Awakeri School News from 2005

21st December 2005 It's all over! A massive water fight today was fun, as was the cool senior disco last night. Everyone had a great time. There are some great pics of the disco, coming soon. Goodbye our lovely year 8s. Happy holidays everyone else.

20th December 2005 Last night was Fancy Dress. For all of those who couldn't make it, this is what happened. First we had the grand parade, where everyone showed off their cool costumes. Then the classes took turns to do their dances. Then we had the awards.
THE SPORTS- Senior boys cross country-Vincent Sheather.
Senior girls cross country-Vikki Lowndes
Boys 100m champion-Vincent Sheather
Girls 100m champion-Chelsie Pettinger
Overall champion-Tautari Merito
ACADEMIC-Middle school tables champion-Zoe Johnston
Academic Excellence-Fiona Coulter
The year 8s were farewelled, the teachers reminding us about each student's 'good points' as they received their leaving certificate.
The Principal's Award was given to Ben Hancox, Haylie Griffen and Levi Magee to recognise the good role models they were.
Emma Barr and Miles McConway spoke on behalf of the Year 8s and finally Mr Fitz played a powerpoint of all the soon to depart. Bryce got on it five times! And Sharni made a surprise repeat of her "I Believe I Can Fly" song from her fairy tale video. She was so pleased!

15th December 2005 The school magazines went home today. They look great!! Congratulations to Aroha Matthews for having her front cover design chosen. The back covers are cool too, artists: Bryce Fox, Monique Jackson, Christine Tipper and Vicky Rogers. The middle school picnic was well supported at lunch time. Today is the junior
picnic. We had some really fun games and really cool activities. One of the most interesting games was the playground course. Here are Robert (R13) and Haylie (R1).

14th December 2005 The Events Centre lounge was packed to overflowing with 230 people for the school movie night last night. Everyone enjoyed the fairy tales, powerpoints a documentary and the Te Reo teaching video on our local placenames. Finally the premiere of Atishoo came on and then Stacey Law was presented with the Oscar for best director for 2005. Mr Sheather almost seemed pleased to hand over the trophy! Then everyone went home happy, although it took quite a while for all the popcorn to be swept up!

9th December 2005 Starting from last week the middle and senior syndicates have been doing their fancy dress dancing. The seniors (rooms 10,11 and 12) have been practicing a few different dances they are: Gay Gordon, The American Promenade, Patticake Polka and a Jump Jam dance. The Fancy Dress is on the second to last day of this year. Most of the boys and girls were too immature to even hold hands. They're getting much better though, and now there's only a few people who don't hold hands. Hopefully it will be down to zero people by Fancy Dress!!!

6th December 2005 The day for the Film Fest has been confirmed to the 13th December. That's the same day that we get our reports!!! Look out for the premiere of room 12's movie, 'Atishoo Atishoo we all fall down'. It's written by Stacey Law. Just think. She might be the next Peter Jackson!!!

30th November 2005 Well, some pretty amazing things happened at manual yesterday.
If we were to ask room 12 what the funniest thing had happened at manual, it would be the teatowel catching fire.
Yes, you guessed it!! It was Chelsie. While melting chocolate on the stove, she held the teatowel so she didn't get burnt!! Well!! That's the wrong idea!! The teatowel caught the element!! Here's what happened!

Haylie-Chelsie!!! Chelsie!!!
Chelsie-What?
Haylie-Chelsie!!!!!!!!!
Chelsie- AHHHHHHHH!!!!

Well, in a frantic rush to put out the flame, Haylie grabbed the teatowel and started to try and blow out the flame!! As the flame drew closer to Haylie's hand, she threw it away on the floor!! In a wink, the hero of the day came. Terri-Anne Hollis!!
In an attempt to put out the flame, she stood on it, trying to stamp it out, when suddenly, her own shoe caught on fire!! She blew out the flame on her shoe and went back to fight the flame!! Yes!! Shot Terri!! You saved the day!!

28th November 2005 This week on Thursday, the year 7's and 8's have their intensive. It's good to see so many people participating.
Tomorrow is room 12's last day at manual, and next week is a reward week for those who deserve it.

25th November 2005 Today was Mrs Parker's last day. Good luck for the new baby Mrs Parker. Mrs Bateson is taking over in Room 8 till the end of the year. Today Room 12 finished their movie making, about the bird flu. There were superheroes, the Queen and the bird flu herself in full costume running around the place. Room 6 did a cool Peter and the Wolf dance at assembly too.

18th November 2005 Today was another great day, as usual!
It was great fun to see the participation of the all the children during the 2 weeks.
Today at assembly, the school watched the routines, bunny-hops, balancing beam magicians, trampoline bouncers and the beat board and box masters from some of the awesome children!
(Click here) to see some wonderful photos!!

16th November 2005 This last week has been a very 'flexible' week. The whole school has been participating in a gymnastics program, and on Friday at assembly each syndicate is going to show a routine that they have been working on. You should come if you can to watch them try out their routines. It's at 12 noon.

10th November 2005 Today the seniors had a great day at the interschool athletics sports at Otakiri. Katherine, Chelsie, Stacey & Vikki won the Yr 8 girls relay. All the 65 Awakeri students were dancing with joy. Lots of people got ribbons. Kirsty managed to add drama to the day (we should feel absolutely so sorry for her) by decapping her front tooth. Was it on the high jump bar? No. Did she get hit by the discus? No! Mr. Hawkes hit her in the face! (Just joking!!!) Check out our athletics photos.

