It was great to see so many enthusiastic students taking part. Thanks to all the parents and caregivers who came along to support. Results will be included in the next newsletter. Congratulations to all our students for putting in so much effort!

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Students and staff were invited to come to school dressed as their favourite book character, or in jungle inspired dress up, which is the theme of this year's Fair. This was a fun day and we thank all who took part.

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Not only do students experience authentic science by following the Scientific Inquiry Process or the Engineering Design Process, they also develop literacy, numeracy, technology, critical thinking, communicating, creativity, collaboration and self management skills.
Congratulations to all students who entered a project this year. It is a lot of hard work and takes considerable time and effort, and you have all done yourselves proud!

The standard of projects this year has once again been very high, even through a pandemic, and we would like to thank all students for producing such amazing projects. Well done! 46 projects were entered and of those, 14 have been judged the best of the fair.

Special congratulations to the students listed below and a special thanks to the parents and teachers who supported them along the way.

Innovations and Inventions:

Asher Coomes - Love your Shelf
Anushka Ram and Tiana Sharma - Point Joint
Die-anche Rautenbach - A Gauge from Dad’s Book

Intermediate Consumer Science:

Samar Brar - Homemade Sanitiser vs Commercial Sanitiser
Aleisha Coleman - VEGAN? Muffin to worry about
Kelly Ma - Be Gone, Glad Wraps
Tiffany Ong - Battle of the Toilet Paper
Valerie Perez - Food Waste - Liquid Fertiliser
Georgia and Kate Sole - Blasting Bliss Balls

Living World:

Annabelle Olsen - Grip or Slip    
Charlotte Radford - DIY Masks - Who Nose?

Environmental Science:

Celine Chen - Chaos at Sea
Morgan Alley - Bio-Plastic Fantastic
Ben McLaren - The Sustainable Garden

Over the next few days we will interview all these students about their projects and then decide which projects will be entered into the NIWA South and East Auckland Science and Technology Fair, to be held at Mission Heights Junior College on 20-21 August. We wish all these students well and all the best for the judging, and their interviews.

It was great to see so many parents and caregivers taking the time to view and purchase books on sale during the three way conferences. We will share the amount raised to purchase new books for the library, for all children to enjoy, in the next newsletter.

An 8-0 win last week was followed up by a 16-0 win this week.
The girls played a strong attacking game with multiple goal scorers in both games.

Player of the day for Match Day One was Alana Wilson and Match Day Two was Mia Craig. All the girls should be commended for their style of play and their overall sportswomanship. 

We will continue playing next term and hope for more promising results!

The Rio Olympian spent time with the students of Room 35 after the class won the national 'Ask an Olympian a Question' video competition. 

“Covid-19 has had different impacts for all of us. We’ve been dealing with the postponement of the Olympic Games and for many kids they’ve had to deal with family hardship and change,” said trampolinist Dylan Schmidt.

“It’s been a challenging time so it was  great to connect with students in Room 35 - some of whom  feature in our video, and share some ideas and advice.”

NZOC Education Manager Rob Page says the Ask an Olympian video connects Olympic values with school values, while also putting a focus on students’ wellbeing

See video here

Year 8 student Jesse Sanders says he's been inspired by the visit from Dylan and the video.

“It was awesome to hear from a real life Olympian and also get advice from other athletes on the video. It’s made me even more motivated to achieve my goals.”

The sports film crew from TVNZ joined Dylan in Room 35 and featured that night on TVNZ News.

Here they are sporting their new whānau colours.

The EPRO8 Inter Whānau Competition was held on Monday 22 June: 10.00 am - 1.00 pm.

It involved teams competing to build large sized structures, solve practical problems, engineer using pulleys, motors, gears, wheels and axles, invent machines that can complete simple tasks, undertake unusual and fun experiments, construct basic electronic circuits and solve interesting problems using practical maths. Each whānau entered 12 students - three teams to compete against the other whānaus.

Each team of four was based at a workstation containing an impressive assortment of easy to use parts and equipment.

Teams chose the challenges they wished to undertake. The harder the challenge, the more points it was worth. There was not enough time to finish all the challenges - so strategy was required to know which ones to go for.

When teams completed a challenge they pushed the "Big Red Button" to be judged and scored.

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Pictured holding our new whānau cup, from left to right, are Aoraki Whānau captains, Alice Zhang, Baljot Singh and Tamsin Low.

The students have transitioned well after lockdown and are to be congratulated for their positive attitudes and diligence in adhering to the Alert Level 2 health and safety practices, while moving around the school. There is a calm and positive tone in the school and an appreciation of being back to 'normal'.

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Thank you to all who came along.

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