Awakeri School News

21st July
Today is the first day of the term. This morning lots of children experienced their first chance at playing and running around on our new Astro Turf. On it, it has two netball goals and tennis nets. The Astro turf will be great for our hockey players, who normally would have to travel to town for their hockey practices after school. But, now with the new turf they will have their practices here, I'm sure that this will be a lot easier for them.
This is going to be a busy term for us as we have our Awakeri school Olympics starting on the 8th of August (08.08.08!). We also have our production which is going to be held at the Whakatane little theatre at the end of the term. Those children who have main parts in the production were given scripts at the end of last term so that over the holidays they could learn their lines. The production is called 'Star blaze'.

3rd July
Manawahe has now been and gone and Awakeri received some out standing results. We had a lot of high ranking runners and the teams also got high results. Overall three teams from Awakeri came 1st place, three teams came 2nd place and three teams came 3rd. This shows the effort put in by the runners and of course the teachers that organized the transport, teams etc. In the individual results we had 16 students that came in under 10th place in their races which is a really high result. Congratulations to Samuel Burgess, Holly Davis and Tiaan Brownless who won their races! Shannon Mower came second in the senior girls, while Taylor Drake, Caleb Robertshaw and Nikoli Christensen all came 3rd in their races. Click here to see some photos.

The main cast in this year's school operetta have been announced today. Here's who got the parts....

30th June
Good luck to all the Manawahe runners for tomorrow.
The holidays are nearly here but before they arrive there is a book fair on Wednesday, Inter-school speech finals which is on Thursday at the Reap House in Whakatane at 9.30 am, if you're interested in going. The representatives from our school are Zachariah Fretwell, Reme Barkama, David Klein Ovink and Hamish Inwood. Good luck to you all!!!. There is also parent teacher interviews and the annual fun Friday which is when kids can bring things like their skates, skateboards, marbles and of course our dolls (That means you Mr Fitz!!!).

27th June
On the 6th of August we are hosting our own Olympics! Today the students were told what country we'd be representing. There are ten countries like, China, Canada, Jamaica, Spain, France, Argentina, Brazil, Korea, Kenya and Netherlands. At lunch time on August the 6th we'll have our opening ceremony. There will be lots of cool events like gumboot throwing, Javelin, standing jump, goal shooting, target shooting, egg and spoon, and coconut shy. These events will be compulsory. But there will also be other optional events like knuckle bones, wrestling, biking, fencing, block tower, dancing, tongue twisters, juggling, balancing. Gymnastics, and skipping. There is also a girls marathon and another marathon for the boys. It's very exciting and the whole school will be participating.
The Astroturf is nearly ready for use and by the looks of it, it should be ready for next week, thanks to lots of hard work put in over the last few months.

19th June
This week the whole school is going to the Fantastic Festival. We are all going on different days and see different people do story telling.
Today the Astro turf is beginning to be laid down. It's a huge enclosure and hopefully soon it will ready for our use! There will be a few tennis and netball courts on it. One really cool feature it has is that the lines for the courts are already woven into the turf.
Here are a few pictures of them laying down the turf today.

The men are hard at work rolling out the 'soon to be' Astro turf. I hope they are good at jigsaw puzzles!	Lots of the junior rooms come to watch as it was being laid. Everyone is excited about it and everyone is looking forward to using it!

18th June
Last night Awakeri School held the senior speech finals. We had an awesome crowd of about 60 people. Everybody's speeches were excellent and it was great to see former pupils come to watch!! A very memorable bit for me would have to be the way Remè finished her speech by saying "and for anymore information call your doctor or health nurse" in a speedy way as if she was doing commentary for a medicine ad on the television! David Klein Ovink came in 3rd place and he got a $20 Whitcoulls voucher, Remè Barkema came 2nd and also got a Whitcoulls voucher at the value of $30 and in 1st place Zachariah Fretwell who won the P.T.A Oratory Shield and a Whitcoulls voucher at the value of $40. Congratulations to those three students. You should be proud on what you have achieved. But to the other five students that got into the finals you did exceptionally well and don't forget you may not have come 1st 2nd or 3rd but you still got form 8th to 4th out of the 90 people that did their speeches!! You should as well, be proud of what you have achieved!!
Click here to see the photos from speech finals.