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8th November 2005 Lots of athletic records were broken last week. Check out our records page. Records held by such people as Aaron Phillips ( 9yr boys shot put in 2000), Iharaira Hakiaha (13yr boys shot) were broken. Steffi smashed the open 800m record by 5 seconds, while Tawa house beat Kowhai's 4 x 100m relay record by 0.08sec. Tautari Merito set five new records! Jayden Haddock set three.

3rd November 2005 Today was high jump. These were the results.

Age Group	Winner
8 year old girls	Nicky Turpie
8 year old boys	Jarrod Hall (New Record,1.09m)
9 year old girls	Shannon Mower
9 year old girls	Kurt Turpie
10 year old girls	Kere Matthews
10 year old boys	Jordan Steer (Equal Record, 1.20m)
11 year old girls	Karis da Silva
11 year old boys	Guy Kamphorst
12 year old girls	Selena Shaw, Kimberley Byres
12 year old boys	Matthew Reeves
13 year old girls	Chelsie Pettinger, Indiana Brown, Vikki Lowndes
13 year old boys	Nicholas Schuler

2nd November 2005 Today the middle/senior syndicate had the traditonal Awakeri School Athletics day. There are many events such as......... Vortex, Discus, Long- jump, Shot-put and Standing-Jump (which only started last year). High-Jump is on tomorrow and so is the 800 metre open running race. Also today in the morning was the open 1500 metres running race. These are the results.....
Boys: 1st......Vincent Sheather ... 2nd......(Name With-held)...3rd....Jayden Haddock
Girls: 1st......Steffi Rogers...2nd......Selena Shaw...3rd...Sharni Mckay
All the sprints are on this Friday the 4th of November.

28th October 2005 Today Junior and Middle syndicate had their annual "Jump Off Day" to try and raise money for the Jump Rope for heart organisation, and raise money they did! After all the counting of coins had finished, there was a combined total of $300.10!! Well done junior and middle school!!

25th October 2005 Welcome back from the long weekend.
Check out some new photos of the production, thanks to Pam Watson.
This week, the seniors start having their maturation talks. What's it all about, I hear you say. Well... there's the birds and the bees... I'll tell you when I've learnt!

20th October 2005 Tomorrow is the first day of a 4 day weekend. YAY! ! ! Tomorrow is Teacher-only Day, then Saturday and Sunday, then Monday is Labour Day. Everyone is looking forward to their LONG weekend, just chillin' out and relaxing. Well, everyone except for the teachers that is! ! ! There only 9 weeks of the term left, and then its the holidays. We're counting down.

17th October 2005 Today is Group Day at Thornton, for those who did well at our Ag Day last Friday. Group Day is where people from schools ALL OVER the Rangitaiki Plains take their animals and compete against each other for the ultimate champion. You can only go to Group Day if you get a 1st or 2nd place ribbon at your school Ag Day, and you can only compete in the sections in which you got a placing. PHEW!!! I sure do know a lot about Group Day, don't I?
Also, on Sunday 'What Now?' was in town, and some lucky people from Awakeri got on the telly! Karis Da Silva had to say a Tongue Twister, and every time she got something wrong she got GUNGED!!! The tongue twister was
A box of biscuits A box of Mixed biscuits and a biscuit mixer.
Karis said "and a bixed mixer" instead of a biscuit mixer.
Kararaina Kingi also stole the camera away, testing the Delicious Hangi, and the Magee quadruplets Extreme Muck-overed their dad!!!
I told you our school was talented!

14th October 2005 Ag Day!! It only rained after the day finished. The calves had been led, the lambs had been called, the kids had been judged, the dogs had gone through the obstacle course, the pets had been judged, Aroha's cat tried to escape but failed, the police dogs put on a display and the indoor show looked lovely. Click here to see some pics from the indoor show. Now all the winners are off to Group Day at Thornton on Monday.

10th October 2005 SCHOOL'S BACK!!!That's right, it's the beginning of term 4, and to start it off, Ag Day is this Friday. Good luck to all those who are taking an animal. Thursday will be dedicated to making things for the indoor show, and if you are baking something, make sure you bring it with you on Friday. Also, welcome back to Mrs. Bateson, who has just been overseas. She has been teaching in Room 1 today, and will be teaching some other classes, giving the teachers time to get other stuff done.

7th October 2005 Want to be listed as someone who goes to, or went to, Awakeri School, with the chance to write about your memories, etc... visit Old Friends

6th October 2005 Here are some pics of our kapa haka at the Rangitaiki Festival. Although they didn't win any prizes this year, they performed very well against some tough opposition. Not much of the holidays left. Enjoy it!

23rd September 2005 Production and kapa haka are over for another year. Both were a big success. The audience certainly enjoyed last night's final show. Glen the dog got more laughs than usual for his antics. Our enthusiastic ex-pupils even lined the exit door congratulating everyone on their performances. Click here to see photos of the production and kapa haka.

21st September 2005 Yesterday was the opening night, and it was awesome. There was a lot of cheering, and the actors were great. There was a matinee performance today, and the kids sounded as if they liked it a lot. We're very sorry, but we have no tickets for Thursday night. It was a fast seller!!!

