Manaiakalani Film Festival

 

By Nature

Art Alive!

This week is our first week of term 4, I'm looking forward to all that's happening but also quite sad since it's my last term here at Pt England School.

Like any other normal immersion assembly's on Monday each team got to present by film/play what they are going to be doing this term. Almost every team presented a video except for team 5 (like normal). Our theme for this term is 'Art Alive' we will be looking at different ways of art. Term 4 is gonna be the term of art!

My favourite two teams were team 5 (not being biased) and team 1. Team 5 had a play where it was based at the museum the teachers acted as art pieces and explained what each art piece meant. Team 1 was a video of the teachers recreating famous art pieces.

I will be looking forward to all of the art related lessons throughout this term! :D

Tha Zin

Our 'moment' - Celebrating Maori Language Week

In 1972 - 30 000 signatures were presented to parliament in a bid to safeguard Te Reo Maori. Today we joined the rest of the nation in remembering and celebrating this moment in NZ history - with Maori being one of New Zealand's 3 official languages. 

To celebrate this moment, we stood and sang 'E Ihoa' and 'Tutira mai' with Whaea Maryanne as a whole school @ 12pm. We also celebrated by writing a kupu/word we know in Maori and sharing it with the class. Check out our 30sec video to celebrate this moment.

Room 11.

Taha Whanau task: 5 Values that are important in a Tongan household!

                     Taha Whanau task: 5 Values that are important in a Tongan household!
                     
                                                    Malo e lelei katoa,
  and this week is Tongan language week. Hurray! because as you know I am Tongan. But for you guys who didn't know it's fine.  But let's get to the point. Today we are doing our taha challenges. Which today one is Taha Whanau/family. And for this task we have to write 5 Value that are important in a Tongan household. Which I know very well as I am Tonga LOL! And so  I found this task so fun! designing and explaining about the 5 values, to those who are not Tongan and I also put pictures too. To show you guys about the 5 values. SO I really hope that you enjoy the 5 values. FYI I was really trying to make this look pretty:)

How Tongans keep their traditions alive

 Our reading this week is all based around Tongan texts. One of them was Ngatu: Keeping the tradition alive. Here are 5 things I learnt from that text.

Task Description: Like I said on my recent blog posts you may have found out that it is Tongan language week. As our focus for this weeks reading we had to read a book that was related to this weeks special occasion and was called, "Keep the traditions alive" . We had to find 5 things we found help Tongan people keep the traditions alive.

Welcome to Tongan Language week!

 

Task Description: Some may not know but this week it is Tongan language week! Tonga is a little island in the pacific region that lies within  the biggest ocean in the world together following with Samoa, Fiji Niue and more. I am gladly proud to say I am Tongan but a proud one that lives in New Zealand but still takes her culture as a priority. This week is very important for me and for my fellow Tongans as it is a week of celebrating the place where our ancestors came from. It's also a time of learn about our culture and it's history. The reason why it's called Tongan languages because we are trying to keep the culture going even in this modern time. I'm way more excited because of all the stuff I 've heard we are going to be learning this week. Together with our math, reading and writing we have something that relates to this weeks special occasion. ! " HAPPY TONGAN LANGUAGE WEEK EVERYONE" !

Year 7 Step Up Programme

In week 3 our Year 8 students went off to leadership camp. While they were gone, our Year 7 students took part in our Y7 Step Up programme. The aim of this programme was to encourage our Y7 students to step up as leaders and sometimes this means stepping out of their comfort zone. Students were split into 3 groups: Strikers, Duck Life and Team Thunder. Upon their reflections, the team leaders shared how they got to mix and mingle with students they would not have normally worked with and this helped to build relationships across the year level and make new friends. 

Some of the activities we did were solving murder mysteries, art and minute to win it games. It was great to see teams working together and supporting each other throughout the three days. Here is a little snippet of some of the fun we had. Keep stepping up Year 7's!

Team 5 Garage Sale 2020

Next week is our Year 8 camp so to fundraise, we held a garage sale in the weekend. We had a variety of things to sell from our very popular bake sale, Mrs Flavelle's bric a brac table as well as our usual cheese toasties, hot dogs and hot and cold drinks sale. 

We were also joined by many other vendors who packed out our hall with many different things to buy. Sands and Talitha groups had a lolly stall as well as chop suey and potato salad, Whaea Saff had deliciously hot mussel chowder and fried bread and even Team 4 teachers had a stall! They were selling yummy pulled pork buns and waffles. 