13th June Out of the semi finalists Ari, Remè, Fiona, Shannon, Zac, David, Rachel, Susannah have made it to the finals. The C block teachers will not be judging the finals. For this they have recruited 3 out sider judges. The P.T.A Oratory Shield has been located once again, and will be presented to the winner of this years speech final.
The nerves affected some people today at the semi finals but they all came around in the end. Everyone did very well at the semi finals today and I'm sure everyone enjoyed listening to them all. Especially the freebies that were given out got everyones attention.
So good luck to everyone one competing in the finals on Tuesday,17th June at 7 pm. It should be a great night. We enjoyed them so I'm sure you will too.

10th June Today we found out who are in the semi-finals from Rm14 and in no particular order it is Shannon Mower, Carrie Fynn, Ari Wilson-Porter, Fiona Coulter and Remè Barkema. From Rm12 Susannah Williams, Rachael Griffen, Joshua Ridley and Kelsei Ingle. From Rm13 Olivia Smits, Zac Fretwell and Kara Sanson also the best year six in Rm 13, Hamish Inwood will be speaking in the semi-finls but will not be apart of the Yr7&8 semi-final competition.

Goodluck to the semi finalists and try your hardest and have fun!! order for the semi finalist is as follows 1.Carrie Finn, 2.Remè Barkema, 3.Susannah Williams, 4.Kara Sanson, 5.Olivia Smits, 6.Kelsei ingle, 7.Joshua Ridley,
8.Ari Wilson-Porter, 9.Fiona Coulter, 10.Shannon Mower, 11.Zac Fretwell, 12.Rachael Griffin and
13.David Klein Ovink

10th June Some of our students have got their high scores on the World Rankings for Soleua Software games. These games are non-violent and challenging games. Last week Ari and Alex got their scores on Score a Million I and Oilcap Pro. Here are the world rankings.

5th June To see some photos from yesterday CLICK HERE
here are the results from yesterday...

CROSS COUNTRY Results

4th June Today we have our Cross country (or as Mr Hawkes likes to call it, Happy country). It starts this afternoon. For the older children, if they come first to tenth they will go to Manawahe. Manawahe is a very challenging run that involves the kids running up and down lots of hills. So compared to our cross country track, ours is a lot easier! The first race is the 7 year old boys followed by the 12 and 13 year old boys. Next is the 7 year old girls and then the 12 and 13 year old girls. The afternoon carries on like that. There is also a house compitition with our four houses: Rimu, Rata, Kowhai, and Tawa. We also have time records, some are set by people from our school and some are set from former members of our school.

3rd June Tomorrow will start C block's speech competition which is between Rm's 14, 13 and 12. The topics to choose from were....
*Food for fuel
*Healthy role model
*12 min run why bother
*Living life to the full with a disability
*Keeping your self safe ...
*Balanced life
*Current Issues in Health
It should be really interesting to see whose speeches follow the criteria! The semi finals are on Fridays next week, then the final is Tuesday evening 17 June.

29th May We had a great day at the interschool sports yesterday. At Matata, Awakeri, who don't even have a rugby team, entered more teams than any other school. One of our senior teams beat Te Teko 3 tries to 1, with Kurt Turpie getting three tries. Other highlights: Elaine Taylor scoring against Texas and Thornton, Jonas Rika's tackles, Brylee Bramley pulling the jersey right off a Te Teko player when tackling him, Nimai Carrington tackling a huge Edgecumbe player, the refs playing for us in a couple of games! It was fun!!
Today we walked around the cross country course, getting ready for the races next Wednesday. The course was dry and bumpy. It should be good for fast times, although there is a rumour that Mrs Merry will be diverting the stream in the weekend to make the usual bits in the orchard boggy!

20th May Today is a special and exciting day for rooms 12 and 13s camp at Tui Ridge. They will take on the challenges of abseiling, BMX biking, flying foxes, high ropes (including the leap of faith) and more. They will also be supplied with scrumptious food and drinks to munch down on. And I'm sure they will arrive back at school with lots of mishaps and stories to tell us all about. They may even bring back some outrageous photos for us to view :) :)
(: (:HAVE FUN PUPILS OF ROOM 12 and 13 !!! And of course all the parents that have tagged along:):)
Last week Rooms 9 and 10 had their turns at camp at Taupo. On Room 10's page you can see some photos of their adventures.