20th September 2005 Yesterday we had the Dress Rehearsal in the Little Theatre, and tonight is our opening night. Highlights from yesterday:
Indiana: Asher's beautiful singing. The dancers with their scarves in Koromiko. The tornadoes coming on look like a tornado, it's all happening so fast, the lights are flashing, the streamers are flying to the music. The busking with Micaiah singing.
Daniel: The ultraviolet light making the pois glow. That Joshua G can put people on detention cause he's the sergeant.
Therase: Getting to see everyone in costumes. The Pacific Islanders are very colourful. It's fun in the backstage crew. We made costumes, like the antennae on the wetas, and we sewed the tornado dancers streamers on. Backstage you can just relax. There's no pressure on you if you miss your lines.
Rachael: The lights shining in your eyes. Jasmine and Stephen tripping over when they were tornadoes.
Hamiora: The strobe light was blinding me. I kept looking at it.
Room 7: Mr Fitz tripping over David and all the islanders laughing.
Shannon: I liked being out there on stage. When Mr Fitz directed something wrong. He yelled at Casey to get on stage but Casey said he to wait.
Joel: It was funny when Casey mucked up his Slim Bulgey line. The encore cause it's cool doing jump jam.
Emma: All the costumes. They were well organised, everyone had the right costumes.

16th September 2005 Today all the equipment and gear needed for the Awakeri School Production are being all packed up to go to the Little Theatre in town. On next Monday everybody from year 5 to 8 are going to the Little Theatre for the Dress Rehearsal for the whole day. Every year our shows are successful and hopefully this year we can follow that tradition (of course we will!!) We are going to perform at threee different shows, they are: The Tuesday Night show (which is our first), The Wednesday
Matinee show and of course the Thursday Night Show which is the last show and there is only 25 tickets left for that performance but Tuesday Night on the other hand has plenty of tickets left!

15th September 2005 The dress rehearsal went very well yesterday, and the Kapa Haka showed everyone what they could do. The costumes were great. The Tornado Dancers looked great with their white ribbons dangling off their black clothes, and the islanders with their long sarongs and their leis swinging on their necks. Phew. Tickets are selling fast, so I advise everyone to get in soon. Yesterday we sold $363 worth, and today we raised $513 worth. Most people are getting tickets for Thursday night, but there are still lots of tickets for Tuesday, so get in fast!!! Today we are having another rehearsal with only the props, hopefully we can get everything PERFECT! Hopefully...

8th September 2005 Today we are doing a BIG run-through of the operetta, Storming Godzone. Next week, on Wednesday, we are doing a dress rehearsal at the school, getting ready for the shows from the 19th to the 22nd of September. It's looking great! Tickets are on sale now, and the prices are... Adults-$6 & Children-$3. Also, the high schools have had their open days, and are now taking enrolments for next year. We're gonna miss those year 8's...!!!

1st September 2005 Everyone's into skipping. The big groups on the long ropes get the ground shaking! Some people, including Mrs Gordon, can do Double Dutch. Here are Crystal and Danielle...

30 August 2005 Preparations for the Storming Godzone production are in full swing. Mrs Cronin and Miss Isaac are choreographing, Mr Fitz and Mr Sheather are directing, Mrs Parker and Mr Hawkes are teaching songs, Mrs Merry and Mrs Petersen are organising costumes, actors are learning lines, stage movements, the minstrels are practising their items, the kapa haka is polishing up their items.....

22nd August 2005 Congratulations to all those who went to the EBOP Science Fair in town on Friday. Even better, congratulations to the ten that won awards. Kimberley Byres and Charlotte Little, Connor Jones and Nicholas Schuler got Highly Commended, Alex Moore and Daniel Glassbrook got Silver, and Stacey Law, Emma Barr and Matthew Reeves got GOLD!!!
Matthew Reeves also got two other awards, one for the best Dairy entry, and another for the best Interpretation of Data.

18th August 2005 Yesterday was the annual Rangataiki Soccer/Hockey day. Lucky for us, Wannabe singer, Tamar Rika, came to sing to us, so as to get some more votes for the show on Saturday morning. Also, on Tuesday, some of the most talented mathletes went to Apanui School to compete in a math's competition, and one team (Sam Schuler, Shaun Musgrave, Zoe Johnston & Fiona Coulter)came first!!! Awakeri has had a very lucky run of talented students.

16th August 2005 Tomorrow about 700 kids are coming to our school to play soccer in the annual Rangitaiki Soccer / Hockey Day. The day will start with a special singing performance by ex-Awakeri student Tamar Rika, who won the Whakatane Wannabes contest. She will be competing on the TV 2 show this Saturday (20th) at 10am. She needs your votes! Several other ex-Awakeri stars competed as well, Jessie, Sarah and Rorey, but Tamar won through. Hear Tamar tomorrow at 9.45am, then watch the soccer! Sorry hockey people, you'll be at Edgecumbe!
Are you an ex-pupil? The Old Friends site has quite a few ex-pupils on it. It's fun reading what they say. You may find your old class mates there. http://www.oldfriends.co.nz/
Photos from the great Room 6, 7, & 8 camp at Taupo last week are here.

