Students dressed the part recently for Classical Studies lessons on ancient Rome. Organised by Ms Kay Brown, her Year 10 Social Studies class is studying ancient Rome, and her Year 13 students are also studying ancient Rome as part of their Level 3 Classical Studies.
Pictured at top are: Maria Hewison as the Medusa, Eunice Banta, Tessa Watson as a Cyclops and bottom left Danielle Tzankov (Year 13).
Below left is Layla Whiteside (10 WFN) and on the right is Caitlin McConchie (13 PDG).
Bookings to audition for orchestra participation in 2022 are now available on our website.
Auditions (Alert Level dependent) will be held on the following dates:
| Instrument | Auditioner | Dates Available | Time Slots |
| Brass | Harmen Vanhoorne | Wednesday 10 November 2021 | 1.30 – 5.30pm |
| Thursday 11 November 2021 | 1.30 – 5.30pm | ||
| Woodwind | Uwe Grodd | Tuesday 2 November 2021 | 1.30pm – 5.30pm |
| Thursday 4 November 2021 | 1.30pm – 5.30pm | ||
| Strings | Emma Dann | Wednesday 3 November 2021 | 4.30 – 7.30pm |
| Thursday 4 November 2021 | 1.30 – 4.30pm | ||
| Friday 4 November 2021 | 1.30 – 5pm | ||
| Saturday 6 November 2021 | 12 – 5pm |
Our wonderful Environmental Prefects were back with Week 2 of Enviro Education!
Registrations are now open for all Year 9 & 10 students interested in playing the following summer sports in Term Four, please register your interest by completing the on-line registration forms below. You will be contacted with more information regarding the season and trials once Auckland moves into Alert Level 2.
Junior Tag Registration: Click Here
Junior Beach Volleyball Registration: Click Here
Junior Cricket Registration: Click Here
Under 15 Rugby Sevens Registration: Click Here
Junior Softball Registration: Click Here
Junior Tennis Registration: Click Here
Junior Touch Registration: Click Here
More information regarding these sports can be found on the School Website: https://www.westlakegirls.school.nz/sports-offered/
Our annual Sports Awards Evening was due to be held at the end of October, but due to Covid Lockdowns, we have pushed out the event by a week.
It will now be held on Thursday 4 November at the WGHS Event Centre. Doors open at 6.30pm and the event will start at 7pm. Invites will sent by email shortly.
Jaime Ragsdale is founder of Altogether Mostly – a website devoted to simplifying life to focus on what matters most. She posted this wonderful piece a while ago and it went viral. We thought it gave some great perspectives and wanted to share it with you.
What if our students are ahead?
Here’s the link to Jaime’s website if you’d like more: https://altogethermostly.com/
Last week, Music Teacher Jono Howan hosted a virtual song writing workshop for 20 of his contemporary music students.
“I think that everyone is starting to go a little Google Meet-crazy at this point in lockdown, but last week’s meet was probably one of our best yet,” says Jono. “We were lucky enough to be joined by Jackson Wilcox; a student studying Popular Music at the University of Auckland. Jackson shared his screen and walked us through one of his most recent projects created on Ableton (a music production software that our students are also using this year). He dissected his song in great detail, providing insight into his musical decisions and his creativity as a producer.
“After showing his project and answering several questions from the class, the students then had an opportunity to show off their own projects in front of the class and receive feedback from Jackson. The show-and-tell was a great chance for the students to hear what their classmates had been working on, and Jackson’s insights left them with plenty of ideas for their next steps.
“Overall, the workshop was a great morale booster for our class and we look forward to similar workshops in the future!”
One of the students, Rashi Jain (pictured) said this:
“The workshop that we had was about music production. In the workshop we shared our work, helping and guiding others in regards to musical ideas, production and composition. Our guest Jackson, from the University of Auckland, talked us through a new piece that he had been working on and showed a few techniques he uses as a university student studying music production.
I shared a composition that I have been working on for my music internal. Seeing him enjoying it and then coming back with all the feedback was pretty helpful for me. I definitely look forward to attending more of these workshops in the future.”