Mrs Ilaoa's sister had beautiful succulent plants and Tamaki College had clocks that students made out of vinyl CD's. 

Overall a very successful day for our Team 5 campers and a great day connecting with our community. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our bake sale and who came along to buy lots of goodies. 

A World of Difference

Welcome back to Term 3! After a very different Term 2 we were very excited to get back to our Immersion Assemblies to see what our inquiry is for this term.

This term we are travelling around the world. Different teams in our school covering things from different food, schools, languages and cultures from around the world.

In Team 5, our teachers performed a beautiful story about Sina and the Eel from Samoa. Mrs Tele'a explained that we were covering myths and legends from around the world. Specifically, we are looking at myths and legends that help to explain land forms, monuments or pieces of nature.

The story of Sina and the Eel goes like this. Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl named Sina. She befriended an Eel as she spent more time near the water.

As time went on, the Eel got bigger and bigger. He told stories of once being a handsome prince and one day they would live happily ever after. But as he grew bigger and stronger and his affection for Sina grew stronger, sadly Sina did not return this same feeling. She ran away to her relatives. However, as she was near the water, the Eel popped up everywhere she went.


She became frightened and ran to her uncle who ordered his son to deal with the Eel once and for all. The warrior sliced the eels head off. The eels dying wish was for Sina to bury his head in the ground. From that grew a coconut tree.

The coconuts have two eyes and a nose which resembles the face of the eel. This way, every time Sina would take a drink from the coconut, she would be kissing the eel. This is the story of how the coconut tree came about through the story of Sina and the Eel.

T2W10: Inquiry - What is the Biosphere?

Task Description: Sorry for not posting an inquiry for last week but here it is. The sphere we have from last week is Biosphere and that is what I will be sharing with you. Inquiry for the week is going to be doing the one from last week and here it is. This week the inquiry was based on the Biosphere, one of the four spheres. I've learn't so much about the biosphere such as what the biosphere is and all that stuff. I've also learn't a little Greek word and that is life. The word bio from biosphere in Greek is life. That was a bit of a little learning experience for me and how to say life in Greek.

By Deborah

T2W10: The Story of Matariki

Walt: Synthesise information from a range of texts.

Task Description:

Our learning intention for this week was to focus on our Matariki celebration. Within this presentation we had to focus on multiple texts explaining what Matariki is. We also had questions based from each text that we had to answer. Also on the last slide i've shared a Matariki poster for our younger tamariki to understand  basic facts about it. ENJOY! 

By Leilani

T2W9: Maths Tasks

Task Description:

This task was followed up by the last task which was "Hmmmm I Remember" looking back on what we could remember about things we'd covered for decimals . This task was an early finishers task. It was based on Decimals and Word Problems put in place together. It was mixed with different types of word problems money decimals and more!

By Lillyana

T2W8: Vocabulary Task

Walt: Use New Vocabulary In A Sentence


Task Description: Vocabulary. Learning some new vocabulary. That's what I
just finished doing. If you wish to find out more then look above this text.

By Amira

Samoan Groups gift to PES

The theme for this years Samoan Language Week talked about preparing a 'gift'.

Tapena sou oso mo lau malaga - Prepare yourself a gift for your travels.

Last week, our Samoan Dance Group at PES gifted us a beautiful Siva Samoa. It was so graceful and full of story telling and emotions expressed through their actions. Students had learnt this item as part of their fiafia group last term. But due to the lockdown, we were unable to go through with our fiafia night. So our students were able to practice this week and graced us with their beautiful smiles and actions during our school assembly. Such a beautiful gift from our talented alii ma tamaitai (girls and boys). Their tutors were Mr Wright and Ms Timmi. Job well done team!

Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa - Samoan Language Week

O pese ma viiga a le fanau mai Pt England.

Here are 2 songs sung by our Samoan Group at PES. Our guitarists are John and Mr Wright.
1. Le Alii e le Atua e
2. Ufiufi mai
If you know the songs we'd love for you to sing along.

Tapena sou oso mo lau malaga

Prepare yourself a gift for your travels.

This is our theme for this years Samoan Language Week. Mrs Ilaoa and Room 11 put together this movie to try and explain the literal as well as the deeper meaning behind this years theme.