9th August 2005 All ready to go. Yes this is the Awakeri Newspaper group have wrapped up their newspaper (Awakeri Affairs). It is one of the many newspapers in the NZ Herald Schools Newspaper Competition. It has taken them a term, 45 minutes a day to complete it. They are very proud of their work. Nicholas said the proudest part about their Newspaper was when it was finished. Abigail said that the hardest part of doing the Newspaper was when they had to check the whole newspaper and arranging all their work. If they win, they will all get to go to Auckland and they will get a cheque for $5000 towards our school. Good Luck!!

5th August 2005 Congratulations to Susannah Williams and Fiona Coulter who achieved High Distinction in the Australasian Science Competition. They had to have scored over 99 per cent. Well done!
Click here for photos of our Science Fair.
The newspaper group has FINISHED this year's entry for the NZ Herald competition. They have worked hard with Mr Sheather's help. Here they are....

Nicholas Schuler, Eli Devlin, Alex Moore, Abigail Bakker, Crystal Magee, and last but not least. . . . KARIS DA SILVA!!

3rd August 2005 Congratulations to all those who participated in the Science Fair this year. Of course, not everyone could win, but you all gave it your best shot. We have the results from the judges, and it was very close. In the science division, we had a tie for third equal between Alex Moore: Spider Webs, Silky Threads or Human Meds and Matthew Fulton: Pump or Dump,
second place was awarded to Emma Barr: Insulation, and taking home the gold (or in this case, the trophy!) Matthew Reeves: Wrap n Save
In the technology division, third place was awarded to Sharni McKay & Indiana Brown: Bin Buggy, second place to Miles McConway: Fancy Gamer, and a tie for 1st between Stefan Etter: W. O. F. Box and Nicholas Schuler: Dog Proof Cat Feeder

2nd August 2005 The Science Fair judges are here. Thanks to the Fonterra dairy company for letting us have five of their scientists. All the students were interviewed by the judges, some students even had to be brought back from Manual by those great taxi drivers Mr Fitz and Mr Hawkes. There are some cool topics so the judges will have a hard time choosing the winners.

1st August 2005 The time has come! The clock is ticking and it's that science fair time again! Who will go through to the EBOP science fair? Well, we'll soon see!
The official dates for the EBOP Science fair are the 18th, 19th and 20th of August. The dates have been changed. Please take note!!

27th July 2005 Today I talked to Miss Isaac, the new teacher for room 11. She was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, though she mostly lived in the BOP and Waikato. She was a teacher for a while then she went back to university to learn about computers, and became a Business Analyst. She wanted to 'live' the world, rather than just read about it so she moved to England where she began teaching again. In her holidays she travelled to other places such as Egypt, Turkey and parts of Europe. She saw the pyramids, went inside one, sailed the Nile, went to the ANZAC battle fields on the day of celebrations and saw the Mona Lisa in Paris + heaps more. Isn't she so lucky!!!
When she saw the job advertisement online, she fondly remembered a trip to the Awakeri Hot Pools Camp Site when she was a child and having had frozen togs. She submitted an application form, and (by sheer luck!!) got the job. Just kidding!!!

25th July 2005 Well, the holidays are over, and it's time to get out your pencils and rulers. This term, to take over for Mrs. Bateson is Miss Isaac. She has just flown from England, although she is originally from N.Z. She'll be with us for two weeks before Mrs. Bateson leaves. Room 11 is looking forward to having Miss Isaac as their teacher, but it will be sad to to see Mrs. Bateson leave.

20th July 2005 The holidays are nearly over. Hope those seniors have got their science fair testing nearly finished. They'll have a week to get the presentation ready when they come back. They're due in on Monday 1st August.
Mrs Bateson has two more weeks left before she heads overseas.

7th July 2005 Hooray. Today some builders have come to remove the old windows in middle-school and are replacing them with brand new ones! At last, we don't have to put up with creaking windows, and signs saying 'Please don't open me!!!' Well, the teachers are very relieved. This is what they had to say:
I'm very excited. I can't wait to have brand new windows in our class. Mrs. Gordon
I'm glad I won't have to worry about the kids getting hurt by the broken glass. Mrs. Petersen What I'll like most is being able to open them at our leisure. Mrs. Cronin

30th June 2005 Yesterday the senior school went to the Little Theatre to watch the Trident High School production, Radioactive. They managed to see a couple of former Awakeri students, including Sarah Richmond, who used to be a website monitor for our school! It was based on an old 1940's radio station, they had sound effects actors, explorers lost on a tropical island, some great singers, etc.

29th June 2005 Congratulations to Stacey Law for winning the speech contest with her topic Fit For Life. In front of 70 people, the judges had a hard task. They placed Matthew Reeves 2nd and Chris Stanton 3rd. Click here for some photos of the final.
Also, congrats to all those who ran at Manawahe yesterday. We were really proud, as some people from Awakeri took home the gold. The Awakeri winners were Kimberley Byres (12 and 13 yr olds) and Danielle Le Lievre (10 and 11 yr olds). We had many seconds and thirds as well. Out of all the schools we had the most placings!! 4 of our teams got first, 1 team got a second and 1 got a third. Click here for some photos.

28th June 2005 It was very warm this morning, the sun was shining, and everyone was outside, playing. NOT!!! It was freezing cold, and the whole school was covered in a white frost. Kirsty & Karis had a competition to see who could keep their hands on the cold ice! Kirsty won of course. Well, that's winter for you. Also, good luck to all those who are running in the interschool cross country at Manawahe today. We hope you keep warm up there!