After what seems like a long time in lockdown we are now embracing spring and all that is associated with a change in season and the approaching summer. Soon it will be school holidays which is an ideal break to nourish your wellbeing.
Here are some things to try:
Clean up your environment – many of us have spent many more hours than usual in our bedrooms, spending some time going through cupboards, under the bed and decluttering.
Establish a place for everything so you can always find it, especially with exams approaching next term. If you can’t find a place for an item, decide if you need it, could you sell or donate it?
Evaluate your daily /weekly routines, as it is light earlier and dark later, could you use this time to do something for yourself. Start going for a walk regularly, change your study routine, join a club or sports group?
Look at your relationships, most of us have been locked up with the same people for over a month. For many this is family but what could you do to connect with people you haven’t seen during this time?, make some plans to look forward to once we are out of lockdown. How can you keep building on your existing relationships?
Try something new, spring is a great time to start a new skill/activity especially outside. It doesn’t have to involve a lot of time, it could be practicing mindfulness, learning some phrases in another language, a craft, a sport or cooking skill.
Mr Heta Witika, our on-site caretaker, discovered these wee treasures out on the field. Who can name the bird keeping a careful on him to make sure he doesn’t go near her babies?
Our Tongan and Māori Language Week celebrations weren’t quite the same this year – but we still found ways to acknowledge and enjoy these special occasions.
First up was Tongan Language Week was held from Monday 6 September. This year’s theme for Uike Kātoanga’i ‘o e lea faka-Tonga – Tonga Language Week was Fakakoloa ‘o Aotearoa ‘aki ‘a e Ako Lelei, which means enriching Aotearoa with holistic education. Our Prefects ran a bunch of fun stuff on the Pasifika Instagram page.
Day 1: TikTok challenge
Day 2: Taking it back to the golden days with some Tongan History ouaaa!
Day 3: Phrases from the PI committee
Day 4: The winner of the TikTok challenge was announced
Day 5: TLW closing video (view HERE)
Another very cool activity on the Instagram page earlier in lockdown was “My day in lockdown” student vlogs, where each Year 13 Pasifika student took over the Instagram page to share their day and answer questions.
This week, to celebrate Māori Language Week, one of our Deans – Maggie Cogger-Orr – organised a Māori Language Kahoot Quiz. On Tuesday 14 September, we also joined in the 12pm nation-wide “Take a moment for te reo Māori” organised by the Māori Language Movement.
Amongst the activities, a new Instagram page was created by the Prefects, called Ngā Rangatira o Āpōpō. You can follow HERE
Why Pandemic Screen Time Might Not Be So Bad for Teens (berkeley.edu)
Here is a great suggestion from New Zealand Dance Company. It uses imagery to teach a short dance sequence. https://www.facebook.com/AklLive/videos/878092446463571/
By Shella Dabbach
Onewa Environmental Prefect
A true lockdown legend, Lisa Carrington offered me the opportunity to interview her for my PE scholarship report this year based on something I am extremely passionate about ‘Plant-based diets in athletes’.
Plant-based diets in Olympic and other athletes are rising in trend but statistics have also shown an increase in popularity of the diet in the general population. “31% of New Zealander’s have been experimenting with being plant-based,” according to scoop.co.nz.
Lisa Carrington promotes the integration of plants into the diet but is not considered entirely plant-based. Q: What are your top 3 plant foods? A: Kumara, spinach (anything green!), and nuts. It was interesting to gain her insight on why athletes may choose not to follow the trend as different options may work for them.
However some insight that I gained from Lisa which is good for our Westlake whānau were tips on general hauora care during lockdown.
Although it is good to unwind and relax during the lockdown period, it is an opportunity for us to reflect on what is going right in our lives – are we living our life by our values or someone else’s expecations?
Q: What are your top values (e.g. growth or respect?) A: I value my whānau and the environment (kaitiakitanga) highly, however, to care for myself is also a priority. A regular sleep and waking routine, a good fitness workout that works for her, stretching, and doing activities she generally enjoys are all recommended.
So Westlake Girls, are you truly using lockdown time to your advantage? Don’t give yourself to digital distraction, make time for yourself and care for yourself in these uncertain times. The morning and evening are important times of the day so make sure you have a fun routine set in place for those periods. It’s true that self-love is self-healing.
