August 2013

KBB Gold for Big Band

 

Having been selected to perform at the KBB Gala Concert at the end of last week's KBB Festival our Big Band was awarded one of just two golds (the other went to Pukekohe High School).   Lynfield's other music groups also received awards - the orchestra received a bronze, the Chamber Orchestra Silver(led by Dave Snelling this was the first time they have been entered) and the Concert Band received their best ever result with a Silver Award.   Congratulations to all our musicians!

 

Trash to Fashion Winners

Over the weekend we had some fabulous results in the Auckland schools Trash to Fashion competition.

 

Lynfield had 7 finalists and 4 received prizes.

-Sophie Lin, Year 10, (upper left image) received highly commended in the Dazzle section.  Her garment was constructed out of old curtain fabric and she hand made all the fabric flowers out of scrap material. The garment was designed to be a red carpet dress.

-Dhruva Patel and Fah Singhasenee, Year13, (upper right, dress modelled by Fah) won a $2000 scholarship to study fashion next year for their design. Their outfit was made from cassette tape, fabric scraps and paper. This dress was also to be worn as a red carpet dress

-Kayla Rouselle, Year10, (lower left) came 1^st in the Untamed section and also won the Overall Supreme Award and her garment will be used to promote the competition next year on their website, posters and handbooks. Her garment was made from, plastic wire, sacking, vinyl, garden netting and twine. Her main inspiration was a birds nest.
 

Maths Competition Excellence
 

Congratulations to these students who excelled in the NZ Senior Maths Competition.

 

David Wu - Top 12

 

Top 100 - Tim Hight, Steven Ling, Nick Waddington, Yinli Wang, Kevin Yu
Top 200 -Andrew Coffin
 

Success at Geography Quiz

 

An impressive performance by four Lynfield College students placed them 3rd out of the 28 Auckland schools that entered the Year 12 and 13 Geography competition. The annual event was organised by the Auckland Geography Teachers’ Association and tested a wide variety of Geography facts and concepts. Head Of Geography, Jane Moore, said that the teachers present were ‘blown away’ by the students’ knowledge, “we agreed, in many instances, that our students’ knowledge of the world exceeded our own.” Giacomo Gambassi, Mason Ng, Akash Charles and Nick Waddington were awarded certificates and movie vouchers for their achievement.

 

 

Date for Your Diary

 

It is coming to that time of the year when we will be celebrating the achievements of our Technology students at the Lynfield College Technology Evening and Fashion Show.

This exciting evening will be held on the 27^th September in our school hall. The show will commence at 7.00pm. Further information will be found around school. Please come along and show your support for the student’s hard work. See you there! J
 

KBB Music Festival
 

The annual KBB Music Festival is being held this week at the Holy Trinity Cathedral.

The Lynfield College Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra both performed on the first day. The Chamber orchestra is directed by David Snelling and has 18 members. They played 4 pieces from Vivaldi to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
The Orchestra (40 members) directed by Sigmund Sue also performed 4 pieces. This is the largest and strongest orchestra the school has. (two photos below)
 

The Concert band (right) performed on Wednesday in the Holy Trinity Cathedral and the Big Band is scheduled to compete on Thursday evening at 8.30pm in St Mary's.

The following Lynfield College students have been selected from a huge number of players from all the competing schools to perform as members of the KBBMF Honours Orchestra.

Spelling It Out Correctly
 

Congratulations to Nithya Narayanan, Year 10, who was placed 1^st in the 2013 Vegemite Spelling Bee Auckland Regional final on Sunday 18 August.  She survived 8 nail-biting rounds against more than 70 competitors from the Northern region to win first place.

The dark purple fruit the ‘pomegranate’ will no doubt be Nithya’ s favourite for life, as having learnt hundreds of words to make it this far, this was the word which clinched it. Nithya received a flight and accommodation package and will now go on to compete in the National finals in Wellington.

