Westlake Girls placed first and second in the Auckland Regional  Tahi Rua Toru Digital Challenge Competition. “Epilepz” was selected as the Auckland Regional winner, with  “No Justification for Discrimination” a very close second.

Hannah Richardson, Bree Souster and Paris Headford are the Year 10 students behind Epilepz – an app they developed to help people with epilesy.  “The app tells people when they will have a seizure and when to take their medication,” says the team. “There are games, music and meditation courses to help people relax and there is a way to connect with other people with epilepsy. All their progress will be tracked in their virtual garden.”

Epilepz is now competing for the national title and you can check out the video of their App HERE.

Lina Amer, Ivy Doak, Adrianna Tobin is the Year 10 team behind “No Justification for Discrimination” – a website which takes the issue of discrimination in our community.

We held our third Innovation Expo at Westlake Girls, on 30 November, where our STEAM students displayed their innovative prototype solutions to the community issue identified during their community project. Five groups were then selected to face a Shark tank. We have been privileged to have some amazing industry female role models as our judges.

• Mahsa Monaghegh- Director of Women in Technology at AUT, Senior Lecturer at AUT, Founder and Director of She Sharp, Recipient of Emerging Leader Award at the NZ Women of Influence Awards
• Camilla Weinstein- Talent Acquisition at MYOB, Entrepreneur and Director of Straw the Line
• Sarah Clearwater- Head of Community, Founder of Customer Xperience Collective, Founder of REFRAMR and Sarah Clearwater International
• Janet Van- Director / National Manager at Kiwibots and Westlake Alumna
• Zara Jillings- Partner Account Manager at Soul Machines and Westlake Alumna

Winners
Community and Innovation winners: Callenge for Change
Innovation Award Winner: Epilepz and Regional (Auckland) winners of the Tahi Rua Toru Challenge (see separate story)

Feedback from judges:
These Yr 10 students showcased digital skills and critical thinking well beyond their years, and it was so amazing to see how they are tackling the problems we see in today’s communities with innovative solutions and impact driven outcomes.
As an alumna of the school, I’m blown away by what these students are doing and I feel so proud to be a Westlaker. I’m excited to see so many future leaders and innovators in this room, knowing that there are so many more beyond those walls.
Thank you Susana Tomaz for organising the event and opportunity for us as well as these young women. What an exciting future Aotearoa has ahead of us if this is a snippet of what’s to come! – Janet

“Thank you so much for sharing this experience with us. It was great to see so many girls thinking about future problems and their solutions. Kudos to you for nurturing and motivating our next generation of wahine – Masha

Feedback from students:
The best part of STEAM this year would have definitely been the Community projects. We were put into groups based on a problem we were passionate about. From here we got to understand the problem more and create and develop a solution. This was honestly really fun as we got to connect with different people and build our collaboration skills. During our devolving stages there were a lot of trials and errors with coding within my teams app and games. Despite these challenges, we still tried, spending a lot of time learning about the different developing platforms we used (thunkable, Adobe and gamefroot). The whole process led us to the innovation expo, where parents and friends got to see what we had done. This would have been the best part of the year with STEAM as we were able to show off the apps we worked hard on throughout the whole year. My group got through to the shark tank where we pitched our idea to 5 judges. Although it was very nerve wrecking, it was an opportunity I wouldn’t pass for the world.

I recommend that everyone should do STEAM, the whole year long process of community projects is so much fun and valuable. It was an opportunity to be innovative and help others through our learning in STEAM. We loved every minute of it and learnt valuable skills such as resilience along the way. Covid was a challenge in our process but in the end it made our communication skills a lot better. The idea of creating something to help others motivated every group to make a successful prototype. Only 5 groups made it to the shark tank but every project was evidence of the amazing potential we have for the future – Hannah Richardson and Lizzie Prescott

As a part of our STEAM course, we got to identify a problem in our community and solve it using a design thinking process. My team’s community problem was casual discrimination against different cultures and religions at our school. We have developed a school website to help students stand up against discrimination and to support the victims of discrimination. No Justification For Discrimination – my group – got a special recognition, for the choice of their problem and their effort invested in its solution – Lina Amer

Background
Up to 65% of children entering school today will have a job that does not yet exist. the most in-demand occupations or specialties did not exist 10 or even five years ago, and the pace of change is set to accelerate.