15th May Elaine has the ball running as fast as her legs can take her, getting closer and closer to the goal. But here comes Shannon at a great speed, grabs Elaine round the waist and tries to pull her to the ground. But Elaine fights back she's not going to give up!! Shannon proves to be stronger grabs the ball and runs off. What a great save from Shannon!! That's what happened in rulz yesterday on national family day. It was great fun!!!
Other kids enjoyed skateboarding, soccer, bullrush, making cards, playing marbles, etc. We had lots of parents and grandparents here. Click here to see some cool photos.

14th May Yesterday a New Zealand writer came to our school to tell room 14,13 and 11 about her books e.t.c . That writer is Phyllis Johnston. She was very informing about her books, what inspired her to write them and she even explained to us how much money she makes from each book. She thought we were very polite classes. We were
read a bit of her new story Dead Dan's Dee, which sounds like a very interesting and descriptive book. Phyllis's new book Dead Dan's Dee has been entered in the New Zealand Post book awards.

In this picture you can see Phyllis explaining about her new book before she reads it to us.	And here she is selecting a child to ask her a question.

7th May For the last two days we have been lucky to have Brent McKillop and Exia Edwards here introducing rugby skills to everyone. Each class has had a turn, and we have all loved it! Rachael Griffen even got her knees dirty!

5th May Today is the first day back for term two. This term there are only two bus runs instead of three. The Angle/Putiki run have been split up between the White Pine/Station Road and McDonalds Road bus runs. This means there will be more kids on the bus but, luckily we now have bigger buses so that it's not as crowded! All the students that go on the bus will all leave at 3 o'clock instead of some leaving later.
This term four classes will be going to their camps, room 9 and 10 will be going to Lake Taupo Christian camp and rooms 12 and 13 will be going to Tui Ridge. Another exciting event coming up this term is the the interschool rugby/netball day, which is non-compulsory sports day for those who are into netball and rugby and who know the rules really well.
Everyone is looking forward to a fun term!

18th April Today is the last day of the term. After today we'll have a two week holiday break. We'll be back to school on Monday the 5th of May.
Yesterday the senior school had Otago maths. Otago maths is for selected children who are good at problem solving. The test is set by Otago university and involves answering five tough math questions. Only one person from our school got 100%. (Drumroll please) Well done to Clive McIndoe, from room 12.
Yesterday and today we've been having a short Badminton lesson with Nick. We were taught tricks and how to properly hold the racket.
Today in assembly we announced who got to creampie Mr Fitz, Mr Hawkes and Miss Taggart. If they won Sing star at the Fundraiser they got to creampie one of the teachers. The winners were Micaiah, Luisa, Mrs Cronin and Mrs Merry.

17th April Yesterday was our senior Fundraiser. It was to fundraise for the senior camps, Blair Lodge and Tui Ridge. The senior students had to organize a stall, selling food or doing an activity for the rest of the school to enjoy. Because it's been raining heaps here, the stalls had to be moved inside or under the decks. We raised $1 400 to put towards our camps. There were stalls like Slurp 'n' Burp, Singstar, the Tunnel of Doom and Delishimo Cafe' (DC). Here are a few pictures of the fundraiser.

15th April Tomorrow is the senior school's Fun Raiser. Hopefully the rain will stop for an hour. We'll be having it anyway. All welcome to bring some money and have some fun.

11th April Next Wednesday is the senior syndicate's annual fundraiser to raise money for their camps. The fundraiser occurs during the lunch hour. The fundraiser is when the senior children get into groups and think of ideas to raise money for their camp, things like food stalls, obstacle courses, sumo wrestling in fat suits, or jumping out the room 12 window. Some of the senior classes presented plays to advertise thir stalls at the school assembly. They were really creative and energetic when presenting their plays, everyone seemed to enjoy them.

8th April Today is inter-school touch day. It is held at our school every year and lots of other schools are coming to play for a fun day of Touch. The PTA will be selling food in the canteen as well to fundraise money. It's for kids aged from about eight to twelve or even thirteen. It's a really fun day for everyone!!