24th June 2005 Congratulations to all those who made it into the semi-finals of the senior speech competition. We have had the last 6 speakers today. Unfortunately, 2 people were just too sick to say their speeches. That darn flu's got everybody. Anyway, the finals are on Tuesday night, and these 6 students are going. (If they don't get sick, of course!) Chris Stanton, Vikki Lowndes, Stacey Law, Miles McConway, Vincent Sheather and Matthew Reeves. Good luck Guys!

23rd June 2005 Round one of the senior speech semi finals today. Vincent and Miles were the first two and they set a high standard for everyone else. Miles's Scottish accent was impressive! We hope the five sick semifinalists will be OK to do theirs tomorrow. The grand final is Tuesday night, 7.30 pm in the staff room. ALL WELCOME! Who will win the Oratory Shield, that was first presented in 1949???

22nd June 2005 The flu is so bad at the moment. Today 71 kids and two teachers were off sick. It's been like this for the last week. Mrs Merry's class had 13 away today, not including the teacher!!! The speech semifinals have had to be postponed till tomorrow.

21st June 2005 School photos today. The photos were taken in the staffroom because of rain outside. It all went well until... Mrs Bateson realised that Kane was still in the sickbay and had missed Room 11's photo. She got her class back for another try (well apart from the sick ones who'd been taken back home), and Finn fell off the end of the row and landed in this special pot plant. The pride of the staff room. He smashed three bits off it!!

17th June 2005 It's that time again of year again. Life Ed. Yesterday I interviewed Shirley, the teacher of Life Ed. This is what she had to say.
Please tell me a bit about your job. My job is to educate children, so they can make informed decisions about looking after themselves.
What is your favourite part of the job? I love talking to kids, answering their questions. I love reading their jokes, and hearing what they have to say. I'm always learning new things.
Is year 8 the oldest age you teach? It is, usually, but at some schools, like Rangitaiki Int. I teach year 9.
What is the worst part of your job? I don't like vaccuuming, and I really hate making relationships with people, then having to leave the school.

13th June 2005 Mrs Merry has the school cross country squad training hard for the interschool. Click here for some cool pics of our cross country race. The seniors speeches are going really well. Over half of the students have given theirs. Today Room 12 had 14 people away!!!! There is a lot of 'flu around!

8th June 2005 Today was the first of three Meningococcal immunizations. They were held in the Complex and all the classes had their turn.
The seniors have written their speeches and have started to say them to their class. If they do well in the class they will move on to the semi-finals, and then the finals. They are also carrying the heavy burden of the SCIENCE FAIR. It is in term 3, but they must start to think about it now. I'm sure lots of people have already started, NOT! Oh well. (Sigh)

3rd June 2005 Yesterday was the Awakeri Cross Country day. Everyone in the school entered in it and many people came out with firsts, seconds and thirds. The people who made it to the top ten in their age group from ages 8-13 are going to Manawahe later this month. Mrs Merry will get them out every day to train. These are the placings:
(8 and 9 year olds) 1st Daniel Reeves 2nd Sam Burgess 3rd Kurt Turpie. Girls: 1st Shannon Mower 2nd Kelsi Haddock 3rd Abbey Patterson
(10-11 year olds) 1st Jayden Haddock 2nd Joshua Mcintyre 3rd Thomas Attewell. girls: 1st Steffi Rogers 2nd Selena Shaw 3rd Jemma Shaw
(12-13 year olds) 1st Vincent Sheather 2nd name withheld 3rd Matthew Reeves.Girls 1st Vikki Lowndes 2nd Katherine Hall 3rd Therase Jarrett.
Unfortunately no one broke any records but Steffi Rogers was only a few seconds off!! Every year the course is the same except this year there was a stuck gate blocking the track so maybe Steffi could've broken the record if she didn't have to climb over the gate. Better luck next year!!

31st May 2005 This week on Thursday is the Awakeri School Cross-Country. This is when everyone in the entire school runs a course to get first place. The top ten fastest runners from year
4 -8 go to the Rangitiki plains Cross-Country which is held up in the Manawahe hills. Awakeri has been known to do pretty well so hopefully we can dominate Manawhe this year (we most probably will). Good luck to Everyone this Thursday!!.

30 May 2005 Thursday was the inter-school Rugby/Netball Day. The netball was held at Te Teko Pavilion. 4 teams from this school were involved in the sport. The Rugby day was very successful, and the P.T.A raised heaps of money for the flood victims. A lot of the Awakeri teams did very well, and won all their games.

27th May 2005 Everyone's excited as today at 4:00 is the official opening of the Awakeri Events Centre! The Awakeri Events Centre started getting built 7 years ago, and our school have been using it for various activities e.g.; Assembly, Indoor sports, P.E etc. etc. Over the last couple of years, people have been in the Complex, finishing it off. Now it's time for the awaited unveiling. And guess what, Don Brash is going to be there! That's right, Don Brash, as in the leader of the National party. We did ask Helen Clarke, but she was too busy.

25th May 2005
Tomorrow is the interschool rugby day for schools from all over the Rangitiki Plains. It was going to be held in Matata but that Frightening flood turned the rugby field into a giant swimming pool!! Of course we can't play rugby in a swimming pool so thats why we changed the venue to Awakeri School. It's optional to play rugby but only years 5, 6, 7, 8 have the choice on playing rugby tomorrow. Te Teko have been known to be the professionals at rugby through the years of this event. Awakeri have three teams they are: the Awakeri Hurricanes, Highlanders and the All mighty Chiefs. The rules are normal rugby rules except there is only seven aside and three man scrums and line-outs. There will be many schools competing. Good Luck Awakeri!!

