BULLER HIGH SCHOOL Te Kura Tuarua-o-Kawatiri

33 Derby Street, Telephone: (03) 789 7299, Fax: (03) 789 6790,

Issue 3 March 2017

FROM THE PRINCIPAL: principal@buller.ac.nz

This week, we have Year 9 camps. These are the first camps since the Board commissioned a full review of our Education Outside the Classroom (EOTC) processes. These camps aim to strengthen the pastoral relationships between students, their House Teachers and Deans. Peer Support Leaders are also involved to support and lead activities on camp to build these relationships. I am sure the week will be successful and the students will have a great time.

This Friday, 24 March, Mr Ratnam and his daughter Jayshri will be heading to Rotorua to attend the National Trustpower Community Awards. The Bollywood group were awarded the Supreme

Award in the Buller Finals for their community impact and support of diversity in the Buller. The national awards pro-vide an opportunity for the 25 Trustpower regions to share their story of community involvement and achievement. I wish them both all the best as they represent our school and your community.

Interim reports have now been posted home. It is your first opportunity to assess the progress of your children this year. I urge you to read these reports carefully and take advantage of the parent evening next week on Tuesday 28 March. All bookings are online. Please remember, if you need more time, ask the teacher to organise another opportunity. If you can’t make it to the evening, again please feel free to contact the teacher to speak to them or arrange a different time.

This term finishes just prior to Easter and by then most senior students will have begun their NCEA journey. Students can monitor their progress by logging on to NZQA and I would urge you to encourage them to do so. Al-ready the term has seen many opportunities, for our students beyond the classroom. These include a Physics Tour-nament in Christchurch, Debating in Nelson, Science Alive in Westport, Cybersafety with John Parsons, and Nathan Wallis –The Teenage Brain, to name a few.

Our uniform looks great and the vast majority of students wear the uniform with pride. This includes not wearing non-uniform items, including jewellery. Our current rules allow for one pair of studs (one per ear) and a watch. Non-uniform jewellery includes nose or chin studs, bracelets, necklaces and extra earrings. We undertook a complete review in 2016 and the uniform is something that we can all be proud of. I would ask you to support us in ensuring that students arrive in school in the correct uniform. One of our values is ‘Respect’ and that includes respect for the rules of our school and taking ‘Responsibility’ for wearing the uniform correctly.

I look forward to sharing the success stories of our students with you throughout the year.

Tama tu tama ora, tama noho tama mate An active person will remain healthy while a lazy one will become sick

Physics Team 2017

The Physics team made our annual pilgrimage to the University of Canterbury to show off the amazing skills of Buller students and this year’s team did outr region proud. The students (Beth O’Connor, Teren Gubb, David Dunlop and their year 13 Physics class support crew) have been working on seven challenges since the end of last year from which they were required to present ideas and critique the work of others.

This takes on a similar format of defending one’s thesis at university and exposes the students to the rigorous nature of academia.

The competition stared at 8.30am on Saturday 11 March and finished at 6pm. During a short lunch break they were given a tour of the new Engineering building at University of Canterbury.

At the end of the day, the scores were tallied and the top teams included: Riccarton (x2), Rangi Ruru, Christ ’s College and Buller High School. Our score of 90.1, was a mere 4.4 points away from qualifying to compete in the national tournament for a chance to represent New Zealand in Singapore for this event. This was a great outcome and we are so proud of our hard-working and talented team.

Wilding House Year Ten

At Buller High, we think of our House class as a family. That means we celebrate each other’s achievements and help each other when one of us is in need. Recently, we have come across both situations. Tessa Syron joined our family as a young, confident girl, who knew her goals and what she had to do to achieve them. She became the co-house leader after a class vote at the beginning of year nine. She did such a fine job representing us that, this year, the class didn’t even feel that a vote was necessary. Everybody was happy with Tessa and wanted her to continue representing them. Recently, we found that Tessa wants to represent more than Wilding 10; she wants to represent New Zealand. She was chosen by the New Zealand Basketball Academy Under 14’s for an upcoming tournament; we are all proud of her and think they made a great choice. This will take place in Las Vegas, USA. She also has to attend several training camps in Wellington to prepare. She is trying to fundraise roughly $6,000, a massive undertaking for any 14 year old and their family. Students from our class came up with the idea of a fundraiser to help contribute toward her trip. I was amazed to see the responsibility taken by the class who raised over $1000 within three weeks. To present the money raised, we organised a family day out. Tessa’s parents were thrilled and said that they are fortunate to send their child to a school where they are safe and supported in all areas. Finally, I can say that I am proud and fortunate to have such a lovely family where we take care of each other. House Teacher Mr Ratnam

Sitting: Nick Syron, Rochana Syron, Tessa Syron, Martin Syron, Allie Syron with Mr

Ratnam standing.

