HVHS Term 2, Week 8
Newsletter - 23 June 2022
PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
Kia ora koutou
NZ - Aotearoa will celebrate Matariki for the first time on Friday 24 June with a public holiday. Matariki is a magical cluster of stars that Māori ancestors used to mark te matahi o te tau - the new year - and now, it is a day where all New Zealanders can embrace this mātauranga. No one else in the world celebrates this cluster in this way. Before the turn of this century, few people knew of Matariki or understood its significance. It was one of those customs lost to colonisation.
The whetū (star) Matariki is strongly connected to our health and wellbeing, and with waves of Covid-19 still impacting us - I think it is even more important to acknowledge its presence in our skies. Thank you for the way you have approached and handled our crazy year. It has undoubtedly been challenging. The mixture of online, home and school learning is complicated but likely to be the way of the future. We are working to make our systems more straightforward and are investigating a Single Sign-On option for our various online services. I know how incredibly confusing the various platforms are - with most needing a different password. Technology may finally allow us to have one entry point. We have included a guide to our current common communication methods below.
We had the first year-level assemblies for the year on Thursday. We have been impacted by having a hall out of action and Covid restrictions. Finally, our new Drama space is complete, and we can now use our hall for larger gatherings. It was lovely to come together as a community again.
Matariki is also about new beginnings. Matariki is a time to plan for the future, and it nicely coincides with our students thinking about their futures. We just completed our Learning Conversations. Thank you for participating in these and journeying with your child and the mentor teacher for sometimes four years. We are about to begin subject selection for years 9 - 12. Students should be thinking about the subjects they want to study. It is essential that they give themselves a firm and broad foundation in years 9 -11 and look to specialise and follow their passions in Years 12 and 13.
Year 13 have the challenge of deciding what they will do after leaving 13 years of formal schooling. Will it be work, an apprenticeship, or university? It is a very exciting, albeit confusing and complicated time.
There are many staff here at school to help students with their decisions:
Mentor teachers, deans, deputy principals and I are happy to chat about a student’s future, NCEA and subject choices.
Subject teachers know students well and are handy guides - especially with the types of places their subject can take a student.
We have a super Pathways Team - Jude Allen is our Careers Coordinator, supported by Nicole Arnell and Rob King.
Matariki provides a day off school and work. For some, you may be continuing your annual hautapu in the early morning. Hautapu is a name for an old Matariki ceremony involving feeding the constellation’s whetū (stars) with steam (hautapu) from an oven. “The hautapu is the steam from the umu that rises to feed the stars,” “It sustains the whetū for the next year that’s coming.” You may watch special Matariki programmes on TV or listen to them on the radio this Friday morning. For others, as you plan for your day off, if this is the first time you are hearing about this concept of the new year, dig a bit deeper than a sleep-in on Friday morning. Whether it's looking up at the dawn sky, heading to one of the myriad events this weekend, listening to or having a kai with those you love, talking about your aspirations, or remembering loved ones who have passed. Each star has something to teach us. Enjoy this time with your friends and family.
‘Mānawatia a Matariki’. Celebrate Matariki with friends, whānau and family
Matariki hunga nui Matariki, a time to come together
Matariki ahunga nui Matariki, a time of bounty
Matariki manako nui Matariki, a time of aspiration
Ngā mihi
Denise Johnson
Principal
Year 10 Testing and late starts for Years 9, 11, 12 & 13 - Week 9
On 28, 29 and 30 June students in Years 9, 11, 12 and 13 will start at 11.30 am.
Year 10 students will be at school all day and the tests will cover spells 1 and 2 and over half the staff will be involved with supervision and reader writer roles:
Tuesday 28 June - Literacy Test
Wednesday 29 June - Numeracy Test
Thursday 30 June - Writing Test
Year 10 students need to bring their fully charged device on all days.
Music News
A rather busy week. Theo Thompson 11BS was named the Best Guitarist at the Manawatu Jazz Festival and one of his two groups took out 1st Place. Theo has also won best guitarist at the National Youth Jazz Competition in Tauranga.
Itinerant music teacher Chris Buckland’s Jazz Quartet played at the Festival and a former student Richard Te One was also performing. A few days later the HVHS Jazz band entertained outside St James Lower Hutt at their fundraising Queen’s Birthday Weekend “Right Royal Party” while the String Orchestra performed in the Church presenting Handel’s Organ Concerto Op 4 No 1. We were honoured by having Dr Jonathan Berkahn as the soloist – an amazing and unique experience for HVHS string students.
Four of our Chamber music groups performed at the Woburn Apartments on Wednesday thanks to Itinerant music teacher Judith Exley. This was in preparation for the CMNZ/NZCT Wellington District Contest where they were part of a 32 group musicfest of extremely high-quality music making. “Ludwig 1795”, “Wu Trio”, “Telemann Quartrio”, and “For Goodness Sax” all thrilled the audience with the standard of their performance.
Sports Congratulations
Winter sport is well under way with over 100 HVHS teams competing across 10 codes.
