Awakeri School
Here is the......News

6th November We had some great running yesterday at the senior track athletics. First up Samuel Burgess and Caleb Robertshaw had another titanic battle in the open 800m, pushing Samuel to beat Ben McPherson's long standing record by 6 seconds! Tiaan Brownless also broke the 10 year old boys 100m sprint record, to go with him winning all the field events for his age! Check out our athletic records in the Sports Records link to the left.

4th November Here are some cool photo's of the juniors having a go at the field events. The track events are only tomorrow!

This is someone that has just thrown the bean bag throw.	This group is waiting and listening for the instructions.
This is someone about to throw their bean bag.	This is Cody getting his aim right. Throw it far Cody.
This is Gemma having a go at the long jump.	This is someone about to do the long jump.
This is someone that has thrown the rubber discus.	This is someone jumping onto the mat for practice for when they are older.
This is someone about to throw the vortex, Go long!	This is someone doing high jump.

3rd November This week is the schools athletics week. Today the juniors will have a go at breaking some records for the field events. Yesterday the seniors broke some records, one of them was the open 1500m which was broken by Caleb Robertshaw (1st) and Samuel Burgess (2nd). The new record is now under 5 minutes! The other record that I know of is the 13yr old boys vortex throw. This was broken by Samuel Burgess who got over 60m (it was nearly farther than the measuring tape)! the senior and middle school had started the high jump. For the seniors no records were broken yet but there is still the 12 and 13 year old boys to go so you never know. The whole competition is to find the people that are good enough to go to interschool athletics, but right now it is house against house. There are going to be more field and mostly track events on Thursday, so come along and support your house. If you don't have a house then support rata! Good luck to all the Juniors.

22 October Today is Group Day, so the top performers at Ag Day went with their animals to the Group Day comp at Rangitaiki Independent School. Today we had an earthquake drill too. Those runners out practising athletics did well to drop and get into a safe position!
We have a new page with news from the latest BOT meeting. Follow the link on the left!

20th October Family soccer starts soon, on Mondays, from 2 November, 5.45 pm to 6.45 pm, three games a night, check out the other rules on the Awakeri Soccer website. Register teams with Barrie Hawkes ph 3222076 or email $30 a team.

19th October This is the start of week two for the last term of the year. On Friday was the school's Ag day. A lot of people showed up. There were rats, cats, dogs, calves, lambs, goats, miniature scenes, flax flowers, aqua jars and loads more. For the calves there was a total of 35 different ribbons handed out and a total of 12 trophies and lots and lots of more ribbons for the dogs and goats and lambs. The day was a great success! Check out these awesome photos.
Last week I introduced Rhythm Interactive. Here are some photo's to check out. Good bye for now.

14th October Welcome back everyone and I hope you enjoyed your holidays. Today Rhythm Interactive came to the school and let the senior classes learn about how actions speak louder than words by playing djembe drums. I'll try and get some photo's on the website for that.
The School's yearly Ag day is on this week. Tomorrow the pupils will get a chance to make their indoor displays. Click here to check out the indoor program. Then on Friday the animals will have their turn to come and check out the school. There are loads of trophies to win and every place getter gets to go to the group day at Rangitaiki Independent school on the 22nd of October. Well that is it for now I hope to see you on Friday!

25 September The final night of Sheik Rattle n Roll went very well, enjoyed by a full house. Lots of ex-pupils there watching too. Happy holidays everyone!! There are more cool pics of the production here.
Don't forget, it's the soccer break up tomorrow!

23 September Check out these cool pics of the production. There's even one of Mr Fitz dancing!

22nd September Today, or should I say tonight, is the opening night of our production. All the tickets haven't been sold for tonight so there will be tickets selling at the door (Thursday night is sold out). Come along if you can. There will be action, drama, love, politics and royalty.
Congratulations to the kapa haka for their excellent performance at the Rangitaiki Festival on Saturday. Josh Ridley got 3rd place for his whaikorero. Here are some cool photos of the action, more to come, also watch out for photos in the Beacon or Bay Weekend.
Today Rooms 8 & 9 put on their production called Celebrating New Zealand. It's about two old men telling the world about New Zealand in the olden days. Things like there used to be no buses, fish and chips were ten cents, etc. There were some cool songs, like... You've Got to Sing Your Own Kind of Music; She'll Be Right; Pa Mai and Haere Mai. They did a great job.
One of our students has been seriously injured in a motorbike accident so everyone in his class hopes he gets well soon.

