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09 278 9763PAPATOETOE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
No. 10 – 29th June 2023
Important Term 2 dates
Monday 26th June – Friday 30th June
NZ Maritime Museum
Tuesday 27th June – Thursday 29th June
3 Way Conferences for Year 7 and 8
Thursday 29th June
South/West Zone Boys Hockey
Friday 30th June
Final day of term 2
Farewell to Mrs Bianca Kerr-Bell who leaves to live in Saudi Arabia
Monday 10th July – Friday 14th July
Kiribati Language Week
Friday 14th July
Matariki
Monday 17th July
First Day of Term 3
In and Out of zone applications open for 2024
Welcome to the new Associate Principal for Waita: Sarah Richardson and the new teacher for Room 19: Timothy Liebbrant
Dental Van arrives at the school for Term 3 – Week 1-6
Monday 17th July – Friday 21st June
Matariki celebrated this week at our school
Wednesday 19th July
Hui for Maori Whanau
1pm Papatoetoe Schools Art Exhibition: Opening at Dew Drop Waka Pacific
Thursday 20th July
EPro8 Challenge heats in the gym
Dancing with Mythology trip – for selected students
Friday 21st June
EPro8 Challenge heats in the gym
Monday 24th July
Board Meeting in the Meeting Room (If you would like to attend please email Barbara Ferregel – barbaraf@papint.school.nz)
Monday 31st July – Friday 4th August
Cook Island Language Week
Friday 28th July
Exhibitions of Learning
Tuesday 1st August
South/West Zone Girls Netball
Wednesday 2nd August
Interzone Boys Hockey
Inter-School Masterchef Competition
Thursday 3rd August
Talent Quest Heat 1
Interzone Girls Hockey
South/West Zone Girls Netball – Saving Day
Student Leaders to William Buck in the City
Friday 4th August
Talent Quest Heat 2
PRINCIPALS MESSAGE
Keeping students safe as they travel to and from school
We have has a number of incidents of students behaving badly as they travel to and from school.
We would appreciate whanau talking with their children about – avoiding these events, reporting them either to school or home before they happen or what they see and walking and bussing with students to help with supervision (we do not expect whanau to step in but the presence will often ensure behaviours are improved).
Language Weeks:
At Papatoetoe Intermediate School all home languages are valued and supported. Language is the basket that holds a culture and out students who speak languages other than English are enriched and empowered.
We encourage you to keep your home language alive!
Enrolments for 2024
All Year 8 students need to enrol for Secondary School whether they are in zone or not. Out of zone applications should be completed ASAP.
CLIMATE ACTION ADVENTURE CHALLENGE
The Amazing Race. Or should we say, the mini-Amazing Race. It wasn’t the full package thus the name ‘mini’, though it was still quite the joyride…
Friday the 9th, of June was the day where 10 of us were fortunate enough to participate in the Environmental Amazing Race, held at Ngati Otara Park. I was one of those fortunate students that got selected by my teacher(s) to both learn and compete on behalf of Papatoetoe Intermediate.
Well, it’s called the Amazing Race because it shares some similarities with the famous television show, The Amazing Race Australia. We had a map, and we had to locate different challenges shown on the Map, complete them, and then a certain amount of points were awarded. We also had to find these ‘mini landmarks’, which were orange signs put all around the area, containing a two-letter code. And we had two hours to accumulate the most points we possibly could. May the best team(s) win!
Mind you, the area was HUGE. There were challenges and landmarks scattered throughout the asphalt, field, in the grass, trees and undergrowth. There were things everywhere! In theory, that’d make the challenge easy knowing wherever you go, there’s something in that direction, but no. The opposite is true. Since the area was colossal, the distance between one thing and another was so much. And mind you, some of the landmarks were so well hidden my team didn’t even get to find some of them. However, my team successfully completed all the challenges!
What was the races’ purpose? What was it intended to do? Amongst the challenges, there were certain things you had to know, in order to answer correctly. Some of the challenges consisted of testing the nearby stream water for acidity and alkaline, putting in order the correct life cycle of an eel, differentiating animal paw prints from things like stoats, mice, and so on. The one thing all of the challenges had in common was climate change. Climate change was the main factor in the challenges, and that was what the race was about. To teach us more about how we’re affecting the environment with our everyday actions and life, in a fun way.
Climate change. In my opinion it’s more than two words on a piece of paper. It’s bound with a strong sense of self-esteem. It’s a life-or-death situation, for the animals, and the environment around us. I think there’s a side of climate change that most people cannot see with the naked eye, and that’s the side that people need to pull back and bounce at things from different perspectives, new perspectives. What I’m saying is that modern society has advanced so much as an industrialised civilization with modern technology and much more, but we haven’t taken into account how much damage and pollution that causes. The French revolution was a massive success, and huge failure, with all the climate change outbreaks that were caused with it.
What this trip taught me was that humanity will never succeed. We solve problems by creating problems. We invent new modes of transport, only to cause more problems with our atmosphere. Greenhouses benefit our earth, by destroying it with its gases. It taught me a lot about modern society’s perspectives. Because I wondered on that day, With all of what humanity is doing to our earth like producing unnecessary fossil fuels, Why are there equally as many complaints, if not more? And I really thought about this, and maybe thought, we are our own enemies. You complain about the heat, saying it’s so hot, yet on the ride to school you most likely came in an engine powered vehicle. To solve that, we created the electric powered car, which many of you might know as Tesla, but we price it at around $75K dollars, not everyone’s affordable price range. That’s what I’m saying. We’re complaining about our own problems we create. So, I think we need to improve on this. Tackle Climate Change. And befriend it.