Also, make sure to stay in tuned for some of the environmental prefect lockdown challenges (a vegan recipe was this week’s offering). Enviro-group classroom code: cfvps5q
Once the Government has announced Auckland will move to Level 3, we will send emails to parents and students outlining what this will entail for our school, based on guidance from the Ministry of Education.
We are sad to announce our Pasifika Showcase planned for late September has unfortunately had to be cancelled. We want to mention the outstanding work of the Committee organising the event, led by Jonine Tiakia, Tausala Puavlao Tanimo and Alailupe Taufateau. These students put a lot of time and effort into planning the showcase, which was to be the first of its kind at Westlake Girls in our new Event Centre. Well done to Jonine, Tausala and Alailupe for your hard work and organisation – we are disappointed for you that your efforts won’t come to fruition this year.
Just a reminder that this is an excellent read if you’d like to know about the new model of teacher training set to address New Zealand’s critical teacher shortage. . HERE is the link to the article. You need to sign in to read it, but it’s free to do so – and well worth it.
Covid vaccinations for families are available 7 days a week at Northcare, 5 Home Place, Constellation Drive. Go to www.northcare.nz or call (09) 486 1110. Family or work groups are welcome to come in bubbles.
Monday 18 October: Term 4 begins
Tuesday 19 – Thursday 21 October: Senior Subject Counselling
Monday 25 October: Labour Day (school closed)
Wednesday 27 October: Dance Showcase
Tuesday 2 November: Music Dinner and Awards Evening
Thursday 4 November: Sports Awards Evening
Thursday 11 November: Senior Academic Prize-Giving (evening)
Thursday 11 November: Senior Reports issued
Friday 12 November: Special Awards Ceremony (morning)
Friday 12 November: Year 13 Leavers Function
Monday 15 November: Junior School study day
Monday 15 November: Year 8 Orientation Day
Tuesday 16 – Friday 19 November: Junior Exams
Monday 22 November: NCEA Exams begin
Monday 13 December: Year 10 Stage Spectacular
Tuesday 14 December: NCEA Exams conclude
Tuesday 14 December: Junior Reports issued
Tuesday 14 December: Junior Prize-Giving
Tuesday 14 December: Last day of Term for Junior school
Kidz Therapy is an Auckland based integrated children’s therapy clinic. They hold courses and workshops, and have a brilliant website with a wealth of advice and information. They also send out a regular newsletter, which anyone is able to sign up to.
Their latest edition has some great professional tips and advice about how to help get your family through lockdown. We believe it’s well worth a read.
You can access the latest edition HERE
On Tuesday 10 August, the WGHS competitive Theatresports team travelled to Rangitoto College to compete in a player night with three other schools.
A player night consists of three rounds. The first round is the blind round, where a team pulls a game out of a hat and has to improvise a story, following the rules of that game, based on a prompt given by the audience. The other two rounds follow the same premise but are chosen by the teams beforehand. Our team came third with just a 1-point difference and overall the teams were quite evenly matched. We had a ton of fun!
Theatresports helps performers grow in confidence and improvising skill, as well as improving their creativity and their humour. Westlake holds social theatresports sessions every Wednesday lunch in H1 which is a great no-stakes place to grow your confidence in performing. Competitive sessions are every other Monday after school.
Here are our latest batch of Westlake Legends rocking Lockdown.
For just over a year, my sister and I have had a little foodie project on Insta called Basil and Lime. I do most of the food making and recipe writing and when she’s not at work as an essential worker, she does most of our photography and comms.
During lockdown, I’ve really loved experimenting with new recipes and all the flavours and colours.
It’s a creative way to experience different cultures even when we can’t travel. Sharing food with your bubble is a special way to spend time together and improve your mental and physical health!
Over the lockdown I’ve been working on writing and making music! Just recently I released a song on Spotify called Wildfire!
Having time to work on my music and my other passions has been a highlight over the lockdown.
We’re going pretty well in lockdown here, though I do have to try to balance teaching, Deaning, and looking after my two cheeky girls, as my husband is an essential worker! He works on the ‘Breakfast’ show at TVNZ, so they’re classed as essential, because everyone still needs the news – probably now more than ever, actually.
