Otahuhu College Newsletter

Friday 24 May 2019

From our Principal

It was great to see so many of you at the Parent Teacher interviews on Friday. I know our

teachers really enjoyed the opportunity to talk with you about how best to support your child’s

learning. It was interesting talking to teachers new to Otahuhu College, and hearing how

impressed they were with the discussions being focused on learning and also how busy they

were with so many parents turning up. It is no wonder that the achievement of your children

and our students keeps improving.

There has been a lot of media attention about a strike by Primary and Secondary Teachers on

29 May. This situation is because there is a huge shortage of teachers as the profession is not

seen as attractive as it should be. Those of us involved in education realise how critical it is that

our young people have high quality teachers. Graduates should be keen to choose teaching but

the pay and conditions do not currently reward teachers for the excellent work that they do.

Important Dates

26-31 May Samoan Language Week

29 May TEACHERS STRIKE – more information to follow

31 May Teacher Only Day 3 June Queen’s Birthday – Public Holiday

4-7 June Smilecare on site

4-7 June ARTS Week

Our Commitments

Our commitment this week is to be respectful. There are simple ways in which we can encourage our

children to be respectful. Using more formal language when talking to adults and in particular staff and

visitors to Otahuhu College demonstrates respect. Saying ‘Yes’ instead of ‘yeah’, making sure we use

please and thankyou regularly. Holding doors open for others to walk through. Wearing the uniform

correctly to and from school. All these demonstrate respectful behaviours.

School Closed on 29 May Due to Strike Action

The Board has carefully considered the availability of teaching staff, and unfortunately decided that we

cannot provide the normal teaching services during the strike so the school will officially be closed for

instruction during the above times. Accordingly it’s important that you make appropriate alternative

arrangements for the care of your child/children during the period of the strike as no supervision can be

provided.

Otahuhu College Parent Portal

Parents/Caregivers should have received an email and/or letter with log in details on how to access the

schools Kamar Portal through our schools Website page. This portal provides information on how your

child is doing at school. Information such as the Daily notices, School Calendar, Student details and

Student results can be accessed by using your log in username and password. Year 11, 12 and 13

students will have a recent Achievement Report that can be downloaded. All parents/caregivers will be

alerted when future school Reports are up-loaded to the school Portal. If you have any questions about

the Portal please contact the school.

Year 11 Prizewinners and information about credits

From Mr. Martin (Year 11 Dean)

It is with great pleasure that I can announce the names of the prizewinners for the Year 11 Credit

Competition in Term 1 pictured above. They are left to right: Bianca Lal, Maisam Mohammadi and

Aliyah Hussein.

Students were asked to work with their Whanau teachers to record how many credits they had achieved

by the end of Term 1 and to record when future internal assessments would take place. The targets for

the end of each term are as follows:

Term 1 - 15

Term 2 - 35

Term 3 - 60

In order to make this task easier, and so they can show families and carers how they are doing, they

have been given a personalised tracker sheet which they can use to keep their latest credit totals in

mind and to act as a reminder when assessments are coming up. I have included an example of what

this looks like below. I am also very pleased to announce that by the end of Term 1 87% of our Year 11

students had reached their credit target for that term and many students are already past the total for

Term 2. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for all your support at home and I am sure

you would join me in also thanking their hard working and dedicated Year 11 teachers who have

supported them here in school.

Sports News

Pakuranga certainly made our boys work hard for their points on Saturday but we managed to come out

with the win.

The first half saw the boys struggle to find their feet. There were many missed opportunities but

fortunately they were able to regain their rhythm and confidence and started to score more in the

second half. Our parent and family support numbers are increasing by the week and we understand the

importance of family in our community, therefore we continue to encourage you all to keep supporting

your son(s) and daughters(s) in both sport and academics.

The 1st XV and 2B teams have a Parent engagement evening on Tuesday 21st May at 6pm to 7.30pm –

dinner will be provided.

A big fa’amalo and fa’afetai to Mr and Mrs Tukuafu, parents of (Kepa Tukuafu Y13) who has sponsored

our Players of the Day for the last couple of weeks. We are very grateful for your generosity. Malo

aupito.

Week 1: Best Back – Demetrius Siliva Best Forward: Vili Fangupo

Week 2: Best Back – William Suapaia Best Forward: Steven Tupou

Week 3: Best Back – Faleseuga Tomasi Best Forward: Confred Cordtz

Final score again Pakuranga College 22-10 to OC.

Last week Tuesday we were very fortunate to have some of the Tall Ferns Women’s Basketball

Players visit Otahuhu College.

Kalani Purcell, Natalie Taylor and Jordan Hunter represented New Zealand at the 2018

Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast.

They spoke to the students about how they used basketball as a pathway to gain a full

scholarship to attend University in the USA to get a degree and play the sport they love.

Boys 1st XI Soccer

The Boys 1st XI have made a strong start to the season in the Counties Manukau B Grade Competition.