Do your part. Do your part to help our planet for countless years and endless generations to come. Save our planet.
Before it’s too late.
By Irwin – Room 1
SEA CLEANERS TRIP – ROOM 4
On the 19th of June, Room 4 participated in an amazing opportunity to work with the Sea Cleaners Organisation. We took a trip down to Ngāti Otara Park to engage in a clean up of the mangroves around East Tamaki River. The reason for this trip was to support us in our syndicate STEAM project around Water for Life. Room 4 has been learning about the importance of water in our lives, focusing on keeping our moana clean. On the trip, students were surprised at how much rubbish they found, filling over 10 bags with single use plastic! The students even came across bigger items like a vacuum, car seat and even a small bike! The students had loads of fun and have used this trip to support them in their STEAM projects. It’s important to keep our local waterways clean, because the impacts of a polluted ocean/waterway still impacts us on land.
By Room 4
WEARABLE ARTS
On the 22nd June there was the wearable arts fashion show. The models representing Papatoetoe were: Victoria, Azalea and Blake. Unfortunately this year our school didn’t win. My experience of wearable arts was exciting because this was my first time doing it. At first I was nervous about the idea of going out on stage but I was no longer scared when I got there. When I had finished going through the stage, me and the other model Blake had to go upstairs and wait for the final walk on stage altogether. I highly recommend all students to give this a go next year. It was a wonderful experience shared with my teachers and parents.
By Victoria – Room 1
LIBRARY BOOKMARK COMPETITION
Our school has always worked together with the public libraries to participate in their holiday programmes and also competitions they run for schools.
Last term our students participated in the Pacifica Make a Bookmark competition and 5 of our students won prizes as well. The senior librarian from Papatoetoe Library Ani Vaipo Sakaria came to present the prizes to the following students:
Laksh – Room 18; Mercy – Room 1; Jethro – Room 8; Aariah – Room 1; Villa – Room 1
Congratulations
PAPATOETOE HIGH SCHOOL ENROLMENT DATES
Online enrolment applications (in and out of zone) for 2024 are still under development and should be available at the start of Term 3. Keep checking the Papatoetoe High School website for the latest enrolment information (http://www.papatoetoehigh.school.nz/enrolment-documents-and-forms)
IN-ZONE ENROLMENT for 2024: Applications will be available from Monday 17 July, the start of Term 3, 2023
OUT-OF ZONE ENROLMENT for 2024: Applications will be available from Monday 17 July, the start of Term 3, 2023 and will close on Wednesday 30 August 2023. The ballot date is Wednesday 6 September 2023.
HEALTH MESSAGE
This winter, between Monday 12 June and Saturday 30 September, participating community pharmacies in Auckland will provide a Minor Health Conditions Service for Māori and Pacific people, children aged under 14 years, and community service card holders.
The service allows pharmacists to have a clinical consultation and provide advice as well as medication if needed for a select set of minor health conditions at no cost to the patient.
It also includes whanau members of a child with similar symptoms. For example, if the pharmacist determines your child needs treatment for scabies and they have older brothers or sisters, or you yourself also have symptoms, they may provide advice and medication for all of you.
The following health conditions are included in the Minor Health Conditions Service:
– Acute diarrhoea
– Dehydration
– Eye inflammation and infections
– Scabies
– Headlice
– Pain and fever
– Eczema/Dermatitis
– Minor skin infections
If your condition needs further support, the pharmacist can tell you the best place to go to get further help.
Let’s spread the word to our friends and whanau about this new service! It’s also important to remember that you can always speak to your local pharmacist for free health advice, even if you are not eligible for this service.
Participating pharmacies can be found by going to HealthPoint and by searching “Minor Health Conditions”.
THANK YOU TO ROOM 25 for their article for this Newsletter
The Maritime Museum
On Wednesday 28th of June, Room 25 had the opportunity to attend an hour-long session about the Maritime Museum. The Maritime Museum is at the downtown of Auckland city but our guide, Lee, came to our school and shared with us his wealth of knowledge about how the Polynesians travelled across the Pacific Ocean, linking back to New Zealand history and the Māori arrival hundreds of years ago.
We started off with learning about the ways how Polynesians voyages navigated in the vast Pacific Ocean without technology like compasses or google maps. But they used the stars, clouds, sun, moon, tides, birds, sea temperature and the ocean currents to find land. Then we learnt about the Polynesians waka. The waka has two hulls and many other components that help it be speedy and not capsize. Modern boats only have one hull that makes it easily capsize, which is why it needs a keel. The keel stabilises the boat but at the cost of the speed of the boat.
We were challenged to work in a group and build a sample of a Waka. Our fantastic guide, Lee, prepared a number of small wooden waka models for us to figure out how to build and put it together. Everyone has to work collaboratively within each group to complete the task and to be the first group to build and put the waka pieces together. After the Waka building we watched a short documentary about people actually riding across the ocean in the Waka, showing how great the design of the waka was. At the end of the Maritime Museum session, we left with more knowledge about the Polynesians’ voyages, knowledge about their unique navigation skills and knowledge about their journey on wakas.
By Aashka – Room 25
PAPATOETOE LIBRARY HOLIDAY PROGRAMME
Please see below information regarding the Papatoetoe Library Holiday Programme. Everyone’s welcome
