E-Pro8
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Hi there, This year we had an amazing E-Pro8 team. We worked well together, choked on popcorn together, and cracked jokes together *cough cough* Elliot *cough cough*. Our team was made up of 3 girls, Genavieve Graham, Briar Lyne, and Jessica Nieuwenhuijsen. We also had 1 boy, Elliot Tait. This year we sort of had a virtual challenge. We watched a video and they told us that we had to build a zoo animal. By build, I mean use sticks of Aluminum, connectors, and cranks. We chose to build an Owl, that flapped his wings, moved on wheels, and bobbed his head in time to the music. Our Owl took around 5 weeks to build, including the planning, the wrecking, and the dismantling. One time we worked hard, got it all done, luckily did our video, then we put it in a room, and the day we came back, it was BROKEN DOWN! But we had done everything we needed to, so it wasn’t too bad. We came second place in the competition and moved on to the semifinals. At the Semi-Finals, we had lots of challenges in a booklet and a whole trolley full of equipment. First, we tried to make a rollercoaster, but that did not work, then we moved on to the shopping trolley. Oh yeah, every 10 minutes a song came on, and we had to sanitise our hands. We started off with making the actual shopping trolley, then the extra challenge to motorise it, and then to drive it around a course. Jess totally did not crash it into someone else’s project (I actually didn’t but I very nearly did). *Lalalalalalala* Hand sanitising time! We were getting kinda stressed, so we were glad that the end came. We came 6th and did not get into the Finals. We pushed our trolley into a trailer, sanitised our hands (again!), and left the grounds. That was our 2020 EPro8 Challenge! By Briar Lyne |
School Animals
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Forget Orana Park, forget Willowbank. Here at Te Ara Koropiko West Spreydon School, we have our OWN menagerie for you to look at! (It only consists of chickens, pigs, and dogs but still). No need to go to any zoos, you have some animals in your own backyard! In this article, I’ll give you a rundown of all the animals we house!
First, we start off with the chickens. We have 3 (we used to have 4, but I think one died of a heart disease) chickens and I don’t think they’re named. I will have to chase Whaea Janice up on that. They live in a caged off area behind the sports shed. They are well looked after by Whaea Janice, our resident chicken whisperer. They are all female, and they are ISA Brown’s (I think). Next, we have the pigs, which unfortunately aren’t at our current site, but being looked after by an unknown family until we move back to our new site that is currently being re-built. There are 3, and all of them are kunekune pigs. Their genders are unknown. Another animal we have is Matua Bill’s dog, who in reality, is not actually the school’s dog, but she basically is. Her name is Belle, and (as you could probably guess), she is female. Her breed is a Cocker Spaniel and she is 3 and a half years old. She enjoys riding on the back of Matua Bill's lawnmower and going on lead adventures with the children during their lunch times. Now the paradise ducks. They technically aren’t ours (as they are wild) but they love lounging around in the middle of the rugby field pecking for worms in the damp mud. They only come if it's slightly rainy or it has rained and no one is using the inside of the field. Paradise ducks mate for life, so if one of them dies, they don’t find another partner! Very cute but sad. We are by a river, so we get ducks and other things like that. We also (obviously) get lots of seagulls. Also last year we had a school cat. We don’t know what happened to it. Hope it’s okay. So, I hope you enjoyed this quick rundown of the school animals. We have quite a few when you really think about it. By Genavieve Graham and Charlotte Cobley |
TAKWSS Harakeke Superstar Cricket Team!
As you may know, this term at West Spreydon School in the senior team, Matua Glen has formed a mixed cricket team to play on Fridays. The team is made up of 6 girls, Mikayla Taylor, Cosette Major, Molly Harrison, Tessa Llyod-man, Zoey Reeves and Josie Jamieson. As Well as 6 boys, Jacob Robertson, Finn Langrell, Bailey Reeves, Tuimanino Panapa and Levi. So far we have only played one game, which we won. The end score was 94 to 39. We versed Ilam and they had really good players. Throughout the game we got many 4’s, some 6’s, a couple catches as well as some wickets. Josie and Tui were our reserves and the batting pairs were Tessa and Zoey, Cosette and Molly, Mikayla and Levi, Finn and Bailey and our final pair were Jacob and Charlie. Being our first game meant there were some things that we could still improve on but we did very well. The game before that was cancelled because we had just got back from camp and our next game is on the 27th of November.