Congratulations also to the other 5 Lynfield students who made the final: Rupin Kumar, Elysha Negi, Isabel Yu, Daniel Adams and Jia Dua. Elysha and Isabel made it as far as the penultimate round which meant 4 out of the 7 students on stage in the penultimate round were from Lynfield College. 
 

Here are a few words from the list for you to test yourself:
 

1. - Is it:

1. pirouette
2. pirrouete
3. pirourete

 2 - Is it:

1. dessicated
2. desiccated
3. desicatted

 3 - Is it:    
     a. rubarb
     b. rhubarb
     c. rubarhb
 
Answers:  1.a    2.b     3.b

 
 

Significant Maths Achievement for Tim Hight

 

Congratulations to Tim Hight(Year 13). Tim undertook a University Mathematics paper in the first semester this year and with a 96.3% final result came second overall in the course.

 

A letter to the college Mathematics Faculty from The University of Auckland says..

 

Tim was 2nd in Maths 153, with a final grade of 96.3%. This is a very able class indeed, and to be so near the top is pretty much a guarantee that Tim can do anything he chooses, and should not limit his aspirations at all.

 

Such an excellent result - Lynfield is very proud of you, Tim!

 

Nick Waddington and Kelvin Yu also achieved highly in the same University paper.

 

From the Geography Department..
 

Year 11 Geography Quiz

 

The Year11 Geo quiz team competed last week in the Auckland round of the Maatangi Whenua competition run by the NZ Board of Geography Teachers. The team of Tanisha Shah, Alex Stone and Ryan Williams competed with focus and enthusiasm and they were excited to be in the lead after the first three rounds.   However, a couple of not so good rounds saw them end up a creditable 4th overall. One of the markers commented that they were surprised they didn’t win as they had great geographical knowledge.

 

Level 3 Geographers Go Troppo

 

For a brief period, surfers at Muriwai on Auckland’s west coast, were outnumbered by oranges, grapefruit and lemons bobbing on the waves. However, the citrus was not an exercise in marmalade making. Year 13 Geographers were using them as floats, to determine the direction and velocity of sea currents in the area. The brightly coloured, biodegradable fruit were easy to see from the beach and provided results the students needed for their Research internal assessment.

Other experiments involved determining how much sand was being ‘saltated’ (moved) by the wind and whether there was a difference in beach slope angles between Muriwai beach and neighbouring Maori Bay.

Unaware of this, the surfers were probably more concerned how close Giacomo’s catapault was going to hurl the next orange.

Kapahaka at Citizenship Ceremony

 

Our Kapa Haka group (Te Roopu Kapa Haka o te Kareti o Pukewiwi) performed for Citizenship Ceremonies held August 7 at the Fickling Convention Centre, Mt Albert Road.

 

80 Candidates were awarded citizenship. Candidates families and friends were also present to celebrate this occasion.

 

Our students were congratulated on the high standard of performance. Auckland City Council and Internal Affairs Representatives were also grateful for our contribution when they had only given Lynfield College two days notice regarding the performance opportunity. Our thanks to Mrs Leauga, HOD Maori, for her organisation and support of students.
 

Ahakoa he iti te roopu, he kaha te mauri a nga tauira.

Youth Parliament
 

Erica D’Souza reports..

 

Every 3-4 years, the Ministry of Youth Development, in collaboration with the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Office of the Clerk, Parliamentary Services and New Zealand’s 121 Members of Parliament organises a Youth Parliament. It is a chance for the youth of New Zealand to participate in the Parliament decision making processes.

 

Along with the Youth Parliament, a Youth Parliamentary Press Gallery is also set up to help with the replication of Parliament Press Gallery.

 

Phil Goff came to speak to interested students at a leadership meeting in Term 1 and then Ms Munro accepted 5 nominations and we all applied in our various electorates and categories.