According to the OECD 2030 Future of Education and Skills Project: “We need to replace old education standards with an educational framework that combines knowledge with the 21st century skills of creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.”

Students need not just knowledge, but also skills, attitudes and values to thrive in and shape their own future for a more empowered global citizenship. This has never been more evident than in the current pandemic.

To meet the challenges of the 21st century, students need to feel that they can help shape a world where well-being and sustainability – for themselves, for others, and for the planet – is achievable. The OECD Learning Compass 2030 identifies three “transformative competencies” that students need in order to contribute to our world and shape a better future: creating new value, reconciling tensions and dilemmas, and taking responsibility.It also sets out an aspirational vision for the future of education, emphasising the need for students to learn to navigate by themselves through unfamiliar contexts, and find their direction in a meaningful and responsible way.

Our STEAM programme is well aligned to the OCED Education Learning Compass providing several opportunities for interconnections and interactions across different learning areas which was showcased at our Innovation Expo. Community projects create rich STEAM Power-Ed experiential learning opportunities for our students to develop transformative competencies for the future ahead.

By Susana Tomaz
TIC of STEAM

A shift to plant-based foods was recommended by Sir David Attenborough in his new documentary “A Life on our Planet” to prevent the collapse of the natural world, and to feed our rapidly growing population that is estimated to reach ten billion people by 2050.

Y9 STEAM students were involved with developing a “Future Food” which is innovative, nutritious and sustainable and could be sold as a study snack in the school canteen. Students had to consider how to source their ingredients in a sustainable way, including through foraging.

This collaborative project integrated Maths, Science and Food Technology to really immerse our students in a very real world issue.
From colour changing noodles and dandelion jelly to chocolate crickets, their designs were futuristic, sustainable and very delicious.

To further explore the creative process used in developing innovative products, the students visited Giapo. Giapo himself is an incredible and talented chef, creating award winning products with application of new digital and scientific technologies and principles (CAD, 3D printing, freezing with nitrogen, etc). The tour was a great way to ignite a passion for new product development, giving students the chance to witness ‘thinking outside the square’ design which will help them with their STEAM projects and design thinking process.

Comments from students

Overall, my STEAM food experience was great, I had loads of fun making and eating our innovative study snacks.
-Danika Zaidi (pictured on the right)

I teamed up with Hazel to make the ‘Brilliant Beetroot Brownies’. These brownies were made with eggs, cricket flour, beetroot, chocolate, blackberries, and butter. The idea was to have the snack filled with protein, be sustainable and be innovative. The cricket flour, the black berries and the beetroot was our way of making the brownies innovative and increasing the amount of protein at the same time. I was also able to try a lot of different types of snacks from other groups as well as chocolate covered crickets! Might I add that the chocolate covered cricket didn’t taste bad. They actually tasted like rice crackers and chocolate. Overall this was a great STEAM experience!
– Jin-Joo

Inspired by Giapo

To further explore the creative process used in developing innovative products the students visited Giapo. Giapo himself is an incredible and talented chef, creating award winning products with application of new digital and scientific technologies and principles (CAD, 3D printing, freezing with nitrogen, etc).

The tour was a great way of igniting the passion of new product development for the students, especially the chance to witness ‘thinking outside the square’ design which will help students with their STEAM projects and design thinking process.

Pictured above are some of this year’s amazing speakers. From left: Courtney McCormick, Chemical Engineer (Engineering); Saba Samiei, Partner Developement Manager/Founder and CEO of her own company (IT); Eryn Crombie, Brand Specialist (Business); Grace Hall, Physiotherapist (Health); Sophie Forsyth, Marina Maintenance and Assistance (Trades); Tamsin Jowsey, Midwife (Health); and Trudi Power, Vet (Animal Science).

In 2020 our Careers team launched an exciting new initiative called Career Bites. Each month we focused on a particular industry and every Wednesday lunchtime invited a relevant guest speaker to share their career story with students.