Congratulations to the following students who have been named in rep teams over the term:
- Badminton Hutt Valley U 17 and U19 teams - Arhit Acharyya 11LO, Aaron Chong 10RI, Darren Leishman 10KIBG, William Li 11SP, Tracey Vo 11LO
- Badminton Hutt Valley U15 - Sravya Moparthi 9BAPS, Angelica Tschurtschenthaler 10SMLY
- Basketball - Hutt Valley U15 - Isaiah Kautai 11TH and Iñaki Zaballa 10PRGN
- Basketball Hutt Valley U19 - Solomon Vaofusi 13HA
- Hockey Wellington U18 - Foy Kerkin 11LA, Camron Neilson 12WB and Fergus Randall 12SK
- Netball Hutt Valley U18 Gold - Maia Morehu 13JDFX
- Netball Hutt Valley U18 Green - Karen Chen 12WB, Lara Pringle 12NI, Rose Tanuvasa V Tutogi 13WR
- Netball Hutt Valley U16 Green - Jayda Cornish 10HKNB
- WRFU U16 Williment Week - Marcus Alexopoulos 12PD, Ashden Brew 12WA, Kai Gilsenan 11SR Madoc Gregor 11SR , Jaydee Fleetwood 11BLand Jayden Toko 11ME.
Congratulations to our 3 Cross Country runners who competed in the NZ Secondary Schools champs in Nelson last weekend - Jessie McKenzie 10SMLY, Eva Green 10COHG and Toby Ireland 10CSMN.
We also have a number of students named in NZ teams travelling around the world before the end of the year:
Elizabeth Hanaray 13JDFX - placed 2nd at the NZ Aerobics Open and qualified to for the NZ Senior Aerobics team to compete in the World Champs in Czechoslovakia in November
Jonathan Green 11SP and Nicholas Green 12SK - named in the NZ Secondary Schools Orienteering team to compete in Melbourne in the Australian Secondary Schools Champs Southern Cross Challenge
Zara Bowen 13JDFX, Gabrielle Claridge 13WR, Eva Langridge 13JDFX and Steven Leishman 13WR - named in the NZ Ultimate U20 teams travelling to World Junior Ultimate Champs in Poland in August.
Congratulations to all our players. If your student has achieved in sport, please let us know on sport@hvhs.school.nz
Gifted and Talented News
This year, Year 12s with a keen and passionate interest in biology have had the opportunity to attend Thursday morning scholarship classes with Mrs Miller. Scholarship exams are exams held at the end of year, typically for year 13 students, who would like the opportunity to win a monetary scholarship for further education after high school. Winning a scholarship is a massive achievement and proves you to be within the top 3% of students in New Zealand in that subject. In order to prepare for biology scholarship exams next year, our year 12 group has been meeting before school every second Thursday in A3 to fuel our enthusiasm for all things biology. We have been practising Biology Olympiad papers and past years’ scholarship exams in order to develop our understanding and expand our knowledge. We love having the extra time to push our learning even further and highly appreciate the opportunity. Our goals from these sessions are to gain enough understanding to perform well on the Scholarship Biology exams next year and set our students up for success within biology fields in the future.
Information for Students Enrolling in 2023
Enrolments for 2023 are now open. Please complete an online enrolment application. We ask that caregivers enrol now so that we can plan for next year and that you receive enrolment meeting and option selection information as soon as we send it out.
Note the important dates below:
The closing date for out of zone applications in Year 9 2023 is Monday 25 July 2022
The closing date for out of zone applications in Year 10-13 2023 is Friday 14 October 2022
What to do if you are feeling unwell at school
There are a lot of winter bugs around at the moment. If you are vomitting, are full of cold symptoms or have a sore throat - PLEASE stay at home for 24 hours (minimum) until your symptoms subside. Even if you test negative for covid, please keep your student at home if they are feeling unwell.
If a student is feeling unwell at school, please come and see Jo, our First Aid Officer. She will contact home to discuss with a caregiver and arrange pick up if necessary.
Common communication methods at Hutt Valley High School
Schoolpoint - this is our subject choice portal and place to book appointments for interviews.
The password for Kamar Portal and Schoolpoint is the same - if you have forgotten your password, please contact the office or email principal@hvhs.school.nz
App - details later in newsletter - use this to send an absence alert, view notices and newsletters and gives short alert reminders and notifications to parents
Facebook/Instagram - follow us on facebook and instagram
This newsletter is the most consistent and regular platform to relay information to our community and comes out every two weeks.
Lost Property
We have a few of these items at the Student Counter. Come and describe them to us as we would love to reunite them with their owners!
Foodbank Fundraiser
We are a student group called The Crafty Ones, we are having a movie night fundraiser to raise funds for the Salvation Army food bank. This fundraiser will take place on 17 July at 7.30 pm. The movie that will be showing is Thor Love and Thunder which is rated PG13. Tickets are $20, $7.50 of which will go towards the food bank and the rest goes to the lighthouse. There will be food for sale and a raffle on the night. To purchase a ticket send us a message on our Instagram @the_crafty_ones_ or send us an email at thecraftyones392@gmail.com
Thank you all very much for supporting the cause.
Survey Participant Request
We would love your help in supporting a survey conducted by Canterbury University. If your child is willing to complete the survey, then please click on the link below - the process starts by caregivers providing permission for their child to take part in this 15 minute survey.
The research topic aims to investigate the ways in which adolescents cope with their perceived stress, and which coping strategies appear to be the most effective for stress reduction. We feel excited to be able to support such a useful research topic, and look forward to receiving the results of the study later in the year. Please click on this link for further information describing the project and requirements in detail:
Upcoming Events
Matariki Public Holiday - Friday 24 June
Year 10 testing - 28, 29 and 30 June - late start for Years 9, 11, 12 and 13
Board Meeting - Wednesday 29 June at 5.30 pm
Market Day - Friday 1 July
Last Day of Term 2 - Friday 8 July
First Day of Term 3 - Monday 25 July
Contact Us
Email: principal@hvhs.school.nz
Website: https://www.hvhs.school.nz
Location: Woburn Road Lower Hutt, 5010 Wellington
Phone: +64 4 560 1568
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hvhs.school.nz