Following the Buller Half Marathon event, the Honours Board in the Buller High School Gym has recently been updated with the names of the students who completed the half marathon run, or the full marathon run. Jamie Irons improved her 2016 time by 3 minutes over the 21.1km distance crossing the finish line at 1 hour 41 minutes. Jordan Anderson completed the distance for the very first time where he crossed the line in 1 hour 43 minutes. Ben Mokomoko also completed the distance for the very first time, and is now the current holder of the fastest time of 1 hour 31 minutes! Zack Armstrong is the first student to have his name on the Honours Board for completing the full marathon distance, 42.2 km.

For this reason his name plaque is coloured gold, whereas the other name plaques are silver. Zack completed the event in 4 hours 26 minutes. Students can have their name added to the Honours Board if they can show evidence of having run and completed any sanctioned half or full marathon. Congratulations to all four students who demonstrated true resilience to complete the enduring event.

Gym Honours Board

Debating Team

Buller High School debaters recently competed in the Top of the South Secondary Schools’ competition in Nelson. We didn't bring home any prizes, but we enjoyed ourselves and developed our skills throughout the day. Left to right standing: Laiza Abellanosa, Tristan Valencia, Hannah Smith, Cullum Curnow, Lily Meadowcroft and Teren Gubb. Sitting: Devlin Pratt, Tara Shepherd and Tamsin Schrader.

All of the year nine and year ten students participated in the Biannual Science Roadshow. There was an amazing array of hands-on science ac-tivities to engage with and a very well presented talk. Please ask your son or daughter what their favourite part was and get them reinforcing their science learning at home. Photo: Jacob Fitzgerald

Science Roadshow

Entertains and Educates

Four Buller High School students will be attending a basketball tournament in Tauranga in March and April. We congratulate them for being selected to be part of this tournament. Photo from left: Roisin Blundell-Dorey, Ella Jenkins-Kirkwood, Beth O’Connor, Nicole Stuart

Nail House for Westport Kindergarten

As part of the course, senior students must design and construct a non-consent building. The students get an opportunity to learn construction skills based on the current building industry. To begin with, they learn how to read plans and figure out exact requirements. Throughout the course, they learn how to work out the type and amount of material needed, set out foundation, build floor frame, wall frame, and roof, outside and inside walls. They also learn how to fit doors and windows. During construction, they learn about the various roles such as Contractor, Sub-Contractor, Foreman, machining person and labourers.

Students really enjoy this course and comment on how it is the best subject, as they experience reality. As a teacher, I am 100% sure that these students will succeed if they choose to pursue a career in the building industry. For this year’s project, we had an opportunity to design and construct a Nail House for Westport Kindergarten. We have just completed it and the students from Westport loved their new Nail house.

We can build non-consent size buildings according to your needs. We will only cover costs for the materials as this will be a learning curve for our students, hence there won’t be any labour cost. If you are interested, please contact school for further information. Teacher Mr Ratnam

Secondary Schools’ 3x3 National Basketball Slam Tournament

SCHOOL CALENDAR 24 March: National Trustpower Community Awards - Rotorua 28 March: Parent Evening 4-7pm 29 March: Secondary Schools 3x3 Basketball National Slam - in Tauranga 11 April BOT Meeting 5.30pm Principal’s Office 5 - 7 April: BP Challenge Year 11 10 April: MUN in Nelson 11 April: West Coast Muns at Buller High School 12 April: Mufti Day at school 22 May: BOT Meeting 5.30pm Principal’s Office 1 July: Senior School Ball

TERM DATES 13 April: End of Term 1 1 May: Term 2 begins

7 July: End of Term 2 24 July: Term 3 begins

BP Challenge for all Year 11’s

The BP Challenge is now in its fourth year at Buller High School and will be running for all Year 11’s in the second to last week of Term One (5-7 April)

The BP Business Challenge is a three-day practical business experience that will get students working in teams with other students to come up with an exciting new business idea. They are given business basics such as strategic planning, marketing, production, finance, innovation etc., so that they can create a business plan and present their ideas to judges on the final day of the programme. Parents and caregivers are invited to attend the judging on Friday 7 April, which begins at

12.30pm.

We invite all

parents/caregivers and students

to the Interim Report Parent

Evening.

To be held on Tuesday

28 March between 4.00pm

and 7.00pm in Block B.

To book an interview, log on to

www.schoolinterviews.co.nz/code

Event code: s2zkh

Boys’ Literacy Group

In 2016, Buller High School (as part of our wider Community of Learning schools) identified that achievement of boys in education should become a focus. Boys trail behind girls in achievement of NCEA across New Zealand and our boys are no exception.

