Winter Sport

The winter sporting season has just ended after a flurry of finals. Approximately half of all Year 9's are involved in a school sport, with many taking on more than one. The photos below show the Junior A Girls basketball team playing in their final at Te Rauparaha Arena last week. The girls narrowly lost 58-50 to Wellington East Girls College in what was a Premier division, meaning they came second in all teams city wide. The Under 15 Boys Rugby team won their division with a 23-22 victory last Saturday, and the photos below show their excitement. Also, I have included some photos of the Year 9 A netball team who played in a final just this week. There are of course many other success stories of the season, but this is just a snapshot. Well done to all that got involved this year!

Dessert Competition #2

As luck would have it I just happened to be passing by the Food Technologies room as the second Dessert Competition of the year was going on. This time round there was plenty of colour and a wide range of styles. The clear winner this time was "Berry Best" with an amazing raspberry and chocolate spongecake garnished with chocolate leaves. Check out the pictures below

Active Learning

Active learning has been a new initiative for Newlands College in 2016. The concept has arisen naturally from a desire from our school to give the students more say in what they learn at school. Active learning has been happening at Monday form-times and on our previous day off timetable back in June. Students have the ability to decide on what they want to pursue on these days, with the requirement that they need to report back to teachers, their peers, and parents about what they have achieved. Staff have spent professional learning sessions equipping themselves to support and decide on the topics the students are interested in. With 171 students in Year 9 there has been such a wide range of things going on; There is going to be an active learning showcase evening in September which parents will be invited to, watch out it is not to be missed. The following list captures some of the great projects I have been made aware off (A few pics below). 

1) Planting trees at the local mall
2) Removing graffiti in the community
3) Setting up a school-wide gaming club
4) Bake sales in the staffroom
5) Rubik's cube speed competitions
6) Volunteering at the community centre
7) Anti-bullying posters school-wide
8) Trick-shot videos
9) Sign language teaching
10) Investigating space for an NCEA internal
11) Developing a training plan for athletics
12) Hosting a school sports day for Newlands Primary at Newlands College
13) Learning to bake a cake
14) Creating a stand-up comedy routine
15) Investigating electricity around the school
16) Creating games through coding
17) Writing a novel
18) Supporting learning support students
19) Trampoline Tutorials
20) Fundraising for the SPCA
21) Writing a children's book about conservation
....... Plus many more!