This proved a tremendously popular event, hosting a brilliant range of speakers. Sharing first-hand experience and advice, our guests provided invaluable insight to students contemplating particular career paths. Many of our speakers were past Westlake students, who proved to be particularly relatable to our current cohort.

In 2021 we will be continuing with Career Bites, starting in February with Creative Industries, followed by Health in March and Earth Sciences in April.

Whether your daughter has already chosen her career path, or she’s still contemplating her options, Career Bites is a great way to gain insight into the reality and expectations of particular roles. In the New Year, posters around school will highlight our weekly speakers and we’d love you to encourage your daughter to come along.

If you’d like more information, please email [email protected]

By Angela Han
10AKM

Junior Mathex is a maths competition that happens annually and is open to students from different year levels in schools across Auckland.

This year, two Westlake teams from both Year 9 and Year 10 were honoured to participate in this amazing competition. Even though COVID-19 disrupted the competition dates, the passion for maths and the dedication during weekly practices were maintained. After a long time trying to find a suitable date, on 28 October the competition took place in the Barfoot and Thompson Centre.

Under an intense environment both Year 9 and 10 teams did very well and brought pride to Westlake Girls. Students who competed in Mathex found this experience “wonderful and full of challenges”, allowing them to “learn new skills and develop teamwork”.

Year 9 Teams:  Shivani Arivuchelvan (9AED), Kate Borton (9WBR),  Alanya Chen (9WOY), Elisabeth Jun (9APS), Hamy Le (9AMD), Amira Shafig (9WBR), Rachel Xie (9HSC), Ariel Yu (9HSC)

Year 10 Teams: Lina Amer (10ALM), Felicia Sihui Chen (10ABL), Angela Han (10AKM), Ella Hutcheson (10PHA), Caitlin Kuan (10ALM), Claire Ziyue Xu (10WSD), Jinghan Laura Yang (10HGR), Stephanie Zhou (10PLG)

Teachers: Sun Mee Kim, Briony Blewden

The power of student agency was highlighted and celebrated in the Kahui Ako  Student Action team sharing session, held last week at Wairau Intermediate.

The findings of last year’s Student Inquiry Teams was actioned this year, with Student Action Teams in each school working through a Design Thinking process to decide on the best course of action/solution for a focus area in their school.  Students worked so hard, with the help of teachers who facilitated them, to see their ideas become a reality.

It was a wonderful session where students shared their learning, the activities they had used to help them decide on possible solutions, prototypes they had designed and gained feedback on, and finally presenting the actual solution that had been embedded or will be embedded in 2021. These range from Year 5 students working to design ‘Quiet Spaces’ in their schools and gaining sponsorship to work with local Rotary clubs to create them – through to our senior students creating a ‘Mindhub’ workshop space where students can drop in during stressful times of their school year.

Pictured above are Westlake students presenting their idea.

School Office hours

Second-hand Uniform Sale

Stage Spectacular

Uniform Shop Opening Hours Term 1 2021

For our final Year 9 Health unit of the year students have been looking into social action for Nutrition and Drugs. As a part of the unit, students were set the challenge to plan and create smoothies. They had to consider factors such as what they wanted the purpose of their smoothie to be (e.g. provide energy), who is their target audience, what nutrients will in include etc.

Some Year 9 classes had the opportunity to go into our Food Technology space to then make their chosen smoothie. This was a memorable experience for students as they got to see their creations come to life – as below you can see them hard at work, along with their amazing creations.’

We’ve all got high hopes for 2021, and a great way to start the year on the right foot is to have a WGHS Diary in your school bag. These stylish journals are great for recording homework, important events and keeping track of your workload. It contains Timetable Day Numbers so you’ll always know what to bring, and the layout is based around Term Dates.

Students can purchase their Diary from the Payments Office for just $10 beteween now and Wednesday 23 December, or from 11 January onwards. Cash and EFTPOS accepted. Don’t miss out now!

If you’re new to the Westlake whānau or have a daughter starting in Year 9 with us in 2020, we have a new Parents’ Guide available online from next week.

The guide has information on things you need to know before your daughter’s first day, details about our school structure, and helpful calendars and contact information. You’ll find it on our website under “Starting at Westlake”, and all 2021 Year 9 parents will be emailed a PDF copy.