20th May 2005
What a nice surprise. This is an email that we received today. We website monitors think that its cool to receive feed back like this. We would like to wish Concord School good luck in their website.

Hi
Our school is in the process of updating/upgrading our website. I've been searching out examples of other schools sites to promote discussion about what's possible and have come across yours - I'm hugely impressed, so just have to tell you that!
I really like the humour and practicality you've used, and having perused every page am staggered by the depth of content you have available. I'd really like to aim to achieve the participation of our students in developing the content of our site that you have clearly managed at your school.
Congratulations!
Regards, Karen Fraser
(Concord School Board Chair)

18th May 2005 Yesterday when room 12 went to Manual, Karis had to stay behind because she forgot to bring her shoes! Also, when they got back yesterday, they played Headbands. Chelsie was trying to guess that she was Posh Spice and she said " Am I Sposh Pi...!"
Mr. Hawkes still hasn't gotten over it.

17th May 2005 Rooms 10 and 11 came back from Tui Ridge camp last Friday all tired but satisfied from their wonderful 4 days of camp. When we first got to Tui Ridge Mrs Merry and Mrs Bateson showed us around. Tui Ridge is huge and when I say huge I really do mean it!! Our first activity was THE AMAZING RACE!! It took a few hours getting through all the activities like eating veges, looking for clues etc. The parents (no surprise) felt like playing the dirty way by skipping a few activities!!
The next 2 days (Wednesday and Thursday) were a bit more exciting because we started our rotation activities. They were: high ropes, abseiling, archery, mountain biking, flying fox and indoor games. Everyone liked either High Ropes or abseiling the best. The activity everyone was nervous for was the High Ropes because of the terrifying trapeze!! Others call it the leap of faith. It's when you have to jump from a small pole about 20 metres up in the air to a trapeze. If you miss you fall to your death!! Nah I was just joking, you are actually harnessed. Mountain biking was probably the hardest activity. There were four different tracks. They are: the green (the easiest) then it goes to the blue, then yellow and the hardest track...... the red track!! Only one group completed it that was group number 1, the rest chickened out.
On Friday the last day of camp, we played Mass Soccer, thats when 6 teams all have to score in all the goals to win. There was only one problem, the prolem was one team cheated. Guess who cheated? Yes of course it was the parents team!! They all snuck up to the soccer balls before Mrs Merry blew the whistle!! After that we all went to the Rotorua Aquatic Centre where we all went on the inflatable aqua run. The adults made it a challenge by shaking it, so we all fell off and they were squirting us with the water hose!! It was a great camp!! Have a look at some photos.
Today we had an amazing group called the Kahurangi dance group. They told us stories about famous Maori people. They also did some string stories which they used coloured string to do pictures of what was happening in the story. Then a lady from the group picked some people out of the audience which was Miles, Joshua and Mr. Rutherford. They made the volunteers do some stick actions which was really funny to watch. The dancing was really awesome and the costumes were really cool.

13th May 2005 Alex, Karis and Kirsty said goodbye to Frances Campbell at assembly, on behalf of everyone. Did they say some nice things? Of course! Mrs Campbell played piano, taught ukelele, read some cool stories, made ginger beer.. The list goes on. The singing wars her class had with Room 12 were lots of fun.
Our fantastic caretaker Mr Lawrence Wilson has also had his last day. We will miss all the great things he used to build for us, like the new desk tops we are now using.
Rooms 5, 6, & 7 have some student teachers from Waikato. Lucky them.

12th May 2005 Well, we have had a very silent week with rooms 10 &11 on camp. Unfortunately they are coming home tomorrow! Saturday sports is back, and Mr. Fitz. is expecting at least 19 team captains to go up at the Monday assemblies to say their sports results. Tomorrow is Mrs. Campbell's last day, and she's expecting a lot of presents!

5th May 2005 Everyone is right into things. Kirsty pushed herself so hard in yesterday's 12 minute run that she fainted afterwards! All the school's soccer, hockey and netball teams are practising hard out, after school, for their games this weekend. Chelsie will have to learn not to step when she's on the netball court. She should play a proper sport anyway!

2nd May 2005 Hooray!!! Awakeri school is back in action. This term is going to be very busy. We have our school cross-country, all 3 Australasian competitions and the inter-school rugby/netball day. The senior school has their annual speech contest, and their science fair. It's a lot of work, but I'm sure they'll cope.

1st May 2005 Term Two starts tomorrow. Get your brains ready! Mrs Frances Campbell has two weeks of school left before she leaves for Oamaru.

15th April 2005 The last day of term one. This afternoon there are a lot of fun activities organised by the house captains, except half of them won't be there, they'll be at Technology at Edgecumbe College! The whole school, apart from Room 12, get to choose from things like Awakeri Rulz, skateboarding, golf, skipping to music, petanque, playing marbles, etc, etc. Have a good holiday everyone.

13th April 2005 Well, the schools going crazy for Jump Jam. Jump Jam is a dance that the students (and even the teachers) are learning. It is an aerobic exercise that all the students are eventually going to learn. Their main dance is Keep on Moving. It is a great way to get the students going in the morning. Also, in the weekend, some of Awakeri's students went to the netball, between the BOP Magic and the Diamonds. They loved it.

