Year 7 News, March 2019

It has been an awesome and busy month of March with camp, Toitu visits, visits to Arai te Uru  and working on our exhibition pieces.

All 9 classes had really successful camps to Waihola CYC. The weather was largely agreeable for sleeping in tents and plenty of outdoor opportunities. The Y7 team certainly displayed the Balmac school value of perseverance when they tackled the 12km Taieri River track.  For some classes the day they did the tramp it was 28 degrees! Other activities included using portable camp cookers, an epic flying fox through the bush, archery and rifle shooting, loads of team building challenges, watersliding in the warm sun and geocaching. All classes had exceptional parent/whanau help and we cannot thank you enough for giving up your time to help out at these camps. 

A really special aspect of our Term 1 unit of Turangawaewae has been our visits to  Arai te Uru Marae.  For a number of our learners this was their first visit onto a Marae.  These visits really reinforced the importance of our beginning of the year Mihi Whakatau and understanding  of the powhiri process . Students presented their pepeha and then were immersed in activities such as raranga harakeke - weaving with flax, traditional story telling , traditional games and Marae art. It is a really special day out of the class and so fabulous we have this resource on our doorstep.

Our visits to Toitu have been focused around looking at what makes an exhibition engaging and the different styles of exhibitions. These visits have influenced our students own Turangawaewae exhibition pieces.  Our Year 7 exhibition will take place in the learning street of Block 3 on Thursday 11th/Friday 12th April.  All Year 7 pupils' pieces of work will be on display after school on Thursday from 3:10pm - 5:30pm and on Friday morning 8am-8:45am. We hope you and your whanau are able to come along and support our childrens' work.

A huge thank you to all of our parent/whanau help who have helped out during this busy time with EOTC opportunities, swimming lessons, and in and around the class. 

As always, many thanks for all of your support.

Beth Downie and the Y7 team.