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Te Reo O Te Roto
The Language of the Lake
Issue 77 | 9 February 2024
From the Principal

From the Principal

Kia ora, parents and caregivers,

Can you believe we are already two weeks into the term? It seems hard to believe that the last time I wrote a ‘Principal’s Welcome’ for this newsletter, we were all on the brink of Christmas, and now we’re already on the other side of Waitangi Day.

It has been so lovely to see the school come to life again with people and to watch our newbies settle into life here.

Last week, we had a moving and beautiful pōwhiri ceremony for all our new staff and students, including an exceptional addition to Westlake, Alice Burnett, our new Dean of Māori students. You can read more about the pōwhiri in this issue of Te Reo o Te Roto. Welcome, Alice and all new staff and students. We are delighted to have you here with us.

Our school is deeply committed to staying abreast of cutting-edge thinking and research in girls’ education. We belong to a worldwide organisation that shares these same goals: the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools. Later this year, we will be honoured to host an ICGS conference here at Westlake.

As always, there will be a vast array of sporting, musical, cultural, and other extra-curricular events happening throughout the year. Please encourage your children to give things a go. The more involved students are at school with clubs and other extra-curricular activities, the better connected and adjusted they are likely to be, and the more likely they are to succeed academically.

Over the next few weeks, our clubs and activities will be forming. We will be running a ‘Clubs Expo’ at lunchtime on 5 March. Students can wander around the stalls and talk to students and staff who are running the clubs to learn more or sign up. Please note. Our sports registration process has changed. For more information, see the article in this issue called ‘Register for Sport – New System.’

We are committed to creating a supportive and inclusive environment at Westlake Girls. Remind your daughters that there are many people here to help them and nurture them, both among their peers and the staff. We’re all here to help.

I wish you all an extremely happy Year of the Dragon!

Ngā mihi,

Jane Stanley

PRINCIPAL

 

 

Community Notices

Careers Publication Coming Soon

The careers department will be delivering careers news directly to student and caregiver inboxes with a fortnightly newsletter. The first one will be delivered next Wednesday, so keep an eye out for it in your inbox.

Community

The power of the Pōwhiri

The morning of January 31 dawned exceptionally bright and beautiful. The air was warm, the sea was sparkling, and there was barely a cloud in the sky. For the new teachers and students, particularly our Year 9s, the scene was set for their formal welcome to Westlake Girls’ High School. Their nervous excitement was palpable. 

 

Students and staff filed into the Event Centre and talked in muted tones as we all waited for the special event. 

 

In a magnificent ceremony lasting approximately one hour, a special group of Iwi and family members were present from Te Tai Tokerau and Taranaki amongst our manuhiri to hand over our new Dean of Māori students, Alice Burnett. Hearing our Event Centre filled with the musical sounds of this beautiful language was a profoundly moving experience. The Pōwhiri included a mihimihi from our principal, Jane Stanley, acknowledging the importance of the event. 

 

Main image above: School kaumatua Jerry Norman speaking to our Head and Deputy Head Prefects.

 

Our kuia, Whaea Drina Paratene (Ngāti Pāoa) performs a karanga on behalf of the school.
Te Rerenga Wāna (Westlake Girls Kapa haka) in preparation for the haka pōwhiri.

 

Taitokerau representative Toronge Pene addresses the school.

 

 

Sports

Softball – Rori Seymour

Congratulations to Softball’s Rori Seymour, who was selected for the new International Softball Academy at the Age Group Nationals last month in Hastings. The Academy will select a New Zealand Youth Team to compete internationally each year, and this year, they are headed to Australia later in Term Three. Seymour is a Year 10 student at Westlake Girls and is a member of the Premier Softball team who finished runner-up at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championship in Christchurch last March.

Sports

Westlake Girls Top Skier Heads to Japan

Westlake Girls Year 10 student Georgia Marshall has been named in the New Zealand Under-16 Alpine Youth Squad for Ski Racing and will represent New Zealand in Japan at the end of February 2024. In 2023, she enjoyed a successful first year in the Under 16 National Points Race Program, finishing in the top 10 at the New Zealand Youth Championship and winning her promotion to the New Zealand Alpine Youth Squad. This feat enables her to race internationally, and she is focused on the “Goldwin FIS Youth Japan Cup” in Naeba, Japan, in early March, where she will compete for New Zealand in the Slalom and Giant Slalom for now but has big dreams of racing at the Winter Olympics in 2030.

Sports

Bella Jenkins Makes History at Sailing's P-Class Nationals

Bella Jenkins started her sailing season strongly, winning the Naomi James Trophy for the Top Girl at the P-Class National Championship in Tauranga for a record-breaking third time. With a handy lead, Jenkins was beaten in the 7th race of the event, but she fought back strongly in the 8th and final race to cement her record third consecutive win at the 100th Tauranga Cup. The young Year 10 student was a member of the champion Interdominion Regatta Team that won the Australasian School Girls title for Westlake Girls last September.

