Katrina and Shakaia sing at prize-giving

Katrina and Shakaia performed this waiata as the first item at our annual prize-giving and culture festival held at Tamaki College on Thursday.

The kapa haka group, Tongan, Samoan and Cook Island cultural groups also performed for family and whānau to acknowledge and celebrate our successes this year.

Prize-giving 2016 - a celebration of culture and achievements

What a wonderful celebration of our cultures, achievements and success at Ruapotaka's annual year-end prize-giving which was held at Tamaki College.



Congratulations to our Room 10 prize-winners:

  *  Duffy Award for Attitude of Excellence - Shakaia
  *  Years 4-6 Sporting Ability - Mary
  *  Academic Excellence Year 6 - Katrina
  *  Academic Excellence Year 5 - Riiana
  *  Most Improved Student Year 6 - Pupuke
  *  Most Improved Student Year 5 - Jessica

Celebrating culture and success - by Leilani

Our group has celebrated three cultures in our film. We will show our dances in Samoa, Tongan and Maori. This video was made by our team work and facing challenges.

Whānau commenting: positive, thoughtful and helpful

Having created some screencasts to share what a quality blog comment is and looks like, learners in Room 10 did a wonderful job of supporting whānau to begin commenting on their personal blogs last week. We're so looking forward to reading more and more comments from whānau!

Who did we notice in the local paper?

Retrieved from The Eastern Courier (Out and About), Digital Edition, 5th October 2016, page 6

Training with the Silver Ferns

Such excitement for Mary, Kuini, Bella, Shakaia, Leanah and Katrina today ... they were driven to St Kents for some netball coaching ... with some Silver Ferns ...

Leana de Bruin, Cat Tuivaiti, Maria Tutaia and Grace Rasmussen shared some of their amazing skills with these lucky netball players from Ruapotaka.  It was especially exciting for Mary who wants to be a superstar like Maria Tutaia one day.

Checkmate!

What a lot of thinking and concentration was needed this morning! Coach Paul from Chess Power visited Ruapotaka to teach everyone in Rooms 10, 11 and 12 how to play the game of chess. Now that we've learnt the names of the pieces and how they move around the board, it's time to work on strategy!

Bouncing the ball everywhere!

Eight students from Room 10 represented Ruapotaka at the interschool netball tournament last week. Mary did an outstanding job as captain of the Year 5 and 6 team, making sure that everyone worked together while enjoying the day.

Leanah shares her writing about the day:
On Wednesday the 17th August Kuini, Tristan, Fakaola, Pupuke, Shakaia, Saluselo, Bella, Katrina, Mary and I went in a Tamaki College van to inter school netball and Mr. Reid was driving. When we got there Mary and I had to practice shooting because we were the shooters. We had to play 6 games in total. Our first game was against Pt. England. We lost to them. After that game we had other games and we won 4 of them and had a tie on one of them.

Kuini's shares her ideas about the day in an acrostic poem:

Tāne me te whānau marama

The Gruffalo reading group enjoyed reading this play by Moira Wairama during Matariki. It tells the story of how there came to be light in our sky. We decided to record the play to add to our Listening Post resources and here we share our video version.



Thank you, Katrina and Tyron, for joining the group to take on the extra roles.

The Vector Trip - by Saluselo

Following Vector's visit to Ruapotaka earlier in Term 2, a group of students from Ruapotaka, including ten from Room 10, visited Vector Arena in the city on Tuesday. They were lucky enough to look behind the scenes at the events centre.  They even checked out the chill-out zone where the stars hang out. They also explored how Vector, the energy company, is investigating new technologies to charge electric cars.

Thank you, Saluselo, for creating this video at home to share some of the photos from your visit.

Thank you!

Thank you, Katrina and Shakaia, for creating a card on behalf of Room 10 to thank our special visitors for sharing their time and wisdom about healthy food choices with us last week.

Keep your eye on the ball!

Last week our Year 4, 5 and 6 students travelled by bus to St Kentigern College in Pakuranga for a PE session with some senior students from St Kents. As well as running, throwing and catching team games in the gym, a few students, including Bella, enjoyed learning some tennis skills.  Such concentration!