A major focus for improving achievement is literacy and numeracy. While our whole staff endeavour to provide consistent delivery of literacy and numeracy specific for their curriculum subject, Ellen Curnow (Leader for Literacy) and Erica Jar (Leader for Boys’ Education) are running after school literacy sessions on Thursdays (3.10pm – 4.00pm) in classroom G1. These commenced on Thursday 9 March 2017.

Based on 2016 end of year results, some boys have been identified as students who could benefit from these sessions, and their parent received a letter with information about the sessions. If you are one of these parents, we would appreciate your support in ensuring that your son attends.

If you think your son would also benefit from these sessions, but you have not received information regarding these sessions, or, if you have any questions regarding this initiative, please feel free to contact Erica on 789 7299 ext 832 or by email erica.jar@buller.ac.nz

Upcoming Buller High School

Robotics Fundraising Events

Gaming Evening: Friday 7 April. For years 8 - 13, at Buller High School in C Block from 3.10pm - 5.30pm. $5 per person. Easter Raffle: Tickets $2. Drawn Thursday 13 April. Trivia Quiz Night: Thursday 15 June at Club Buller. Teams of 2-6, $5 per person. Car Wash $10 per car, Saturday 24 June at BP, includes a Sausage.

INTRODUCING

THE BULLER HIGH SCHOOL

CITIZENSHIP CLUB

At Buller High School, we are already involved in many citizenship-type activities, such as Model United Nations and World Vision’s 40 Hour Famine. We would also like to expand our involvement to include the work of UNICEF and Amnesty International, and participate in promoting other global, national and local projects, such as the recent World Down Syndrome Day. As a small school, an effective way to achieve this is to bring activities such as these under one banner... ‘Buller High School Citizenship Club’.

Model United Nations involves students representing a foreign country in a simulation of the UN to discuss some of the world’s most important issues. Buller High School has a proud history of being involved in MUN conferences. World Vision’s 40 Hour Famine has involved hundreds of thousands of young Kiwis, including Buller students, taking a stand through a 40-hour challenge to raise money for children living in poverty. UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) is the world’s leading aid agency dedicated to children and works on issues vital to the survival and rights of the world’s children. Amnesty International, the world’s largest human rights organisation, raises awareness about human rights abuse in NZ and around the world.

Citizenship education is about becoming enlightened, active and responsible citizens who participate in their society. There are many ways teenagers can make a difference locally, nationally and globally. Citizenship Club is going to be a student-led “take action” group. You’ll develop skills, work alongside wonderful people and help make the world a safer, more just place. We will be calling for expressions of interest soon, so keep a watch out for the daily notices. If you can’t wait until then, feel free to talk to Ms Christie-Cumming (one of the Staff Coordinators) or Emma Tompkins (Student Coordinator) about our exciting new Club.

If you are a person who wants to make a difference in the world, the Buller High School Citizenship Club could be just for you.

We always just watch unfairness happening all around us. We see it on TV, in the newspaper and at school, but as a teenager you don’t really have the resources to do much about it. (Amnesty International NZ website).

&

HOD: MIRIAM COMESKEY miriam.comeskey@buller.ac.nz Years 9-10: LAURA GRIFFIN laura.griffin@buller.ac.nz Years 11-12: JACQUI CHRISTIE-CUMMING jacqui.christiecumming@buller.ac.nz Year 13: DI HOOPER di.hooper@buller.ac.nz

In this feature of the newsletter we offer advice,

tips and suggestions about careers

and study.

www.careers.govt.nz

THROUGHOUT THE YEAR we will keep you up to date

with current thinking on Career Education and with what is happening in our Careers Department.

OUR CAREERS TEAM

VISITS:

• University of Canterbury Tuesday 4 April in C2 @ 9:00am

• University of Otago 18 May; time and room to be advised

• Careers Expo Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21June

In this section we provide some useful tips for the following skills:

1. Positive attitude 2. COMMUNICATION 3. Teamwork 4. Self-management 5. Willingness to learn 6. Thinking skills (problem-solving, decision-making)

7. Resilience

You can develop effective COMMUNICATION skills by:

• Thinking about how you communicate and how it affects others

• Asking for what you want clearly

• Asking questions when you are unsure or don’t understand something

• Listening well

Karen Boyes (known as the ‘Study Queen’) from Spectrum Education recommends asking the following questions to determine if learning has happened:

• Can you explain the new information accurately?

• Can you apply it in various contexts?

• Are you able to teach it to others?

• Do you ask questions to further your understanding?

• Can you accurately answer questions on the information?

• Can you give your interpretation?

• Are you able to empathise?

• Can you take on another perspective?

• Do you chat freely and intelligently about the information/skill?

http://www.spectrumeducation.com