā o Tūranga Wahine, o Tūranga Tāne!After many weeks of intense practise, drilling and singing our combined-schools kapahaka team of Turanga Wahine Turanga Tane were rewarded with an emphatic win in this year’s local Tairawhiti Regional Secondary Schools’ Kapahaka Compe-tition. This year the competition was hosted by Campion College at the Events Centre, Houhoupiko. The team’s lead tutors Chrissy Moetara and Logan Pokai were pleased with their team’s effort. They were quick to acknowledge the contribution given by the support crew including those working on uniform, staff, ex-students and parents. Well done to all! We eagerly look toward the next competition, Tama-raro, which is expected to be held in September later this year. Ngā manaakitanga ki runga ki a tātau katoa.

Kapa Haka

JUNESenior Report Evening 30th

JULYEnd of Module 2 1st

End of Term 8th

Senior Ball 9th

Term 3 25th

AUGUSTJunior Report Evening 9th

After GGHS....... Sports

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“We’ve been in Zambia for a month and it’s amazing here. We’re volunteering at a local Pre-school called Banvel Academy, where we teach the kids English, Maths and other very basic things, we also play games with them, and cook their food- local style. The kids are very eager to learn even though they are very young, education is very important in Zambia, the kids feel a lot of pressure to suc-ceed from a very young age, to escape the poverty cycle and finish school even when they have no resources. My school is run out of a woman named Betty’s home, her backyard is one classroom and her lounge is the other, these two tiny spaces (about 3m by 2m each) fit 50+ kids altogether. Many of the kids don’t have food or books but we write in the dirt and share everything we have. The kids definitely don’t take learning for granted, they even come on Saturdays, can’t say many gghs girls were ever that keen! We also help out at Kwathu orphanage when we can, painting rooms, bathing kids and doing art with them. All the kids here are so joyful even when they have tragic stories to tell.

Apart from volunteering during the week, we’ve been doing amazing things like visiting Victoria Falls (a natural wonder of the world) and taking a microlight flight over them, we even head over to other countries. We went to Botswana for an overnight safari which was epic and we plan to do skydiving in Namibia when we visit...every day is a new experience. The volunteer house here is very much like a small uni hall, lots of great young people and good vibes. Night life here is exciting and the culture here is very different. White people are incredibly rare so if you walk down the street all the kids will squeal “Mzungu” which means White Person, and they’ll hug you and high five you, and the young men want to marry you.

If any students are interested in traveling or volunteering as a gap year tell them to message one of us on Facebook , we’d be happy to answer any questions and get more gghs girls doing awesome things overseas! We would highly recommend International Volunteer HQ, a good kiwi organisation, to all wanting to go on an adventure, do some good and make lifelong friends. Sounds super cheesy but this really is the trip of a lifetime!”

We’ll keep you updated,Lisa and Lara.

Results:Rhythmical1st GGHS Seniors2nd GGHS Year 10s3rd GGHS Year9s

Individual A Competitive1st Keely Phillips2nd Hannah Scholefield3rd Lucy Mossman

A reserve1st Maisie Hiko2nd Danielle Bell3rd Sydnee Andrews

A Grade1st Fern Stuart

Aerial Silks - girls in the photos;Eireann Lawton-HudnerElisabeth MissenAmy Baldacchino

Gymnastics Festival

Cross CountryThe East Coast North Island Cross Country Champs took place at the Gisborne Showgrounds on Wednesday 8th June. In perfect conditions athletes from Hawke’s Bay and Tairawhiti schools com-peted in three divisions.The performance of the day was that of Briana Irving in the Year 9 Girls’ 3k race. She obliterated the previous record by 43 seconds to run a stunning time of 10 minutes 10 seconds. Brooke Mor-rison ran powerfully to finish third and with Holly Williams ninth, the teams race was a foregone conclusion.Girls’ High sole representative in the Junior Girls’ race, Christy Tate, ran one of her best races to finish a creditable second.The Senior Girls’ Race had seven of our athletes competing. They all ran consistently to finish second in three and six person teams race. It was very encouraging to see parents present supporting their daughters.A big thanks to Gina Samson and Rita Halley for assisting with the organisation of the event and the management of the athletes.Congratulations also to Briana Irving who came Second in the Y9 Girls, NZSSAA Cross Country Championships.

Out of....

Africa

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Netball update SpeechA GLORIOUS NIGHT OF SPEECH

The 2016 Gisborne Girls’ High School Speech Finals were truly outstanding! We were delighted to have Ms Rehette Stoltz, Deputy Mayor of Gisborne, as adjudicator – a most enjoyable but highly challenging task as our most gifted speakers took to the floor.

