Good luck to all Year 13 students as you prepare for your final examinations and set off on your next interesting pathway.

You are now part of our valued Westlake Girls alumni community (former students and staff) and we encourage you to keep in touch with Westlake, as well as with each other.

You have navigated through a year of challenges bringing with it changes to the way you have studied and socialised in your final year. I hope that the resilience you have inevitability acquired will be a strength in the way ahead.

It is the friendships made through your schooling that will endure. Some connections will remain strong through the next phase of your life and others may be rekindled in unexpected ways well into the future.

Keeping in contact: there are a number of ways in which you can stay connected.

Like our Westlake Girls Alumni FB page  Westlake Girls High School Alumni

Stay connected through your Westlake Girls Class of 2021 FB Group

(The 2021 group is for all WGHS students who started in Year 9 in 2017, regardless of when they left Westlake. Please share this information with others who may have left in previous years.)

Ensure we have your up-to-date personal email address for our alumni database.

Complete the Class of 2021 Leavers’ Details and Destination form. Thanks to 80 of you who have already completed the form which was sent to you today and is also in Year 13 Google Classroom.

Your plans for next year may still be uncertain but it will be mutually helpful to get an idea of your intentions for 2022. We have Westlakers in a large range of tertiary institutes and there is likely to be someone who can give you some help or advice if you need it next year.

Join our Linkedin network https://www.linkedin.com/school/westlake-girls-high-school/

These are some other alumni Facebook groups.  Westlake Girls Rowing Alumni

Choralation Choir Alumni              Friends of Westlake Music

Please feel free to contact us at any time with suggestions or requests.

Ngā Mihi

Cathy Roughan
Alumni Co-ordinator
[email protected]

Most of us are experiencing a myriad of different emotions about returning to school – excited, nervous, anxious and anything in between.  Returning to school presents us with a transition period, a time where things are the same but different for everyone – parents/caregivers, students and teachers.  And that sometimes means we feel like we are riding a huge wave of different emotions.

At this time, it is a really good idea to find someone to talk to about this and make time in your life for this.  Talking with friends, family, sports coaches, favourite teachers or the school counsellors.  For parents/caregivers this is an opportunity for you to normalise what your children are experiencing and a time where you can validate all of their emotions.

Be kind to yourself, with time these emotions will decrease, settle and pass, you may even experience some new emotions you have never felt before, that’s ok too.  Once the emotions feel more manageable, problem solving and looking at choices in how to manage a situation can begin. Learning strategies to help with certain circumstances or times can also be really helpful and they can help you cope with the changes.  Ask your teachers or counsellors to help you with some these.

With time you will return to the rhythm and routine that you used to have by going to school. The places, people, and activities will become familiar again.  Just give yourself time to remember the familiar and get used to new processes like mask wearing, hand washing and sanitising.

Please remember that all the staff and teachers have put a huge amount of thought, planning and consideration into ensuring that our school and our students are safe.  They have prioritised your wellbeing and are there for you.

If you would like any additional support, please feel free to book a time to speak with any of the counsellors.  You can do this by using the school app; email; phone or text; visit us in the dean’s area when at school and fill in a form; or use google meet.  The following is the list of counsellors available:

Mrs Linda Clouston – [email protected]

Mrs Fleur Piper – [email protected]

Mrs Barbara Mackay – [email protected]

Mrs Trish Mancer – [email protected]

Abridged from an article by Dr Kirsty Scott, Massey University

Eat My Lunch and Ironclad Pans are working together to search for an all-time cooking legend by entering our cooking competition!

The recipe and instructions are in the link below, and everyone who enters the competition receives a badge especially made for Kiwi kids!

Here’s the recipe
Pancakes_recipe

Who can join?
• Students enrolled in schools which are part of the Eat My Lunch Give programme.
• Families are welcome to join their kids too!

What are the prizes?
Winner will receive a prize worth $240. Plus, there’s are spot prizes for:
• Best pancake art
• Funky face pancake
• Coolest pancake flip
• Best MasterChef and Pancake pose
• Best kitchen pancake mess reaction

How to enter:
Post your entry on Facebook or Instagram and tag: @eatmylunch.nz and @ironcladpan with the student’s name and school name.
• OR: email us your entry at [email protected] with subject “Cooking Legend” with the student’s name and school name.
• If a school’s staff member can please keep a record on how many student entries you have, we can send the competition entry badge to
the school directly.

Closing date:
20th November 2021
Winner will be announced on the following week.

Kidz Therapy is a wonderful resource for information on a wide range of topics, and they have released a very helpful article on children returning to school. There are six tips for helping students return to the classroom. While it is aimed at slightly younger children, there is still some great advice in there.

You can read it here: https://kidztherapy.co.nz/articles/six-tips-to-help-your-child-survive-back-to-school-anxiety/