Year 7 News

Last week we had our school Mihi Whakatau which brought together our school as one. The Year 8 students displayed outstanding leadership in this area and our Year 7 students certainly felt the energy and passion they displayed during this very special part of our school culture. 

We have been very busy in our classrooms setting up our class programmes and this has started with a focus on getting to know our new students and classmates, setting up routines and introducing the "Balmac Way" - this is how we do it here. This includes our key concepts of being AWARE, HONEST and RESPONSIBLE for our learning, actions and behaviour. This sets underpins all we do and ties into looking at our school PERK values of perseverance, excellence, respect and kindness. 

Our school camps are underway with the first four classes out at Waihola this week. As well as taking part in a range of outdoor challenges, this is a fantastic opportunity at the start of the year for our students to get to know each other and build relationships. A huge thank you in advance to all of the caregivers who have volunteered to help at our camps - we cannot run these programmes without you. 

This week we have also introduced to our classes our first topic and PBL focus for the year - titled Ukaipo. This unit will combine Aotearoa history as part of our literacy programme with our PBL focus on creating an online google site to reflect the students origins and roots, share their work and create a record of their time at Balmacewen. Later this term they will be sharing these with their caregivers.

It has been a very busy and productive start to our year!

Lisa Dixon

On behalf of Year 7