16th September The year eights have been off visiting the local high schools to see which one they want to go to, or should that be which one would take them!
Here are some cool photos of the dress rehearsal on Monday.
This morning we had another 12 minute run, it was optional and today Samuel beat his old record, doing 3105m. Caleb Robertshaw also beat 3 kms. Well done all those who ran!

14th September Sheik Rattle n Roll tickets went on sale this morning, we sold over $200 worth. Big dress rehearsal today, plus the kapa haka have a practice at Edgecumbe College to get ready for performing there on Saturday. Wow, it's all on!!

11th September Today is production singing practice. Speaking of production the tickets are on sale and you can get them from Mrs. Prodger at the office or on Monday you can get them from the pair of senior students selling them. They are $8 for an adult and $4 for a child. The shows are on Tuesday and Thursday night at 7 PM for both. There will be acting, singing and even as a special bonus kapa haka. So if your up for a laugh then come along to the little theater in Whakatane but bring your ticket because if you don't then you probably won't get in.

8th September The indoor programme for this year's Ag Day is here on the website. Click on the link to the left.

7th September Spring is here and so are the lambs and calves and animals. That's good because our schools agricultural day is next month! The new term will be on the 12th of October and then on the first Friday is ag day! It's on the newsletter so have a look! Production Rehearsals are in full swing and there are meant to be no scripts this week at rehearsal. BREAKING NEWS! Today all of the senior school had a 12 minute run and it went well. Samuel Burgess and Kurt Turpie both broke the 3 km mark. WELL DONE to them both. Because people were away then we are having another 12 min run for them. If you have already done it then it is optional. Did you know, Room 14 ran over 61 km in those 12 minutes!

30th August Tomorrow and Wednesday is kapa haka intensive. This will be our 13th year entering in the Rangitaiki Festival, and we have our biggest every group getting ready for it. Check out our Kapa haka history here. Hopefully more details to be added, including our rare placings and even rarer victories!! Still. We love it!

28th August DAFFODIL DAY Well, production is in full swing and isn't it scary how close it is! Rehearsals are going great and Mr. Fitz is happy with them (I think....). The orchestra have just finished learning all their songs so they should be awesome, along with a parent addition to the orchestra.
We are in the process of finding our school finalists for the NZ$ competition Doodle for Google. What is Doodle for Google? Well, you know how the Google homepage is sometimes done up prettily for certain events? Well, they are having a competition to see who can create a great doodle about what NZ means to us! Eight entries from each school are being sent and there are some great prizes up for grabs! It is also great that the WHOLE WORLD will know about little NZ and what it's all about. And maybe us NZers have had to think about what this beautiful country really means to us.

27th August Check out the new Educational Links on our Helping Your Child page. Miss Robb has been training up the teachers to use interactive whiteboards and she recommends these sites. PS We've fixed the links to the sites, some of them weren't working. They are now!

24th August In the last few days we have had visitors from Edgecumbe College and the Rangitaiki Independent School telling our senior students about what they can offer year 9 students next year. They handed out information packs or CDs. A notice is coming out soon for the yr. 8 students about all the open days etc. that the high schools are offering, when we have all the information. Isn't it nice to be wanted!!
Kapa haka got a notice yesterday about their intensive days next week.

20th August Congratulations to our winners at the Eastern Bay Science Fair!!! Daniel Reeves and Olivia Smits both got GOLD; Jennifer Cram, Shane Gow, Kelsey Haddock and Briar Walker got silvers; we also won five special awards and four highly commendeds. Awesome!! Check out the details on our Science Fair page.
Today we had a huge soccer day at school, with lots of teams from the Rangitaiki Plains. We also had teams playing hockey at Edgecumbe.

14th August. Like I promised, the interview happened and it was fun. The visitors are leaving tonight and everyone will miss them. What I found out is that the climate in Singapore is very hot and humid so the cool weather is a really refreshing change of weather for them. The temperature can reach 33 degrees Celsius while in New Zealand it struggles to reach 30! The main cultures are Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, Eurasian and even Philippine! The result of all this culture results in having over four different languages, but little old New Zealand only has Maori and English. The school that they talked about had over 41 classrooms while Awakeri only has 15! Their favourite thing about New Zealand was the friendly hospitality and the sheep.

13th August. Well, today was the Eastern Bay Science Fair and the children who got Highly Commended or higher in the school science fair jumped on the bus with their pillows and went. This event was held at the the Whakatane War Memorial Complex and it was packed with project boards. We went and sat next to our projects to nervously await judging. Some of us only got 2 judges some people got up to 8! We recognized some of the judges and Mr. Fitz brought the exchange teachers to check it out. The people who have to go to the prize giving will be notified tomorrow and the prize giving is on Saturday. I hope to see you there!