We have beaten Ormiston 4-0 and Papatoetoe 6-0. Training sessions have been intense as players are

fighting to be part of the team on match day. Everyone has been playing well but special mention must

be made of Fahdil Ali who has scored 6 goals so far this season – 2 hattricks in the 2 games played!

MVP points after the first 2 games:

Fahdil Ali – 4pts, Mahdi Hussaini 3pts, Bhavin Lal and Ali Paiwandi 2pts, Ronit Bijay 1pt.

Girls Soccer

The Girls First Eleven has had a great start to their season, winning their first two games 2 – 0 against

local opponents McAuley High School and Southern Cross Campus. Goal scorers have been Amina Aziz,

Bianca Lal and Lisa Teariki. Special note was made of Toalemoana Latu who showed great sportsmanship

in the game against Southern Cross Campus.

University Entrance

Otahuhu College was one of eight local high schools, and one central school, invited to a presentation at

AUT South Campus, by the United Nations Secretary Antonio Guterres, former Prime Minister of

Portugal. The following Year 13 and Year 12 students nominated by the school, participated in a

workshop working on three questions asked of the Secretary.

Shamis Abaid, Nabihah Nahila, Nickawana Perese, Leonie Stewart, Asinate Suluka, Sepoima Time and

Leon Tione.

Leonie introduced our school to the school groups, and Leon

presented the school’s workshop top three questions on

‘sustainable development goals’ to the school groups.

University of Waikato Open Day 2019

On Monday 17th May, our year 13

students attended The University

of Waikato open day in Hamilton.

The open day was an opportunity

for the students to familiarize

themselves with the place and to

learn about the programmes,

accommodation, student support

services, scholarships and

everything that the University

offers.

Young Women in Leadership 2019

The Young Women in Leadership Programme is a project run by Massey University. The programme was

established to provide young women, the opportunity to learn about different aspects of leadership. As

part of the programme the students were given a task to plan and conduct a small-scale project on an

issue that is relevant at our school.

Maddie leilua, Nina Do, April Heffernan, Shahilta Shah and Victoria Adams represented our school well

and based their project on self-acceptance and all received completion certificates.

Stem News

Museum visit to Otahuhu College

Tom from the Museum introduced the idea of Speciation to our year 12 Biology class. He took us

through New Zealand examples of gene flow, a bottleneck event and evolution at play. He presented the

class with bones of various Moa to examine as he discussed how the Moa species adapted to their

habitats. The class was even able to hold a Kiwi bird that had been taxidermy to closer examine the

adaptations it has to survive in New Zealand. We also looked at how the introduction of certain invasive

species is now threatening our vast native bird population. Tom spoke about the need for New Zealand

to become predator free by 2050 if we are to maintain certain species and retain genetic diversity

amongst species as well. This hands-on experience was a fun interactive session for our students!

Engineering her future

Four of our female senior students attended a careers event at the University of Auckland. This evening

was an opportunity to meet female students, hear about the wide variety of engineering specialisations,

and experience a mini engineering lecture. They also had the chance for questions and mingling with

both staff and current engineering students over refreshments during the second half of the evening.

This was a great chance for students to find out what engineering is and to discuss whether it is the right

pathway for them to follow. Thank you to Ms Kroonenberg for taking our girls! We look forward to

seeing the girl’s transition into Engineering.

Compulsory tutorials

This is a notice to the Chemistry students. Tutorials from week 6 onwards will be compulsory! Please

ensure your child attends these sessions. Feel free to contact the school if you have any concerns.

Returning HoD Science

This week saw the return of our HoD Science, Eva Cornforth. She has spent the last 4 ½ months in

Arizona studying at the Arizona State University and working alongside US teachers in middle and

secondary schools. The trip was part of her Fulbright Distinguished Teacher Award and culminated in a

presentation ceremony in Washington DC. During her time overseas, Mrs Cornforth studied the

development of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) academies in Arizona and the use of

Maker Spaces. These are collaborative workshops where students gain practical hands-on experience

with new technologies and innovative processes to design and build projects. They also provide a

flexible environment where learning is made physical and students demonstrate their creativity to solve

problems and build things. She will be applying some of her experiences on the Fulbright programme to

the work she is doing here.

Gateway Information

Due to the teacher strike on Wednesday, the CV workshop will be cancelled for the 29th. The next

workshop will be on Tuesday, June the 4th. Please encourage your students to attend if they do not yet

have a CV as this is vital for applying for jobs – part time or full time.

The learners licence workshop was cancelled this Thurs due to parent-teacher interviews, but will

resume next week on the 30th.

Health Centre News

PREVENTION OF MEASLES SICKNESS AND SPREAD TO OTHERS

There is an outbreak of measles in NZ.

Measles is:

* a serious infection with runny nose, sore eyes, cough, high fever, and then a rash.

* for some people, measles gets worse: meningitis, lung infection, deafness and seizures.

* easily spread by coughing and sneezing. Babies and young children are not old enough to be

fully immunised so are in real danger if others give them measles.

Please check that your child had their measles (MMR) shots as a baby and at 4 years.

If you have come from overseas, your child may not have had the measles shots. Please check

with your doctor.