Important Dates

Friday 25th September: End of Term 3
Monday 12th October: Start of Term 4; Year 9 options change
Tuesday 20th October: Sports’ Prizegiving, 11.20am, Riley Centre
Monday 26th October: Labour Day [Public Holiday] — school closed
Thursday 5th October: Whakanuia Prizegiving, Taraika, 6pm
Friday 6th November: Last day for most seniors (Year 11-13). Workshops to support on-going assessment completion and revision will run in the following week (9th—13th November).
Monday 9th November: Senior Prizegiving, Riley Centre, 6pm
Monday 16th November: NCEA Exams begin; access the timetable here.
Tuesday 17th November: Teacher-Only Day — school closed except for students sitting external exams.

Important Information

Principal’s message – End of Term 3, 2020

“I write having just attended another one of our wonderful music evenings. It’s hard to describe these if you’ve never been to one. The joy of the performances is quite, dare I say in these uncertain times, infectious and the array of talent on display is quite inspiring…” Read Dominic’s full end of term message here.

Year 9 and 10 Reports

Year 9 and 10 reports are now available on the Parent Portal, with Senior repots following next term. Access the portal here and login with your details.

Student Board of Trustee Elections for 2021

Congratulations to Matthew Wood and Arunan Noble on being elected as 2021 Board of Trustees Student Representative.

A huge thank you to all students who put their names forward and fought a positive campaign on issues that they felt were important at High. It was true democracy in action with 926 votes cast.

2020 WHS School Magazine

If you would like a copy of this year’s magazine (publications due by December 2020), please ensure you have made your donation of $20 to the School Office. We will be closing orders early next term.

Gateway Work Experience

Applications for Gateway work experience are now open for 2021. What is Gateway? Gateway provides long-term, structured workplace learning for senior students. It is designed to support students’ transition into the workplace by offering them workplace opportunities while still attending school.

Students ideally attend their work placement for one day per week, for 10/11 weeks. Students must also commit to completing extra industry based unit standards. Check out this short video that has been shared with students for next year’s expression of interest. GATEWAY student presentation: Watch Video.

For more information and Expression of Interest form, please visit our school website: https://www.whs.school.nz/gateway/

Wellington Trades Academy

The Wellington Trades Academy programme offers students the best of both worlds – FREE in school and out of school practical learning opportunities.

You can view the programmes here. We will need to meet to discuss your current subject choices and timetable for 2021 as this is likely to be affected by the WTA days for your programme.

If your student is interested, email Chuni Bhika (Careers): bac@whs.school.nz, specifically noting the programme of choice. He will then send you the course information and enrolment form.

NOTE: Places are limited and open to ALL secondary schools in Wellington so there is competition for places. Students are given train and bus passes and must make their own way to each venue.

Music for free!

Free music lessons in Term 4 for junior students. Go to Student Hub > Music to check out available instruments. Students need to come out of regular classes for half an hour each week. We are running a rotating timetable so they won’t come out of the same class each week. Limited places available !

If interested please contact : Fritz.Wollner@whs.school.nz

What’s happening?

Music Evening

Tuesday 22 September – post Covid level 2. What a fantastic turn out of performers and supporters. Well done to all those who poured their heart and soul into this fabulous event. So lovely to see so many ex high students coming to support their former band members. A great night thanks to Fritz and his team. — BSJ

Science for English Language Learners

Studying the impacts of people and introduced pests, the Science for English Language Learners class took a trip to Te Papa. Maung Than Shwe (pictured right) is learning about the life of an eel in a New Zealand river.

WHS Fem Club Flea Market

On Thursday, the WHS Feminist Club ran their Flea Market. With live music and all kinds of donated goodies on sale, it was a wonderful success. They raised over $500 for Te Whare Rokiroki / Māori Women’s Refuge.

Thanks to everyone who helped out and also to everyone who bought clothes!

Mental Health Awareness Week

This week has been Mental Health Awareness Week. There’s been a range of things happening to mark this important week with the theme ‘Reimagine Wellbeing Together’.

We have been enjoying reading about the things that staff and students do to feel good written on the butterflies on display in the main entrance. We’ve also been having bubble parties giving people a chance to blow away their troubles with bubbles!