11th August. Check out these photos from the science fair.

10th August. The weekend is over and the School will be busy hosting some teacher from Singapore. Their Primary schools have up to 2 200 students but with us it is only about 350 students. It is a privilege to have them so I am going to hopefully interview them before they go. Room 10 is back from their camp so there should be a update about that. Also the Middle school have started practices for the interschool hockey and soccer day. The production practices are starting on Wednesday which means that the people with main parts better have been practicing their lines. The actual production dates are on the newsletter so check it out. Well that's it for now, I have an interview to arrange!

7th August. The placings are determined and the certificates are waiting to be handed out. Yes that is right, prize giving is today and it will be outside in the sun at 12 o'clock, it will be a fun time. The placings for science are 1st: Abbey Patterson, 2nd: Daniel Reeves, 3rd = is Jarrod Hall, Kelsey Haddock with Briar Walker (partners). Highly commended goes to Hamish Inwood, Toby Kirkpatrick, Brooke Theobald and Susannah Williams. Commended goes to Kelsie Ingle, Kurt Turpie, Sophie Howard with Nikki Turpie (partners). For Technology the placings are 1st: Jennifer Cram, 2nd: Kara Sanson, 3rd: Shane Gow and Highly Commended is Olivia Smits, Nicci Hammond and David Klein Ovink with Jesse Ingle as a partner. Well that's the placings but only the people with highly commended or higher get to go to the Eastern Bay science fair.
Also the training for interschool soccer and hockey day are under way and the teams are trying hard to learn how to get good and have fun as well. This event happens every year and is a good chance to have fun as well as make friends.

6th August. Judging is over! The judges have decided the winner for the Awakeri School Science Fair and also who goes to the Eastern Bay Science Fair next week. Tonight is the public viewing but tomorrow is the prize giving. Be there at 12 noon if you are in the area and by 'there' I mean at the Events Center! There will be certificates and shiny trophies and more certificates. It will be a fun time. Also some pages have been updated so keep an eye out for them.

5th August. That's it! If you haven't handed in your science fair by now and you are a current student of the school, it doesn't count! Luckily everyone has, so nobody will be left out! Yes that's right science fair has been handed in and judging will start tomorrow! Then on the same Thursday night it is open to the public, and again on Friday morning from eight till nine, Local time that is. Then on the same Friday the prize giving will be held. If you get a highly commended then you will be able to get into Eastern Bay Of Plenty competition! The suspense is high. The quality is from good up to excellent! so come along if you have the time to.
Today is the day that Room 10 go to camp and room 9 come back. Room 9 would have had a great time, and so will room ten!

3rd August. This is a very busy week for the school. Today Room 9 Left for their camp at Lake Taupo and room 11 are at the beach planting some plants for the sand dunes. They will be back at the end off the day. On Wednesday the school gets back room nine but room ten go and have their turn at the same camp. Science fair is on this week for the school. The students have been working really hard on that. There are the school trophies, the placing and the entry into the Eastern Bay Of Plenty science fair in the following week, I just can't wait! The interschool soccer and hockey teams have been picked and training should start soon, Meanwhile the seniors are making the most of the free time they have in lunch and interval and playing a game on the field. Jump rope for the heart was yesterday and as a school we made $310! This all went to the Heart Foundation.

27th July. This is the start of week 2 for term 3 and it started with a big rush of fire, literally! You may be wondering what I am talking about. It is the hot air balloons that room 14 made with Mr. Sheather in room 15. They have been working on it for an afternoon every week for the past 4 to 5 weeks. Most of the balloons took off but there were some of them that crashed and burned. Most of the school came out to watch and it was a crowd pleasure. Personally my favourite part was when they were falling and burning at the same time.
The production scripts are going to be handed out today, Hopefully! If you want to have a look at some cool photos of the hot air balloons then Click here but if you don't then you don't have to!
Sadly, last week, Mrs. Heyns and her daughter Lyla left to go back to South Africa. Mrs. Heyns was Room 6's teacher, and we will miss her.
Mrs. Andrew is their new teacher.

23rd July. This week is the first week for the term and it has been really fun even though it hasn't even finished yet! The life Education trust or Harold the giraffe as the students know it by has started teaching most of the classes about healthy things by making it fun as well. On Tuesdays the yr. 7 and 8 students from Rooms 13 and 14 go to technology at Edgecumbe. This will be the second term for them. The production is this term, so the scripts will be handed out to the leads tomorrow for them to learn. They get an extra six weeks to learn the lines. Science fair is on this term as well. The students entering should be at least half way by now. Well that is what I think anyway. Wow look at the time, this is Hamish ending the bulletin.

