Author: Indra Pun

18th October our students had an awesome evening hosting the Scotland Women’s Rugby team in Ngunguru with Ngatiwai.

Following is from the 1NEWS write up:

“We’re not the most tuneful, we definitely didn’t compare to the elders and the children when they were singing it but it was lovely experience to share that with them and sing alongside them,” Malcolm said.

“The tribe were teaching us their culture, being so patient with us, teaching us their dances and songs, it was so special but in particular hearing the performance of the local school children was incredible.”

Once formalities were finished with hongi, the team enjoyed a meal in the wharekai and performances from our Tikipunga High School students before taking a crack at learning waiata themselves.

Recently we had two teams compete in a senior and junior basketball cup competition at McKay Stadium which ran on two different days. Our senior team consisted of Year 11-13 boys who did an amazing job finishing third in the competition, the junior boys team were made up of Year 9/10 students who had the opportunity to play at a competition level finishing sixth which was awesome.

was a great time had by all and our boys all showed wonderful sportsmanship and made our kura very proud.

Huge thank you to Whaea Lou for stepping in and being our star coach and referee

Aamea Walding-King has been duly elected as our Board of Trustees Student Representative for another term 2022/2023. Mīharo!

On Saturday 15th October we held our school ball at Kensington Stadium.
It was a wonderful night for our students and staff.
Huge mihi to our Ball committee for putting on such a great event!

Community has been new and exciting for our students in Kukupa this term.  We started of at the Hatea Loop to see what was new.  There were new sculptures. They watched a glass blower make a vase and made sure they were back on time to watch the new ‘Rolling Ball Clock’.  Our second community, the sun shined at Onerahi. Last week was memorable for the students.  They were able to relax, snuggle and play with the pups at Klipped.  George explained that his favourite pup was a ‘mini dopamine called Alexis’.  Parata liked the three-legged dog he named Hoppy.  Lilah thought this tiny dog called Blue was cute.  Trinity said, ‘there was so many poodles, I even saw a sausage dog’.  In PE, the students individually are taking part on their lessons.  Liam taught the students how to play Tee Ball.  A couple of Piwakawaka students joined in the fun.  It was good see the students working together and being great sportsman

On Thursday 22nd September the Aniwaniwa group went to Action Zone bowling with three other local schools so that our Pride/Rainbow students could form relationships between each other.

I had the opportunity to go on a trip with 5 other students. This trip was to Auckland on the 20th September. So where do I begin, we had to be at school by 8am the latest, I made it at 7:33am.

On our way down we slept because, let’s face it, it’s tiring sitting in the van. We made it around 10:30am. We went to Swanson School for the fundraiser. It was a 24hour CYCLE EVENT, to raise money for FREE COUNSELLING SESSIONS and FOOD PACKAGES.

We walked into the office and were directed to the hall. We saw lots of kids and met Whaea Louise’s family.

We waited until morning tea to start our cycling. We cycled for 20minutes each. Ariana and Tavin won spot prizes for adidas shoes. We entered the competition to win other prizes throughout the day. The whole school was buzzing with excitement, from the junior classes to the seniors. We were new people, so everyone was looking at us and asking who we were.

After our cycling and talking to people, we took photos with Whaea Louise’s family, Rob and Noah, said our goodbyes and headed back home. Rob and Noah said how much they appreciated our support and thanked us for coming down to Auckland.

We had the best time and thank you to Whaea Louise for choosing us to represent the school, I really enjoyed this day.