Following the P-Class Nationals, Jenkins headed south to Charteris Bay in Christchurch for a Starling pre-nationals regatta last week. At the South Island Age Group Regatta, Jenkins finished 1st Girl and 1st overall, a confidence-boosting result before the New Zealand Starling Championship held at Charteris Bay over Waitangi weekend. Jenkins narrowly missed out on the Girls’ podium, finishing 4th against tough competition. Fellow Westlake Girls teammate Jess Handley finished just behind her in 5th. The students will now join the school team for the New Zealand Keelboat Harken Cup and the Auckland Secondary Schools Team Racing Championship in March.

 

Sports

North Island Club Rowing Championships

After a lot of hard work over the summer, the rowing team competed at the North Island Club Rowing Championships at Lake Karapiro from 27-29 Jan.  All students had some exceptional races and showed big improvements from their last regatta before Christmas.  The highlight of the regatta was the Women’s Club Coxed Four crew of Annabel Savage, Phoebe Dobson, Maeve Lockett, Charlotte Mawston and coxed by Tayla Coplestone.  Battling challenging conditions in the final, this crew led from start to finish and won the race in a time of 7:19.65.  As this crew was the last crew to race for the weekend, their gold medal performance was a great way to finish the regatta!

Photo credit: Conrad Blind. Website: pictureshow.co.nz

Sports

Equestrian Samantha Syme wins scholarship

Westlake Girl’s top equestrian, Samantha Syme, has won a 6-month scholarship with Equestrian Sports New Zealand (ESNZ), which will see her working alongside High Performance workshops and squad training. She will also receive an individualised programme plan session with a High Performance manager or coach. Syme won the scholarship following her performance at the New Zealand Pony Club Association (NZPCA) Championship event in Dressage and Show Jumping, where she won the NZPCA Individual Show Jumping Championship. Syme is thrilled with the scholarship.

Sports

Champion Thrower Karmen Maritz Wins Double Gold 

Year 12 athlete Karmen Maritz is still sizzling after finishing the New Zealand Secondary Schools Athletics Championship in Christchurch on top of the podium with gold medals in the Junior Discus and Junior Shot-put events. Maritz performed outstandingly in both events. In the discus event, she set a new NZSSAA Junior Girls Discus record of 46.63 metres, breaking the long-standing record set in 2010. Then, in shot put, she threw a personal best of 14.80 metres to win the gold medal.

To finish her national championship off in style, Maritz was selected in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Athletics Association team and was named Junior Girls Athlete of the Championship in Christchurch. There will be ample opportunity to see Maritz in action as she leads the charge at All School Westlake Girls Athletics Day on Friday, 1 March, at the AUT Millennium Track and Field Stadium.

Community Notices

New cellphone policy

As you are probably aware, the new government intends to create a ‘no-phones-in-school’ policy. Until that is in place, we will continue to expect all students to put their phones in the phone pockets on every classroom wall while they are in class. Teachers will ask the students to take these back at the end of each class and return them to the bottom of their bags.

We expect the government to eventually have a complete phone ban, which will include during interval and lunchtimes. Our process here at WGHS will prepare students for this eventuality.

 

Academic

Tremendous achievement by Akoranga prefect, Shivani Arivuchelvan!

Rosalind Franklin, a pioneering female scientist, said, “Science and everyday life cannot be separated”.

Over the past year, my love for biomedical research and technology advances, together with my 2.5 Biology external, fascinated me in understanding the human genome. Through my learning, it was evident that the miracles of DNA that make us distinct can unite us to solve the world’s rarest chronic diseases. A few months ago, I had the excellent opportunity to be mentored via one-on-one sessions by Stanford professor Dr Kif Liakth Ali’s lectures in worldwide online classrooms to learn the biology behind our human DNA. Based on this, our class was advised to write a research review to improve our global research skills, alongside a chance for us to delve deeply into what piqued our interest.

This research evaluation focused on Alpha One Antitrypsin, a genetic disease that can be handed down from parents to children. Being a lethal and progressive hereditary illness that is now rare in medical diagnosis is surprising given its prevalence in European communities over the previous century. AAT deficiency increases the risk of lung, liver, and skin disorders and vital organs. AAT is created in the liver and circulates through the blood to protect the lungs and liver from inflammation.

I also studied gene therapy for AAT deficiency and liver disease. This paper focused on how AATD impacts liver cells’ endoplasmic reticulum and gene therapy’s ability to reduce ER stress in hepatocytes (liver cells). AAT gene therapy is being developed thanks to gene therapy advances. Capsid engineering, NHP gene-transfer vectors, genome editing, and new animal models can improve this technique. These novel techniques could make AAT gene therapy practical and effective.

Writing this study review was enlightening and passionate, teaching me how to use medical libraries and read research papers to stay current. My mentors submitted my final article to the International Journal of High School Research (IJHSR) a few weeks later because of its exceptional and original nature. The IJHSR is an esteemed high school academic journal with six issues each year.

I am ecstatic regarding my acceptance into this esteemed journal. This success is a stepping stone for me. It motivates me to engage in other activities to make me more passionate about serving the world with my interest in science. I would also like to thank my teachers at school and my parents for their unwavering support and motivation; you are genuinely the superheroes of my life!

By Shivani Arivuchelvan.

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