3rd July. Today is the last day of the term. It will be extra emotional because it is the day that they announce the lead parts for the production, and who got them! The scripts will be handed out today so that the people who got the parts get to practice over the holidays. What a great idea. The names will be announced around midday to 12:30 p.m. Come along if you want to. It will either be in the events center or on the deck of room 13. Well that's it for the term, see you later!

2nd July. In Room 11 today, they had some rather unusual visitors. It was a pair of ferrets! Their names were Gizmo and Oscar. Check out Room 11's page for more info and some cool photos.
Well, tomorrow is the last day of school and I'm sure most people will be happy to have a break. But there are lots of things coming up next term like Production, Science Fair and Life Education. So hopefully everyone has a really good holiday and is ready for Term 3!

30th June. Today was supposed to be Manawahe cross country but because it is raining really heavily, it is now postponed. The senior and middle school have been training to run all the way up big hills for kilometres and then down a little bit of a hill for a few metres. It is a very big day and has been running for as long as I can remember.
Mr. Fitz or Fitzgerald is back from Singapore and brought a new game for the school. He learnt heaps and saw himself how crowded the schools there are. Science Fair is next term from the 5th to 7th of August. It is a big thing that gives you a chance to make a project and win prizes and certificates. Who said science was boring? It isn't rocket science except Ben Haultain's which might have something to do with rockets.
This is the last week of Term 2 so everyone is sad (cough cough) about the end of the term. Parent interviews are on Wednesday and Thursday so that means only half a day, can this get any worse (COUGH COUGH)! Well that is all for the rest of the term have a good holiday!
(You'd better see a doctor about that cough, Hamish! Mr H)
Oh, and some cool photos of the speech contest finals are now here.

22nd June. Today the Fire Fighters came. If you are wondering why, and I know you are, then I will explain. The senior school has been studying about fire wise and fire safety. We watched videos and prepared for fires, had quizzes and had discussions. This has been going on for a few weeks now and it is quite graphic so the videos are rated for form 1 students up. Otherwise it has been really eye opening to how fast fire is and what to do. After talking about fire safety we went through the smoke house to see what it would be like to get down, get low and get out. Then we had to go back in, which by the way you should NEVER do but luckily it was only to practice, and jump out of the fake window which was padded down at the ground where you landed. The part with the most fun was jumping out. It was a fun thing to do and learn about but in the real thing it won't be as fun because fire is deadly.
Onto happier things speech finals are tomorrow night so good luck to all. Well that is all for now there are a few photos for you to look at. Anyway have fun but stay fire wise and safe.

19th June We had some cool speeches in the semi finals. Zac made some funny jokes, including one about dinosaurs, Holly challenged us not to scratch while she spoke to us for three minutes about headlice, Sophie tald us the history of potato chips, Josh KO looked at David Beckham's role modelling, David KO got us worrying about the number of press ups we should be doing to balance our sugar intake, Kurt gave his speech with a strange accent and Rico had us all laughing with his stories of trampoline accidents. So... who got through to the finals?
Jennifer Cram, Josh Klein Ovink, Zac Fretwell, Abbey Patterson, Kurt Turpie, David Klein Ovink, Kelsei Ingle and Shjara Dakin. Congratulations to all of you. It should be a great night on Tuesday at the finals.
In breaking news... today Samuel Burgess (Rm 12) broke through the 3 minute barrier in the 12 minute run, he ran 3.05km in 12 minutes. In Room 14's run, Kurt Turpie almost got there too. He did 2.9 km. Woh, talk about being fit!
Plus... Mr Sheather's extension group finished their video about Awakeri School. The group wrote it all themselves. It should be having its premiere at assembly today. Cool acting Mrs Prodger!

16th June Congratulations to the following people who have got through to the semi finals of the senior speech contest: Holly Davis, Blake Cossey, Abbey Patterson, Jennifer Cram, Rico Luca, Kelsei Ingle, Zac Fretwell, Kelsey Haddock, David Klein Ovink, Kurt Turpie, Sophie Howard, Shjara Dakin, Hamish Inwood and Josh Klein Ovink. The semi final is on Thursday, then the finalists will be selected for the final on Tuesday 23rd June, which is open to everybody. If you want to see who has won the contest, going all the way back to 1949, look at our Academic Archives page!