11th April 2005 Yahoo!! It's the last week of school for term one!! Both teachers and children are glad. Well you shouldn't be surprised by the way some us act at times.
This Friday is going to be a fun day. The House Captains will be organising games. There will be games for A, B and C block to play in the afternoon!
Today Indiana tried that old trick of getting out of homework. Check it out on Room 10's page.

8 April 2005 On Wednesday we had the annual inter-school Touch competition. It was a successful day, making a profit of $1005.55!!! Yesterday, rooms 10,11 &12 went on a science trip to the Ohiwa Harbour to complete their study on the mangroves. They looked at the animals and plants living in the different zones. They studied the height of the mangroves and their aerial roots. They compared differences between the high, mid & low tide zones. Luckily for them, the weather was beautiful, and there was no rain!!! Click here to check out photos of our field trip.

1 April 2005 Last week, room 5 had a camp at the Lions Hut. Unfortunately,they came back to lousy weather, and a thunder-storm! They have some cool photos of camp, follow the link from their page.
Next week on Wednesday, we are hosting the annual inter-school touch competition. There are 52 teams from 7 schools competing. On Thursday next week rooms 10,11 and 12 are going on a science trip to Ohiwa Harbour to study mangroves and other water life.

24 March 2005 Photos of Top School are here. Have a happy Easter break everyone.

21 March 2005 Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of TOP SCHOOL!!It was a great day, and over all we earned over $20,000. This year we had an entertainment group who bought some aweosome activities over from Tauranga. They had a chair-o-plane, which spins around (and makes you feel a bit sick) and a pirate ship, that goes back and forth. There were lots of schools competing, but of course only one school could take home the Grand prize. In the primary section we had Thornton winning, and in the intermediate section we had Whakatane Int, who also took home the Grand prize.The cheerleaders also did very well coming third, behind Paroa and Thornton. ABB also had a prize draw for three lucky schools, Ashbrook, Rotoiti and Kawerau Int, who all won $100.

18 March 2005 Awakeri School is humming with activity. Everyone is getting ready for Sunday. The cheerleaders gave the school a demo of their chants at assembly.

17 March 2005 This Sunday is the 20th ever Top School competition. Mr Fitz started them off in 1986. He copied off an old TV competition called Top Town. Now lots of schools are copying him! Today I interviewed Mr. Fitz and asked him about what the first Top School in Awakeri was like. He kindly told me all he could remember.
What activities were there? There was one activity that we don't have now that involved the swimming pool. There was a rope above the pool, and you had to swing to the middle of the pool and land on a platform. You then had to put some tubes covered in detergent on your legs, and slide across a plank of wood to the other side. FUN!!
How many schools were there? There were only 12 schools competing back then, and now there are 27!!!
How much has it improved over the years? It is a lot easier to run now, because we have all the right technology.
What did it have that it doesn't have now? We Don't use the swimming pool any more. The field was a lot smaller, because we didn't have the hockey field. We got about $800 profit then, and we now get about $22 000 profit.
Have you got a special highlight? Not really. It is really good working with the community.

14th March 2005 Last Friday The Top School Team reserves were picked. They're Asher Jones and Ben Hancox.
Also the house Rimu has been on a winning roll lately. First they win the Kids relay at Swimming sports and now the middle school Longball Competition (Fluke). Speaking of Swimming for the people who are reading this web page right now and who are eager to know how the Awakeri Swimmers went at the Inter School Swimming Sports they did really well!! The Year 7&8's Relay team won out of all the other schools. THAT'S AMAZING!! Well not really because everyone knows that Awakeri School is the most talented and intelligent school ever (well duh)!! The relay team were: Kimberley Byres, Michelle Blayney, Vincent Sheather & Jakob Parker.

11th March 2005 Today two lucky classes, room 11 and room 12, gathered into room 12 to listen to music teacher Mr. Bayliss talk to them about the Clarinet and the Saxophone. He hopes that some students will decide to play the Clarinet this year.

8th March 2005 Today the guns from Awakeri School went to the Rangitaiki Plains InterSchool Swimming Sports. Hopefully they come back proud with first placings written all over their faces. Because everyone knows that Awakeri School is the best school around so there's got to be a few firsts, seconds and and third placings. Also there are no 13 year old students in our school YET so we have the disadvantage.

Also Room 12 came back from camp last Friday (which kind of spoiled our peace and quiet a bit). They had a great time though so that's the main thing.

6th March 05 Here are some nice pics of the school swimming sports. Thanks Jodi Burke! The interschool sports are on Tuesday. Go Awakeri!

28th February 2005 Last Friday the 25th of February Awakeri School had a swimming day.

Anybody from year 4 and up could enter, actually they had to go because it's not optional just like going to school. Anyway It's a bit boring just telling you about wagging school so I'll start by telling you about which events we could've entered in. There was Open 2 length freestyle, 1 length freestyle all ages, 1 length backstoke all ages, 1 length breaststoke from ages 8 upwards, all those events in width except breastroke. There was a bombing and best dive competition. Also there was a relay for the fastest house. Rimu won (Fluke). Now I'll tell you the interesting stuff, I'm talking about the Adults versus teachers versus the winning house (Rimu). The parents took the win with Rimu house coming 2nd and our unfit teachers coming last. One thing to remember from that day was when Jakob Parker (a student from Awakeri School who was in Rimu house) passed his last years teacher (Mrs Bateson) which gave the Rimu house the 2nd!!