4th April We had a lady called Janie at our school to talk about the enviroment. She talked about the water and how little we have to drink and share between so many people. It was really interesting to listen to and she also gave us homework. It was very interesting to see how many litres of water we all watse. She only talked to the seniors and middle school as the juniors don't really understand!
Also Room 14 will be coming back from their lovely camp today in between 4 o'clock and 5 o'clock tonight. Lucky for all those kids that are participating in touch because they don't have to practise as hard, except it will be tough on them when it comes to the day, which is Tuesday!

2nd April Yesterday Room 14 went to their camp, Blair Lodge. It's near Katikati and is home to lots of animals like pigs, chickens, donkeys. They'll be back on Friday afternoon. They'll be doing lots of fun activities, like on the last day they'll go to Waimarino water park. There are other activities like archery, slug guns, confidence course. And we can't forget the mock court on the last night which is quite a laugh!!
Also coming up is Touch Day! We have been practising a lot lately, getting prepared for the big day. We can't wait to play against the other schools and good luck to all of you.
Another event coming up is our senior school's Fun(d) Raiser. The seniors have spilt themselves up into groups but also in their class. They then worked on what they were going to do and picked a name for their stall. We then had to pick who was going to do what job to learn about (Manufacturing, Finance and Advertising) and then bring back the information and talk about it with their groups. This is only open to our school!

26th March Today's the first day back from our extra long Easter weekend. It was a refreshing vacation from our regular learning routines. It was a five day holiday so I'm sure we have all had a relaxing time with our families. And don't forget all the chocolate we consumed over the holidays.

Up coming events to look forward to -
*Touch day / 8th April
*Room 14s camp / 1st - 4th April
*Room 9s camp / 12th - 14th May
*Room 12 and 13s camp / 20th - 23rd May
*Room 10s camp / 14th - 16th May
*Net ball and Rugby day / 28th May
*Term holidays / 18th April - 5th May

20th March Yahh yesterday and today have been half days for the students because of parent interviews. The lucky teachers get to stay at school for hours telling our parents what little angels we've been (cough, cough). Tomorrow is another holiday because of Easter weekend, we also have next Monday and Tuesday off, yahhh!!
So have a very happy Easter!

17th March Yesterday was our Top School, which was a really fun day. Congratulations to our Top School team and cheerleaders who did really well in their competitions. The cheerleaders came first, and the team came fourth.
There was also lots of games and activities for those not in a team. There was heaps of food for sale and prizes to be won, like lucky jars, lollies, Easter eggs, gold fish. There was also a garage sale and plant sale. People spent about $27 000 on the day!
Click here to see some cool photos of Top school.

14 March Yahhhh! Only a couple of days until Top school! Over the last few weeks our Top school team and cheerleaders have been working hard ready to represent our school on Sunday, so good luck to them, as well as all the other schools entering. We're under way already with a lot of the field starting to be set up for Sunday. A lot of work will be done tomorrow as well.
We have lots of sponsors for Top School. Click here to see who they are so you can support them!!
This week the ERO have been here, talking to everyone about how the school is going and watching the school working. We hope they are impressed!!
Here are some nice photos and the Awakeri place getters from from the interschool swimming sports on Wednesday. We had a number of champions - Abbey, Shannon, Ari, Kurt, Moana, Jasmine, Kasey!

6th March Yesterday B and C block had their swimming sports at the Edgecumbe college pool.
We travelled by bus and then sat in our houses: Rimu, Rata, Tawa and Kowhai.
The first event started at around nine thirty with our two length freestyle. We also had one length of freestyle for all ages. The width races were next for the not so confident swimmers. We also had flutter board races across the width of the pool.
We had some fun events, which were a length on a boogie board, biggest splash and nicest dive.
At the end of the day we had relays. Our first relay was a house relay. This year we needed five girls and boys from each house. Rimu won the relay.
Our second relay was Children verses the teachers and adults. The children were Shannon, Jasmine, Ari and Caleb. The adults were Mr Hawkes and Mr Turpie. Unfortunately the adults and teachers won!
Then we went back home on the bus after an exhausting day.
Click here to see the wonderful photos from yesterday.

29th February Jaime Clarke is a lucky leap year person. Today she had her 3rd birthday!!! We all sang Happy Birthday to her at assembly!