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Zoey, Cosette, Tessa, Molly and Josie all also play for Sydenham on Saturdays and all of the girls played at the start of the year in term 1 for the girl team. On the 27th of November we had our second game against Cotswald, where we won 100-50. We got 36 runs from feilding and 64 runs from batting. Mikayla got a hatrick and Jacob got a 6! Once again they were quite good and had some great hits. It was definitely our better game out of the 2 but that's it for now!
By Molly Harrison and Zoey Reeves |
Te Ara Koropiko West Spreydon School History
By Lauren Skjellerup and Danaria Hohaia-Tolovaa
The year was 1926 in February when our school was built. The population came to a roll of 96 pupils. By October West Spreydon School was officially the name accepted by the Education Board. We are now at another school waiting for our new school to be built. It has been a rocky school year but we managed to get through it. COVID-19 really hit us hard knowing that we missed out on a lot of opportunities like: Dancing like the stars, Cultural festival, School trips, Winter tournament etc. So that was a real big bummer especially for the year 6’s
OUR AMAZING PRINCIPAL
The amazing principal the one and only Marriene Langton. She is a loving person to all of the kids, she is caring and understanding and some times she can be tough but we all love her. She is amazing at her job and a great principal and we are grateful to have her at Te Ara Koropiko West Spreydon School.
Interview with Marriene Langton
What made you want to be a principal? Did you teach beforehand?
I really love the idea of being able to set the standards and the tone for the school and I wanted to make a difference to the school that would fit my values. I did teach before. I taught mainly in year 7 and 8 about 20 years before and taught the juniors with the principal before me.
How long have you been working here for? How long have you been a principal?
2020 is her 13th year.
What is your favourite part about being a principal?
It's always the children. Seeing or working with the children. Seeing them doing athletics, music, performance. Seeing children with their incredible talent. I love to work with lovely teachers and work staff.
What is the most challenging part?
Making hard decision that I know others will not like.
How much do you like your job from a scale of 1-10?
10/10 absolutely
OUR AMAZING PRINCIPAL
The amazing principal the one and only Marriene Langton. She is a loving person to all of the kids, she is caring and understanding and some times she can be tough but we all love her. She is amazing at her job and a great principal and we are grateful to have her at Te Ara Koropiko West Spreydon School.
Interview with Marriene Langton
What made you want to be a principal? Did you teach beforehand?
I really love the idea of being able to set the standards and the tone for the school and I wanted to make a difference to the school that would fit my values. I did teach before. I taught mainly in year 7 and 8 about 20 years before and taught the juniors with the principal before me.
How long have you been working here for? How long have you been a principal?
2020 is her 13th year.
What is your favourite part about being a principal?
It's always the children. Seeing or working with the children. Seeing them doing athletics, music, performance. Seeing children with their incredible talent. I love to work with lovely teachers and work staff.
What is the most challenging part?
Making hard decision that I know others will not like.
How much do you like your job from a scale of 1-10?
10/10 absolutely
Kapa Haka
Kapa haka has been great in 2020 even with the Christchurch Cultural Festival being cancelled because of COVID-19. We thought there would be no concerts or performances this year. Luckily, we have been able to perform in front of a school on camp and we have one big performance. We will also perform at the End of Year Assembly.
The first big performance is at Southwest Baptist Church for the Ethical Market. We have songs that we will sing in order starting with Te Ara Koropiko, which is the school song. We then sing Te Rina, Tokorima Tautau and then we do our school haka. I am one of the kapa haka leaders and the other leaders are: Corey, Levi and Charlie. There are 3 parts of the haka: start, middle and end. I do the start, Corey does middle and Levi and Charlie do the ending part of the haka. At the end we all join in to finish the haka. We have very different calls: Whakapiri, WhakaMua, Ki raro hōpa Poi Kia mau (Poi Kai mau is for the girls) Huri Maui Kai Wiri x2 We have been doing kapa haka for a long time. We practice a lot to get it perfect for our performance. We just need to be a little bit more perfect. We want our Kapa Haka to be spot on for the crowd to cheer loudly for the seniors, middles and the juniors (even though they don’t do the haka). It will only be the middle and the senior students will be doing the school Haka. 2020 has been a disappointment because of COVID-19 but at least we can still do our school performance except for our Cultural Festival. By NJ Brown, Charlie Quinn and Corey Fisher |
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