12th June. Grease was performed yesterday by Whakatane High School, at the Whakatane Little Theatre. The three classes (rooms 12 - 14) that were lucky enough to go, had a great time and were wowed at how well it all looked and how well it all flowed. The dancing was awesome! It is a musical based on the movie that came out around the 1970's. If you saw the movie and then the show you would be amazed at how much they were alike! It was really enjoyable and it was probably made for teenage people or up (in age). It was a great introduction to acting for our own production in term three.
The auditions for our own production start on 25th June, just two weeks away, good thing - names have been taken! This year's production is called Sheik Rattle and Roll. I am predicting that it will be fun this year like all the past years.
Science Fair is coming up too, so good luck to all the participants.

4th June Wow, what a great cross country day we had yesterday! The runners were colourful, the sun was shining, the track was hard and fast, so we set three new records!! Congratulations to Sam Burgess, Quest Tipping and Sammy Looney who set new records. You can check out the other place getters (of 8 yrs and up) and our cool photos of the cross country by clicking here. Best dressed on the day? It had to be Briar Buzzy Bee Walker and her sidekick Kelsey Kowhai Haddock. Best fall of the day, well there were a few at the start lines.

2nd June. Today is the start of a short week. This week may be short but it is not going to be boring! For some of the senior classes, the speeches have been starting and maybe even end up finished by the end of the week. The speeches happen every year and are a great way to build up confidence, and win the speech shield as well! Tomorrow there is the cross country running. We are really lucky to be able to use the farms and kiwifruit orchards around the area so thank you to the owners/managers. It is a big day and a fun way to get out there and enjoy the sun and the exercise and the countryside. The top eight runners with the fastest times get to go to the interschool cross country in Manawahe. It is very hilly terrain and is going to need lots of practice.

28th May. Yesterday was the interschool rugby and netball. You didn't have to do it if you didn't want to but if you didn't then you missed out on a whole lot of fun. At the rugby at Matata, there was a total of 14 up rounds and probably over 50 games. The netball was played at Te Teko.
Later on today is a walk through of the cross country courses for all the different age groups at some different times. Cross country happens yearly and is a great chance to get active and have fun in a little competition. It is on Wednesday next week if you want to watch. For the people that get in the top ten for each age group, they get to go to the interschool cross country at Manawahe.
Otago maths competition is on. It is a few tests then if you get more than 20 right as a total then you get to do the big test! Only year 7 & 8 students get to do them though. Good luck to them.
The school got a nice surprise today. Stephen Barker, an author from Auckland sent us two signed copies of his book The Secret of Spirits Bay because he saw on our website that Room 13 are reading the book at the moment. Thank you very much to Stephen.Well done to Room 13 too for good reporting!

27th May.You guys may have heard that Room 12 & 13s camp was pretty cool. Is this true? Lets ask some of the students about what they liked most about camp:
"My camp highlight was definitely riding on the BMX track. I thought it was really fun." Luisa.
"I really enjoyed the flying fox. It went superfast." Jessie.
"I liked mountain biking because it was slippery."Ravneet.
Well there you have it! Sounds like camp was a success! Tui Ridge passes the 'Enjoyable' test! Click here to see some cool photos.

!9th May. Yesterday Rooms 13 & 12 left for their camp. They must be having soo much fun by now. Because they were gone Room 14 got to spend the day at technology in Edgecumbe. Room 14 made omelets, Fruit muffins, Jewelry boxes and egg holders! Room 13 and 12 are going to be back on Friday so you might not see many photo's until next week. Until then, see you later.

15th May. This week the school library had a visitor. She is an author named Val. Bird. She came and only a few lucky people got to have a half hour with her to ask questions and get books for the library.
Room 11 have been learning about the gum diggers that dug up the Kauri gum that was left by the mighty Kauri tree's, when they decayed away from old age. They have been learning how to build huts, build open fires and do lots more fun stuff like using the open fire to make bread, just like the gum diggers did! Next week Room's 12 & 13 are going to Tui Ridge camp for four days. They will be leaving on Tuesday and returning on Friday so that they can have the weekend to rest. They will be doing Bike Riding, Absailing, Indoor games, Archery, The Amazing Race and much much more. Then the week after that there will be interschool rugby. Then the week after that will be the senior syndicate speeches. The school will be having a busy time! Anyway I hope you have a good time.

12th May Every day the boys get together for a game of four square before school. It's always a good battle! Here's what it looks like:

5th May. Yesterday week two started. With the start of the week is the start of the badminton sessions. They are a cool introduction to the badminton season. Each class gets 45 minutes to have a go at playing badminton. It is also a way to see whether or not you want to play it as a winter sport for the year. I got a few shots for you to check out but before that I have some more news. Soccer, Rugby, Netball and Hockey have all started. Practice's and games are already under way. There is going to be a lot of fun in the weekends now.