28th February Yesterday just after the end lunch bell had gone, the firebell started going. We all thought it was just the regular fire drill that we have every term but once we all got into our class lines and did the roll, Mr. Fitz moved us all onto the back court. This is when some of us thought it might be due to a real fire. We were all waiting anxiously on the back court, when we saw the big digger that had recently been working on the turf pop around the corner. Seeing the digger relieved us of the thought that it was a real fire. The real reason the digger also came to the backcourt was to tear down the big oak tree that was in the middle of the staff parking lot. The news monitors went to investigate the reason for the destruction of the tree, this is what we found out....

Why- Because in place of the staff parking lot and the tree the school will be building a new classroom for Extensions and enrichment.
Teacher- Mr. Sheather
New parking lot- The staff parking lot will now be on the back court with a fence around it.
Why back court- The new staff parking lot will be moved to the back court because the padder tennis etc. games can now be played on the turf when it is completed.

26th February Last week room 8 and room 11 went on separate camps to the Ohiwa Harbour. Room 8 went on Monday and arrived back on Wednesday and room 11 went on Wednesday and came back on Friday. Here are some photos from Room 8's camp and some from room 11's camp.
Yesterday B and C block started PAT tests. We are tested to see what subjects we might need to improve on and, if we do well in these tests we could be chosen for extension classes throughout the year. Some of the things we're tested on are comprehension, mathematics, library skills and listening skills. The tests will take about a week to complete.

22nd February Today we found out who made it into the top school team. Twelve senior students, six boys and six girls, got chosen. Over the last few weeks they have been on trial, testing their speed and accuracy. Lots of students tried out, but only twelve could be chosen
Congratulations to Reme Barkema, Brittany Harder, Elaine Taylor, Shannon Mower, Jaime Clark, Jasmine Hope, Caleb Robertshaw, Caleb Sheather, Nimai Carrington, Ari Wilson-Porter, Kurt Turpie and Renko Barkema. They will represent our school at Top School later on this term.

19th February Yesterday C block ( room 12, 13 and 14) went to Otarawairere beach. They went there to explore the creatures and plants that live in the rock pools and to compare the creatures in the high tide and low tide areas. We have some awesome photos as well!
Click Here to see them.

15th February 08 We have just received information of who our new House captains are. Congratulations!! They are...

11th February 08 The new website monitors have been chosen. Below is a list of who they are and what class they're doing. :)

Emma Bennett - Rm 12
Rachael Griffen - Rm 10 and News page
Matthew Archer - Rm 7
Kayla Turvey - Rm 2 and Rm 13
Olivia Smits - Rm 5
Hamish Inwood - Rm 9
Lucy Rannali - Rm 3
Mikaela Hancox - Rm 6 and News Page
Carrie Fynn - Rm 8
David Klein Ovink - Rm 14
Jesse Ingle - Rm 4
Elaine Taylor - Rm 11

5 February 08 School is back! Lots of happy students are enjoying catching up with their friends, and no-one has got too lost with the new room numbers! Lucky Room 14 and Room 13's year sevens are off to Tech at Edgecumbe College today.
Information booklets about the school were given out yesterday. Most of it is also on the Basic School Information page of this website. Mr Hawkes has been handing out job application forms for senior students to be website monitors. They're due in on Friday. Hopefully there will be lots of people keen to keep our website up to date and as interesting as usual!

3 February 08 There are a number of room changes for students, from those listed on the children's reports at the end of last year. This is because of quite a few enrolments in the senior school, and the resulting reshuffle of students down through the school. Please check the notice board out the front of the school to see which room you / your child has been allocated to.

30 January 2008 Welcome back everyone. School starts on Monday, get yourself ready!! Welcome to new teacher Esther Geerlings, who will be teaching in Room 5. Mr Sheather is the 'new' Deputy Principal in charge of the juniors.Welcome back to Mrs West too.

18 January 2008 The updated school calendar is online (click on the link to the left). The new room numbers have been put up too! Hopefully everyone will soon get used to them!! We will be changing the links to the rooms' pages on the website soon!!

9 January 2008
A few photos from the 2007 senior social are here. A big earthquake and camera troubles didn't help! And a few photos from the last day water fight are here too.

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 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 or even 2002 and before.