 

I was privileged to be one out of 20 youth from around New Zealand to be selected for the Youth Press Gallery. I had the opportunity to learn about how the Press Gallery operates, sat in on debates and hearings and then wrote reports so that members of the public could read about the suggestions that the Youth Parliament members put forward. This was a great honour and a huge stepping stone for me. The experience will certainly inform my future career aspirations to be a journalist.

Rugved Deshpande our Head Boy and Peter MacClure (pictured here with me) were also selected as Youth Parliament Representatives for New Lynn and Mt Roskill electorates. This was a significant achievement for the College as not all schools even manage to get one representative selected into the Youth Parliament.

 

I would like to thank the College for assisting me with this leadership opportunity.

 

 

Trash to Fashion Projects
 

Year 10 students Kayla Rousselle and Bridget Logan-Haley
report..

 

To start off our exciting year in Year 10 Soft Technology, we began with our Trash to Fashion project. This was also run as an after school club, where two groups of Year 9’s and two groups of Year 13’s also entered.

 

Trash to Fashion is a competition based on reusing recyclable materials. There are various categories ranging from glamorous ball gowns to avant-garde creations. First we researched previous year’s entries and winners to gain inspiration and to get an idea of the expectations involved. Our next set of research was to do with our chosen categories, and then we got designing…

Designing tested our creative abilities and made us think out of the box. Once we had our final design concepts, we started collecting our recyclable materials. We had a term to make our garments; we found that by the end we wished we had more time.

Once we had finally finished creating our garments, there was no time to relax, the semi-finals were here. Semi-finals were a blast! We had to model our own garments on a catwalk in front of a large audience. Back stage our nerves were at an all-time high.  Not only did we have to impress the judges on stage, we had to make a good impression on the backstage judges. The backstage judges queried us on our use of recyclable materials and asked about the different techniques we used to make our garments. We lined up in our groups at the side of the stage, waiting for our time to shine. Eventually, we got the chance to show off our garments. We had to do two rounds of the cat-walk.

		The feeling after we came off the stage was electric. We had our photos taken by a professional photographer, and then we got changed and went home. A week later, our results came in. Unfortunately not everyone in our class made it through to the finals. It was a great experience all around, even if we didn’t all make it in.

 

Students who got into the Final were: Kayla Rousselle, Upasna Kumar, Suraiya Kanji ,Sophie Lin, Samantha Donovan, Dhrurva Patel and Fah Singhasenee. Learning Support Group: Matariki Kites (as shown on the left) -Ashley Phillips, Lena Zhang Harap, Nicolette Half, Priyanka Anand, Sophia May and Rebecca Fleming-Yates.

 

NZQA Fees Payments Now Overdue
 

NZQA Fees should have been paid by the end of last term. Invoices were issued to students early in Term 2. The College will accept late payments until Wednesday 21 August. We have to close off totally at that time to enable us to balance up and meet our own NZQA deadlines.

The school will not accept payments after 21 August. Students/Parents will have to make their own arrangements to pay NZQA directly. A late fee of an additional $50 will be applied by NZQA from mid September. If no fee is paid, NZQA will not release a candidate's results

13PE Revel in a Muddy Challenge
 

It may not be a routine day at school or a usual type of assessment, but the 13PE students and two staff who participated in the recent Tough Guy and Gal Challenge scored the activity at the Excellence level.

 

 

	The students were required to complete the challenge course within specified times in order to reach an achievement level - and they all succeeded.   The mud did not deter the students; rather they seemed to revel in it. The images show the group prior to the start, and then as they progressed along the course.

Successful Art Exhibition

“On the Boundary” - the Senior Visual Art Students and Teachers exhibition, at the Upstairs Gallery over the last few days has been visited by several hundred people and has received very positive reviews.

The gallery in New Lynn has been impressed by the calibre of works exhibited there and very pleased to see the response from the local community. The gallery will no doubt continue to attract attention as future exhibitions are held there.

We congratulate our students and staff on a very successful event. The images below were taken at the opening function.