28th April. Yesterday was the start of term 2! The holidays were fun but it is now time to get back into the fun of school. The holidays included Easter and fun events and Anzac day. The fun was everywhere! Now though, It is the very fun term 2. It is winter so that means some winter sports to warm everyone up like interschool rugby, school cross country, interschool cross country, speeches for the seniors and middle syndicate, science fair preparation and auditions to the school production! As you can see there is a lot going on and a lot to read about over the term. Room 12 is having their turn to go to technology at the Edgecumbe high school. Technology or tech for short is a place where the year 7/8 pupils go weekly to learn how to cook or build things, plan their time wisely and learn what it is like in high school. They will have heaps of fun! Well that is it for now , Bye!

24th April. ANZAC Day tomorrow, then only one day of holidays left! Term Two here we come!

7th April. Yesterday was Interschool touch day. The school has been practising for and organizing this event for weeks. The touch day is a day designed just for fun for the children to have a go at touch rugby. Some of the year 7 and 8 children had a go at refereeing the year 3 and 4. There was a total of 16 rounds and a lot of fun for everyone. There were a lot of schools ranging from Otakiri to Te Teko to Te Mahoe to Awakeri. It was a tiring but rewarding day for all the schools.

2 April Here are some photos of Top School action. Today the Variety Club Bash pulled in with sirens, flags, and fun. They also gave the kids quite a few goodies. Michael and Felicia were lucky enough to get a radio each!

31 March Room 14 have just got back from their camp last week What did they think about it? "Excellent, it was soooo fun" - Brianna; "It rocked, as I took every opportunity to do something" - Josh R; "I enjoyed it because everyone was kind and caring" - Brooke; "It was absolutely perfect!" - Josh K. See some of our camp photos here. Go to Room 14's page to read some interesting details.

23 March. Top school was yesterday and there was a lot of excitement about it. The Whakatane Top Town team came and put on a show for the crowd. In the Quickfire Raffles the prizes ranged from All Black and Tri Nations Bean Bags to portable stoves to colouring pencils, to dress shirts, to frozen chickens etc. The Hangi was the best buy for me. It was $6.00 for a bit of pork, a bit of stuffing, a bit of chicken, a bit of pumpkin, a bit of watercress, a bit of potato and a bit of kumara. There were rides ranging from a chairoplane, motorized jeeps, a giant slide and the bouncy castle. There were other stalls including win a goldfish or hamster, lucky dip, lucky jars, horizontal bungy for a canned drink and crazy hair. Julians Berry Farm was selling its locally famous fruit ice cream. It was a hot day as well so they went down like a treat. There were sausages and bread for sale as well as burgers, waters, can drinks and lollies. The top school teams all did brilliantly and one of the teams even got 33 balls in the bucket for the horizontal bungy in the form of the course. They only had 10 minutes, so that is a pretty amazing feat. Tomorrow room 14 are going on camp till Friday. That means that some of the pages wont be updated until Monday next week. They are going to Blair Lodge and are also going to visit the Martha gold mine in Waihi.
Well that is it for now. This little website monitor is off to camp.

18 March. "Brilliant!" Is what Marc Ellis would say for Top School 2009. Peter Fitzgerald has been organizing this event for many years. Top School, if you don't know already, is a friendly competition for student of Yr. 7 & 8 and this year the 5 & 6 students to compete with other schools for the glory of winning and extra prizes. There are two sections, one for the teams and also one for the cheerleaders. If you win the cheerleading part then you get to go up and perform on stage, which is really just the back or deck of a truck. Most of the day is organized for the team competition but the cheerleading competition is an extra competition. The most dangerous task for the teams to do is the castle because you need to climb up a rope net and then slide down a really high slide. The most complicated course to put up is the stitch in time because if you have to set it up then you have to get it the right length otherwise it wont work properly. The hardest event to put up is the castle because you have to make it really safe. Most years the school raises $25000 which goes towards playgrounds, solar heating for the swimming pool, a turf, new computers for the classrooms and much much more! Peter Fitzgerald is guessing that 5,000 people will turn up for the biggest event of the year. Some time during the day the Whakatane Top town are going to turn up and then have a go on the carpet ride. Top School is on the 22nd March.
On Tuesday the 24th of March room 14 are going on their camp to Blair lodge which is around Tauranga. At Blair Lodge they will be doing fun but safe stuff like kayaking etc. Well that is it I hope you have a good time until I write to you again. Bye for now.