Young writers talk with Elizabeth Knox

Elizabeth Knox (bestselling author of The Absolute Book, The Vintner’s Luck and over 10 other books) kindly gave up her time to kōrero with aspiring writers at WHS this Thursday.

The emphasis of her talk was on world-building, but in response to questions from students she gave an insight into many aspects of the craft of writing, and a glimpse into the writing industry. Thanks to these students for their excellent questions!

He Kākano

Wrapping up a successful term 3, the He Kākano students deserve a nice rest for the holidays. We finished up our weather and climate topic this week, and one of the students visited Cafe L’Affare Roasters in Wellington as part of the senior Barista course. We have been making use of the cardio room machines and working on Google Slides for research activities. In addition, the New Zealand Ballet have published a video story of the ‘Dance With Me’ journey they went on with our students earlier this term.

Kaibosh-Hopper Shop — St Vincent de Paul Food Waste project

Senior Food Technology students late last week sent the products they have developed from Kaibosh’s food waste to the Hopper Shop. Emma, Jazz, Medea, Sophie and Caleb made awesome smoothies, banana peel scrolls, carrot and apple cakes, and lemon jam.

This Friday morning staff from St Vincent de Paul are picking up meals that Gryffon, Codi, Reuben and Jess developed using excess vegetables and chana dhal.

Achievements

Poetry success!

Cadence Chung has won both first and third prizes in the Year 12 category of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook Student Poetry Competition with her poems ‘Hey girls’ and ‘We lovers’ respectively. Poetry New Zealand Yearbook editor and judge of the competition Tracey Slaughter described them so: ‘instant electricity in image and rhythm, dazzling sense of energy, voice and movement in form, making lines dance and packing attitude’ and ‘another stunner from an utterly distinctive poet’. The first-prize winning poem will be published in the 2021 edition of Poetry New Zealand Yearbook.

Sports

Senior Boys’ Basketball Winners!

What a year for coach Jason Reddish and the team taking out the Division 2 championship which is the best basketball result the school has had in a number of years. Due to Covid, there were no spectators but the game was live streamed and enjoyed by many members of the community. The team stayed calm and level headed throughout with a special mention to Billy Te Rito who shot two clutch free throws to send the game to overtime and ultimately the win. The team was captained by Hendrick Easton who finished off his WHS sport career in style. Huge thank you to all the teams volunteers and parents — this championship was truly a team effort.

Image courtesy of: Masanori Udagawa / www.photowellington.photoshelter.com

Senior Girls’ Football

The girls exceeded their preseason expectations and reached the final of Regional Premier 2 coming up short against a strong Newlands side in tough windy conditions. The girls are coached by Will Dewhirst who has been with the same group for around four years. Congratulations to the team on a fantastic season and representing the school to the highest standard. (note: I would like to shout out all of the year 13’s who will be leaving this. Thank you!) — LG

Senior Boys’ Football

Carlos Junca did a great job this year of helping our senior boys 1stXI exceed expectations and reach the final of Division one. Unfortunately the team came up short but that doesnt discount the hard work the team and Carlos put in all season. Great work team!

Badminton

The Badminton season has come to a close – three months later than usual! A huge thank you to all the students who took part in teams and came to lunchtime practices. I hope to see you all back again next year.

Seniors: The best performing senior team was Girls 1 – Lily Parkin Captain), Charlotte Hofmann-Body, Grace Medlicott, Eden Kettles and Leandra Hoevelberndt – who came second out of 12 teams in Division 2. They did especially well as several of them were involved in lots of other activities like Shakespeare Society and yet still turned up each week to their matches.
Juniors: In the juniors, Boys 1 came second in Division 2. Huge congratulations to Girls 1 who won the Central Wellington Division 2 title and narrowly lost 4 – 2 in the regional finals to Naenae 2 last Thursday. It was a great experience for Frances Till (captain), Hazel Till, Tulip Kumar and Tatiana Colina Mosquera. Most of this team will stay together next year, so who knows what they can achieve then!

Finally, I couldn’t have run this year without my two amazing badminton captains, Euliz Samson and Everett Teahan, supported by Djie Kramer. They have organised the juniors, run practices, attended matches and generally been around all the time I’ve needed them. Ngā mihi nui. — Caroline Lewis