Week 7 is here

Kia ora koutou.

It has been a very busy few weeks at Gisint coming off our ERO visit, Maths Week, The School Science Fair, Turanganui Heritage Trails, Winter Sports Exchanges and Tamararo today. Here is a quick run down of some of the awesome things that our kids have been doing.

Gisborne Intermediate School Science Fair 2016

It was our syndicate expectation that all of our children submitted a science or technology fair project as an individual or team. There were a range of interesting topics covered such as the Magical properties of Kawakawa, Electrical Circuits, Tsunami's, Taste Buds, Tornado's, Solar Powered Water Desalination, Litter Removal Fun Theory Projects, Mouldy Bread, Slime and Methods of Catching fish to name a few. A number of students have made it through to the Regional Science Fair and we will share these names with you this week as some have a wee bit more to do before they are ready. All of the turanganui teachers are proud of the learning and team work done by our children. Self and teacher assessments of these projects will be done this week Turanganui projects. Thank you to everyone who supported their child at home.

Turanganui Heritage Trails

Over the past three weeks we have had all five of our classes involved in the Turanganui Heritage Trails run by the awesome team at Turanga Health. The final catch up sessions for rooms 19, 20 and 21 are this week and we are all completing different summaries of the historical information gained. We live in a beautiful city full of rich NZ history and it has been fantastic actually getting out amongst it. Turanga Health donated drink bottles for every student in our team, picked us up and dropped us off for each session and then taught us key information about these three locations.

1: Kaiti Hill

2: The Three Rivers and surrounding areas

3: Oneroa from the old Breakers site to Midway Beach

We look forward to sharing our work samples with you in the near future.

Tamararo 2016

We were asked by Papa Pura and Koka T to submit a team to perform at Tamaro last Monday and these students performed at the showgrounds this morning after only a couple of days of putting their bracket together. We are so proud of everyone from our experienced performers to our newbies who put their hand up to try another Gisint opportunity. Well done!

Maths

Congratulations to Tobias Horsfield, Caleb Ruru and Ryland Tomoana who were the top Mathletics students in our school last term. These three were acknowledged at our school assembly and were presented with certificates. We will be back to our weekly syndicate monitoring of Mathletics so keep an eye on our blog posts for class and team leaderboards. A reminder that Activity points come from workshops based around key math concepts - these may be set by the class teacher to coincide with what is being covered in class but students are also able to self select workshops based around their individual needs too. This is a fantastic tool for revision and for learning ahead also. Mathletics LIVE is practising basic facts and the levels range from very easy to extremely complex even for adults. There are tool attached to your childs account to help them gauge whether they are at the right level for them. Basic facts practise should be essential homework for all students. 

Room 20 boys working on their statistical investigations outside in the sun. 

Tekau ma Rua Leadership Group

Congratulations to all of the new tekau ma rua syndicate leaders. Matua Walter and our students will be working some murals for our syndicate area and as a part of giving back to the school community will be assisting the bus duty teachers every afternoon - this will be on a roster system and times confirmed tomorrow. 

Whakapiki Ake Hui

This hui was held on Friday night from 6pm to 9:30pm at Girls High and was extremely informative. The main points of the hui were in relation to students and whanau understanding early on what requirements are needed for entry into certain degrees. It also covered the importance of our children understanding what method of learning is best for them and how to learn. Koka Kanewa Stokes, Koka Chanelle, a junior doctor from Tairawhiti Hospital and Matua Penti ran the evening and were hugely inspiring. I would urge whanau with students at year 7 and 8 level to attend these hui if they return to Gisborne as they provide great network and pathway opportunities especially if your child is interested in a career in medicine. It was awesome seeing some ex Gisint students already on their way to becoming medical professionals at year 12 and 13 level. Some of these students were flown up to Auckland last year to participate in the Whakapiki Ake mentoring programme. 

Through our attendance at this hui we were offered the opportunity for our syndicate leaders to attend a University of Auckland exploratory day where our students visit the medical faculty, halls of residence and university marae. We will be looking into ways to make this a possibility in the near future. 

Action Week

Final Trip payments were due last Friday. We are only a week away from Fiji and two weeks from our NZ and Gisborne based adventures. We know every child will have a wonderful experience wherever they may be based.

AIMS - Tauranga

Good luck to all of our AIMS competitors - we will add some photo's and results to our blog as they come in. Safe travels and enjoy every moment.