17 March TOP SCHOOL IS COMING UP FAST!!! ONLY 5 DAYS TO GO!!!!
Here is a big thank you to everyone for all the time and effort that has been put into Top School so far:

...Thank You!...

Karen Yates is doing a really good job organizing our BIGGEST EVENT OF THE YEAR!.

We have decided our Awakeri Top School Teams for 2009:

Year 7/8	Year 5/6
Samuel Burgess	Quest Tipping
Kurt Turpie	Nikoli Christensen
Caleb Robert-Shaw	Cabhain McConnell
Daniel Reeves	Tiaan Brownless
Zac Fretwell	Dylan Hoefsloot
Holly Davis	Savannah Jones
Kelsey Haddock	Naomi Roia
Nikki Turpie	Luisa Williams
Olivia Smits	Nicole Theobald
Abbey Patterson	Jordan Edhouse
Reserve: Aroha Leighton	Reserves: Ashleigh Tucker Brady Niven

We know they will make us proud!

11th March Awakeri did really well at the Iinterschool Swimming Champs today. There were lots of great individual performances. People who won finals were: Jenna Wilson, Sam Holani, Shannon Frost (2), Alex Coventry, Jarrod Hall, Ruby Thompson (2), Tom Holani, Josh Keightley, Sam McPherson (2) and Kurt Turpie. There were another 12 second and third places as well. Click here to see a few photos and the list of finals place getters. Many thanks to the parents who supported us and specially to Sue Holani for being a time keeper.

10th March Check out these photos of the senior science trip to study the estuary at Ohiwa yesterday.

5th March. Clap! The race had started. I jumped and did a far dive. That was just one of the many events that started the fun day of swimming in the Edgecumbe College pool. There were events from Biggest Splash which is trying to do the biggest bomb, to nicest dive which was the best dive with the smallest splash, to lengths of swimming to widths of swimming. In the last race the adults and the teachers even had a swim. In the end of that race it was the parents that won, the teachers came 2nd and the children came last. The teachers team had to borrow a parent and it turned out to be Kurt Turpie's dad. Then in the end Kurt was racing against his dad for 2nd, but Kurt's dad won. It was a very interesting race. It gave everyone a bit of excitement to talk about quietly on the bus back to school. Check out these cool photos of the swimming sports.
On Monday Room 12, 13 and 14 are going to Ohiwa Harbour to study the mangroves and mud crabs. It will be a very fun and muddy trip. Well that is all for now. I'll try to get some pictures up on here for you to have a look at after the trip.

25 Feb. Its finished! The brand new computer suite is done and the classes are getting toured around it as I write this sentence. The finished room with all the computers included is worth $180,000 in New Zealand currency. It has two main rooms and an extra room as well. It has 28 computers but we will get another 2 so that when a classroom goes in to use the computers nobody will have to wait for someone else to finish so they can get their work done. It has speakers, cushioned chairs, head phones and of course the computers in one of the main rooms. In the other room is a big area were you can watch movies, learn jump jams and view students work (with their permission of course!). In the first half of the 1st main room will be an interactive whiteboard.
Any way when Gary Fowell Builders had finished the actual room, Mrs McConway, Mr Fitzgerald (principal) and Mr Sheather wired up all of the connections for all the computers, which I am guessing took a long time. The computer suite is going to be open for the school on Friday. Until then the students are only allowed to gaze at it in awe!

22 Feb. Here are some cool photos from our Fun Raiser on Friday!
Oops we've forgotten to put the weekly newsletter on the website the last two weeks, sorry. It's there now! A slight correction though, Top School is on 22 March, not February! Phew!

20 Feb. Fundraiser was today and the school all had fun. After interval we had a couple of hours to prepare the stalls. I will try to get some photo's up on the news page. Even though it rained all day, we still raised a whopping 1,371.50 New Zealand dollars in the lunch hour:

Room 14 : $509.10

Awakeri's Next Top Model	$20.50	Shamalamadingdong	$186.20
Sweet Tooth	$135.50	Blindfold Adventures	$23.00
Awakeri Extreme	$118.20	Spongbob Facewack	$27.70

Room 13 : $439.30

Galactic Munch	$115.90	Water Bombing Mr. Fitz	$54.50
Crunchy Cove	$131.50	Jump Out Of The Window	$19.30
Chocolate Stall	$118.10

Room 12 : $423.10

Funky Food	$92.80	Sour Stall	$91.00
Sumo Slammers	$22.90	Pitch Black Tunnel	$42.80
Haunted House	$113.90	Fortune Tellers	$59.70