The Year 9 winner was Sterling Maxwell, who gave a speech on ‘Richie Mc-Caw’ that the great man would have been humbled by, narrowly ahead of fine speeches from Salem Evans on ‘Women’s Rights,’ Tessa Hall with a thoughtful speech on ‘Perspectives,’ and Hannah Veitch challenging us on ‘What We Are Compromising On,’ in what was a fantastic start to the eve-ning.

Georgia Shanks won a very high quality Year 10 competition with her hu-morous yet perceptive speech on ‘Teenagers,’ just ahead of Georgia Borrie’s powerful discussion of ‘A Perfect World,’ and Christy Tate’s inspiring speech on ‘Equality.’

All our Year 11 speakers were exceptional, with Zara Peck entertaining ev-eryone with ‘Wedding Tips’ as the winner, Alex Andrews’ ‘Reality TV’ amus-ing all, while Grace Cleland-Pottie delivered an insightful speech on ‘Being Thankful.’

Belle Mitford took the honours in a truly outstanding Year 12 competition with ‘Fate,’ with Laurel Mitchell’s ‘Should We Follow Our Dreams’ making all think about their futures, while Blaise Hubbard had everyone laughing in discussing ‘Attention Spans.’ The highlight of the evening is always the Year 13 Impromptu Speeches, where our brave volunteers are assigned a topic at random, and have only sixty minutes to prepare a four minute presentation. This year, it was all about the big questions of life. As always, the girls delivered, and our four speakers of the highest quality saw Holly Jackson entertainingly discussing ‘Destiny v Free Will,’ Summer Maynard speaking with great hilarity yet in-sight about ‘What is Right, What is Wrong,’ Vipasha Mehta tackling the easy topic (or not!) of ‘What is the Meaning of Life,’ while Yasmine Sener pon-tificated upon ‘Where Do We Come From, Where Are We Going.’ Summer narrowly emerged victorious from the four fantastic speakers, all of whom have shown their exceptional talents through their years at high school in these finals.

Thanks also go to Brooke Armstrong for her competence as MC for the evening.

If you missed out this year, there is always 2017 – start plan-ning your speech now, (even if a very high bar has been set!) and we look forward to seeing more of our wonderful young women as they entertain and inform us with their speeches of the highest standard.

Netball Coaching“There are nine senior students coaching junior netball teams this year. GGHS 10 Red, 10 Gold, 9 Yellow, 9 Silver and 9 Black are all competing in the secondary grade in the Gis-borne Netball Centre competition every Saturday. From this experience we have learnt that we need a lot of patience to be a coach, and how hard it must be coaching a netball team full of very energetic girls. It also shows how committed we need to be as a coach and also the amount of time it takes up from our personal lives. We as coaches benefit from this as we get to know more people as an individual and in a team. We also gain a lot of leadership skills from this which can benefit us well for the future.”Cherie Parsons, Jordyn Broughton, Pauline Samuels

“I think having a senior students coach is good because they relate to things that we do and they are in the the same age bracket as us so we can look up at them when they play net-ball. They also know what it’s like to have a boring training so they make them fun so we want to turn up. Also it’s good because we are making connections with older girls from the school and meeting new people.”Jemma Honey

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GGHS Music MonthWe had an awesome trip to the Big Sing choral festival in Napier and are proud to have been awarded the Adjudicators Award!Awesome work team.

Congratulations to The Sweet Trio who took out 1st place and the KBB award at the Chamber Music Competition. Fantastic work Niamh Athy, Rebekah Hakiwai and Eireann Lawton-Hud-ner. Also congratulations to Jazz Hands, Double 05 and Last Minute who were presented Highly Commended Awards.

Rockquest 2016Rockquest East Coast Regional finals were held last Saturday night at the War Me-morial Theatre. GGHS had 8 bands in the Final. It was an amazing night with so much outstanding talent. We are immensely proud of every one who rocked the stage.Results were as follows:Best song went to Grey Nebula for their song Gallows.The APRA lyric writers award went to Elle Williams from Ludus.Peoples choice award went to Kurawaka.Kurawaka also picked up 3rd place and took out the Pacifica Beats section of the competition. Ruawhaitiri Mahue-Ngatai won the award for best Vocals.Wahine Toa placed 2nd overall and Niamh Athy got 2nd in the Solo Duo sectionKurawaka, and Wahine Toa are now all in the process of filming their 15 minute video as part of the National Finals selection process.Congratulations everyone for your amazing work!

CHOIR

CHAMBER

ROCKQUEST

MusicMentoringwith Anika Moa