Luckily, my girls are very good at entertaining themselves (most of the time!), but I do always make sure to give them plenty of dedicated time each day. I know there will be so many families in a similar sort of situation, and we’re all just doing our best!
Here’s the Business Studies team during one of their regular Monday Morning catch-ups.
I did these because a) birds are cool and b) to bring awareness around the plight of our native species. Forest & Bird holds a Bird of the Year competition every year that I encourage all my students, friends, and family to participate in – it’s totally free and you get to learn some new things you may not have known.
The 2021 Bird of the Year competition will be coming around at the end of this year and it’s a great way to raise awareness around our native and threatened species! Forest & Bird need donations and media attention to continue the excellent mahi they are doing in trying to restore habitats and support breeding programmes that help protect the populations of species that make Aotearoa so unique. Here’s the website for more info: https://www.birdoftheyear.org.nz/
My Year 11’s are currently working on an external report which is essentially about how ingredients can be treated in different ways to come up with a variety of food products.
To demonstrate this I made some meringues from Aquafaba (the water from a tin of chickpeas). They are special as my daughter is allergic to egg – so she was super happy with the results!
And also from Ms Lemmon:
Olivia Stephenson, one of my Year 10 Food Tech students, sent me photos of the animal biscuits she made. They look super professional I think. Olivia said: “ I wanted to make them a bit more extravagant. So I made chocolate spheres which I stuck together with melted chocolate, plus ice cream inside.”
Talented writer Julia Wilkins has had her story The Ocean’s Treasure accepted into the prestigious Toitoi book Jillion 2.
The Year 9 student wrote the piece for the Toitoi journal last year, while still at intermediate. It was published in Edition 23 during Autumn 2021. On Tuesday 5 September, she found out it has now been accepted for the book.
“Both times I found out my story had been included, I was really excited! I think it’s awesome that I can say some of my work has been published.”
The Ocean’s Treasure is 1092 words, and is centred around a girl who loves the ocean. “She believes the ocean is her friend, even after going to a surf beach and being tossed around, having to be rescued by her parents,” says Julia. “She finally learns that the ocean is dangerous when she almost drowns due to kelp: ‘I thought of the gift of kelp the ocean had given me. Now I was the kelp’s gift to the ocean’. The story ends with her avoiding the ocean, as she has learnt it’s true, dangerous nature.”
Julia says the inspiration for her story came from her own love for, and deep respect of, the ocean. “The part I wrote in the story where the girl is tossed around at a surf beach stemmed from my own experience being held under the water by waves at a surf beach. I also have a fear of drowning, even though I love the water, so I could really put my own fears into the end when the girl was drowning.
“I was also inspired after reading a really cool story in which the ocean was described as a person, and the story had beautiful descriptive language. I really enjoyed reading it and wanted to write my own piece on the ocean.”
Creative writing has been a long-time passion for Julia. “I love creative writing, and have a piece of work published in a WRITE ON magazine, issue 53. This, funnily enough, was about the ocean too! However, it was about snorkeling and a coral reef, so completely different to The Ocean’s Treasure. I am also in the process of writing a novel, but it’s a very long process! I started in Year 7, continued through Year 8, then at the start of this year, chose to rewrite it all! I’m currently in a stage where I’m working on the plot line and doing some worldbuilding, before continuing writing. My novel is called Storm Waking.”
Julia is also part of the Future Scenario Writing group at Westlake, and she is also planning to submit a piece for Parallax Journal.
“I love the freedom creative writing gives me, the ability to construct characters and worlds and live my dreams through my characters. One of these is flying – I love to write stories where characters have wings and can fly! I find it so much fun to weave together characters and a world, and then see the story, the art, I have created.”
A career in writing certainly seems a viable option for this young story-teller. “It’s one of my dreams to have a published book or series someday,” she says. “All of the careers I am interested in – author, journalist, actor, teacher – involve a lot of English, and writing.”
We’ll be watching your progress with interest, Julia. If you’d like to read The Ocean’s Treasure for yourself, you can do so by clicking HERE.