19 Feb. Hello everyone and welcome to the news page for Awakeri Primary School 2009. Room 11 went to camp yesterday and are having heaps of fun at Ohiwa Harbour which is near Ohope and Ohiwa. They will be returning after lunch on Friday but will unfortunately miss out on the senior school fundraiser which is at lunchtime tomorrow.
Room 10 went on a day trip on the same day that Room 11 left for camp.
There are at least 7 food stalls at the fundraiser which are going to be selling a variety of stuff from milkshakes to lava rocks to sherbet to cakes to chocolate. You can see what I mean by variety. Prices range from a New Zealand 10c coin to at least less than three New Zealand dollars. You can even go on an adventure for one New Zealand dollar. Or for the same price you can be a model. For half the price you can jump out of a one storey window onto a safety mat. There is a lot of variety of stalls. All that is happening Tomorrow around the middle and senior syndicate. Well I will try to tell you how much the seniors have raised by Tuesday next week.

12 Feb. The votes are in! The newest house captains were just elected yesterday after lunch. We now have 8 girl and 8 boy house leaders, worthy year eight pupils. The four houses (Rata, Rimu, Kowhai and Tawa) all now have two boys and two girls as their leaders. The leaders for Rata are Kara Sanson, Susannah Williams, Jesse Ingle and David Klein-Ovink. The house captains for Kowhai are Kelsey Haddock, Briar Walker, Sam Burgess and Joshua Ridley. The house captains for Rimu are Zac Fretwell, Jarrod Hall, Carrie Fynn and Jennifer Cram. The house captains for Tawa are Shayne Fortune, Nicci Hammond, Emily Graham and Olivia Smits.
The website monitors are just starting today and I hope that they do their pages very well and keep them updated as much as possible. The monitors are:

Rm 1	Briar Walker	3	Joshua Klein Ovink
4	Kelsei Ingle	5	Hamish Inwood
6	Aroha Leighton	7	Susannah Williams
8	Jennifer Cram	9	Sophie Howard
10	Hannah van der Horst, Katy White	11	Jordyn King, Kylie Hendl-Cox
12	Briar Walker, Sophie Howard	13	Georgia Barraclough
14	Susannah Williams, Zach Nabakewa	15	Kayla Turvey
News	Hamish Inwood

Lots of people are trying really hard to get into the Top School Teams. There are 34 keen girls and 53 keen boys getting tested on their fitness, agility, throwing, strength, teamwork etc. in their lunch times. Good luck everyone!

5 Feb The latest school newsletter is on, check it out every week, even before your child brings it home from school! The link is on the link bar to the left.
Website monitor job application forms have been handed out. New monitors will be appointed and starting to be trained next week. Today, also, names were taken for students who want to try out for the Top School teams. This year we have a yr 5 & 6 team as well as the usual yr 7 & 8 team.
The senior school have been doing 12 minute fitness runs. Three students have managed to beat 2.8 km in 12 minutes. Pretty fit!

3 Feb School's back! What do people think about it?
Cool! I get to see all my mates, and I like to learn! - Shelby Rm 9
Pretty fun - It's good to hop in the school pool and cool down. We had a cool swim today. It's fun to play in the playground. Today we built a track our of hay and we did jumps over the beams all lunch time! - Lucas Rm 10
It's pretty cool. We're doing finger painting, we're painting a vase of flowers. - Melody Rm 12
Easy 'cause there's not much work to do yet, but hard, if you accidentally go into a different classroom and someone else's tote tray! - Jessie Rm 10
Room 14 and some of Room 13 went to Tech at Edgecumbe College....
It was cool. We made Eggs in Ambush - Cameron
We got to mix the sausage meat with our hands. We moulded the sausage onto the egg, then cooked it in the oven. - Hamish
We got to sew a swim gear bag. - Brooke
We put a secret compartment in it. - Shayne

28 January 2009 School starts on Monday. Enjoy your last few days of holidays everyone! Bring your swimming togs with you on Monday, you might be lucky!
There are a few changes around the place. The builders have been busy, so Mr Sheather has a new room (Rm 15) and so has Mrs Wardell (Room 1). Welcome to new teachers Mrs Heyns (Rm 6) and Mrs Scott (Rm 3). Miss Taggart has moved to Room 7, while Mrs Turner and Mrs Geor are sharing Room 8 for the term till Mrs Parker comes back. Good luck with the baby Mrs Parker! Room 2 won't be in use till term 3.
The new website monitors will be selected in week 2. The new class pages will start being worked on then.
The Calendar page is up to date with this year's events on it.