They've also shared some of the different things they've been doing in class in Samoan.

Ia manuia tele le vaiaso o le gagana Samoa.
Tofa Soifua

Te Whare Tapa Wha - Taha Tinana

Today's Taha Challenge was set by Fonua. We had to see how many push ups we could do in 1 minute. The girls could do the girls version if they wanted to.

Mrs Ilaoa played Rocky Balboa's theme music to get us pumped for this challenge. It was fun and very competitive. We hope to try this again on Friday and try and beat our score. Our class ranged from 10 - 35! Very impressive. 

Now your turn to give it a try and leave us a comment about how many you managed to complete in a minute. Good luck & have fun!

The 'New Norm' @ PES

It's week 6 of Term 2 but it feels just like the start of a brand new term. In a sense, it is. We are in our 4th day back to school after being in lockdown and away from school for 7 whole weeks!

Our return to school has brought about a new norm. Changes that are necessary in order to make school a safe place for us to learn as well as talk to our friends. Some of the changes are shown in our video below. We must ensure physical distancing as much as possible. In team 5, we've used the phrase 'Teu le vā' which mean to look after the space between you and others. This means not just the physical space between you but also the relationship you have with others. Another new norm is ensuring we sanitise our hands anytime we enter and leave a building. This ensures we are not carrying germs from one place to another. Our teachers also have a big job of spray and wiping our desks and chairs at the end of every day.

We really enjoy getting out at morning tea and lunch to play non contact games using the sports equipment that Ms Vaafusuaga cleans after each session. Such a big but necessary job.

So those are the new norms for us. What's some changes your school has made? We hope to hear some feedback from our neighbouring schools.

We are so happy and blessed to be back in school!

A message for our friends still at home

Main point:

There's been many rumours going around about school being scary and parents being worried for their childrens' health. Well, here at Pt England School you shouldn't be scared at all. Each student is safe and we all follow the Covid-19 rules. Cough and sneeze in elbow, wash hands thoroughly, use sanitiser, don't touch face or others, and of course be normal. So to all you parents and students don't worry. Each and every school in Aotearoa is following the correct rules to keep every child healthy, safe and Covid free! 

Here at Pt England School we follow the rules. Each student get's their own desk, tray, hand sanitizer before eating, before play time, before touching sports gear, after play, before home time, and every morning to keep germs away! Here at school I feel safe, so no doubt your tamariki will be as safe as I am too! 

Purpose of the image above:

What is this phone presenting? Well, our task today was to create a similar looking phone to show messages between you and someone who isn't attending school during level 2. My phone is a little example. The conversation shows fear from the grey speaker, but the blue speaker has been attending school and feels as safe as a baby. The purpose was to show an example. 

By Leilani

GM 4 GM - Good Manners for Google Meets

Kiaora everyone! We hope your bubbles are all well and making the most of time with family during this lockdown. Our 1st week of Term 2 ended off with an awesome school assembly put together by Mr Burt and our Prefects and Rangatahi of the school. With distance learning well on the way, this weeks korero was the perfect one for how we are learning now. We hope you are enjoying distance learning online and don't forget to mute your mics when joining those google meets.

Good manners for google meets or GM 4 GM. Check out the video below and enjoy!

Staying connected during Covid-19 lockdown

The news came fast and week 8 kicked off with 1 day of school before the government closed all schools and started preparing everyone for 4 weeks of lockdown. Luckily, Team 5 were well on their way to being prepared for connecting online and starting our distance learning journey from home.

We were fortunate to kick this off on Tuesday 24th March with students tuning in to their literacy teachers at 9.30am and then their maths teachers at 12.30pm. We quickly got into the routine of things and even managed to have our normal spelling test on Friday with the whole team (the 40+ who managed to tune in) as well as our very own Mrs Flavelle to call out our spelling words.

This was followed by our whole school assembly where all our teachers and support staff jumped online to give out their Duffy certificates. Check out our school site to tune in to our school assembly every Friday. 

Introducing Room 5 for 2020!

Happy New Years everyone! Welcome to our Room 5 blog for 2020. This year we have a whole bunch of new year 7's taking our class numbers up to 34 in each class.

Here are the beautiful faces of Room 5. We look forward to sharing our work and also reading some of your positive comments.

Our value for the year is Never lose HOPE - Kia mau tonu te tumanako. This is to show our children that there is hope for them for a better tomorrow.