Also, today the Awakeri Top School Team was selected. There are 6 boys and 6 girls but unfortunately only 10 get to take part because the other 2 are reseves they are in no particular order: Ben Hancox, Tony Sellars, James Holani, Vincent Sheather, Matthew Bateson and Matthew Reeves. The Girls are: Katherine Hall, Indiana Brown, Vikki Lowndes, Chelsie Pettinger, Leah Maxwell and Asher Jones. Unfortunately We don't know who the Reserves are.

21st February 2005 On Friday Room 10 went to manual. Last Year it was all at the Edgecumbe Primary School Buildings. But this year it has changed. The food technology is at the Primary School and the Electronics is at the College buildings. At Edgecumbe College they are constructing brand new buildings for manual. We're hoping they will be up in this year sometime.Well anyway I'll give you a few details on what happened there on the start of the first day. When the students got off the bus they were welcomed into the main hall for a brief explanation of what we would learn etc. The main teacher was at a course so we had relief teachers helping us as well as a student from the college. His name is Shaun and he was good with electronics. Also an extra bonus was that the canteen was open. Some people bought a few snacks from there. We had our own area that we could play in out of the school boundaries. My estimates reckon that it was about two acres in size. We had an exceptional time.

18th February 2005 Yahoo!! yesterday, we had our annual senior school fundraiser. In total we earned $1425.00!!! All the seniors were working hard to keep the younger kids happy. Everyone was running around the events buying food, playing games, painting, jumping out of windows and blowing bubbles! Click here to see some of the photos of our great day.

16th February 2005 Excitement is in the air, as tomorrow is our annual, senior school FUNRAISER. All the seniors have been working hard to come up with some activities for the younger kids to enjoy, in order to raise money for their camps this year. Some activities are, Bubble Bop, Art Mania, Time Out, Putt Putt Golf, Wacky Waterfight and The Snack Shack!So, every one, get out there tomorrow and have some fun!!!

14th February 2005 It's now....half past one and I've just came in from a Monsoon-like down-pour. The depth of rain near Room 10 was just over 8 centimetres at one stage. It's still going now but it's not as hard
Also Top School Trials start tomorrow at lunch break. It's a run so get fit!!

10th February 2005 The Awakeri School Students are getting all revved up for the Fund Raiser that is coming up next week. The Form ones and twos are the ones who are hosting the event. The income from the stores and activities go towards the Senior Syndicate's camps. Room 10 did some cool skits at assembly advertising their activities.

8th February 2005 House Captains Here are the results of this years elections for our House Captains! Congratulations!
Tawa's House Captains are Matthew Bateson, Kimberley Byres, Emma Comiskey and Nick Schuler.
Rata's House Captains are Emma Barr, Therase Jarrett, James Attewell and Matthew Reeves. Rimu's House Captains are Vincent Sheather, Joe Burke, Chelsie Pettinger and Haylie Griffen. Kowhai's House Captains are Finn Kamphorst, Leah Maxwell, Steffi Rogers and Chris Stanton!

4th February 2005 . Through the years we've had many exciting and excellent website monitors. Today Mr Hawkes has selected some great new website monitors. At this stage of reading this paragraph you would probably be thinking who are these website monitors thats why I'm going to tell you. In Room 1 the website monitor is a called Asher. She is new to our school but we're persuaded that she'll make a great job. The others are Stacey Law, Steffi Rogers, Carleen Steer, Daniel Glassbrook, Leah Maxwell, Chelsie Pettinger, Miles McConway, Rhona Whitaker, Vincent Sheather, Chris Johnston, Karis da Silva, Sharni McKay, Matthew Jones, James Holani, Casey Magee, Haylie Griffen and Matthew Reeves! I do Room 5. The other monitor who does the main web page is Kirsty Wakelin. Hopefully we will have a good year like many others before us (I'm sure we will).

2nd February 2005 Yes! Awakeri's back and into action! With around about 320 students in the new 2005 school year, it's going to be crowded, BUT AWESOME!!!!
We also have two more brilliant teachers in our school! Miss Clancy and Mrs. Sheather who has taught at Awakeri before.
Awakeri school has their swimming sports coming up and we are excited to swim in our school pool! Now, what's different about our field? Ah that's right ! We have a great spanking new rugby goal post on our field.

28 January 2005 Last year 63 of our ex-pupils got prizes at the local high schools. Excellence in action! We are proud of you.
Message Board. Do you want to have your say about Awakeri School, so others can read it? Click on the link to the left.

23 January 2005
The teachers are back at work. Kids enjoy the last days of your holidays. Ex-year 8s get your uniforms ready!
Welcome to our new teachers Bronwyn Clancy and Lea-anne Sheather. The classes' pages won't be updated for a while, till the new website monitors are selected, but the calendar is ready.
Are you an ex-pupil? The Old Friends site has quite a few ex-pupils on it. It's fun reading what they say. You may find your old class mates there. http://www.oldfriends.co.nz/

Old News Do you want to look at the news from last year and before that? It is reeeeaaallllly cool. Click here to find that interesting old news from 2004, 2003 or even 2002 and before.