15's Aside Rugby Tournament

Tuesday 14th of June 2011 was the date of our Year 7 & 8’s (boys and girls) 15 aside rugby tournament. We had been training hard for that day and it finally came !

We walked down to the Dunkirk reserve and started warming up. The girls had 2 games but the boys had 3. Our first game wasn’t until 11:40, so we had a long time to wait. During that time, we did some more training and warming up. During that time, the boys were busy playing their first game against Tamaki Intermediate.

About 1 ½ hours later, we had our first game. We were playing against Bailey Road. As we ran on to the field, we could hear our names being cheered for by the boys and our supporters. Even though I was so up for playing, I was also very nervous, but the cheers were very calming. We marched on to the field, ready and prepared. The ref blew his whistle and they kicked off to us.

We chased it. Tracey had the ball first, she did some pretty big hits but got tackled. Then I got the ball and had a pretty good run but also got tackled. In the ruck, Etta got the ball and she ran and fended and as she fended she ran ! She sprinted all the way to the try line and scored the first try of our 32-0 victory !

20 minutes isn’t a very long time, so our first 15’s aside rugby game was pretty quick. But, it didn’t matter, because we won it ! Still, we had one more game to go, so as we waited, we didn’t do much because we didn’t want to be tired, because playing against Tamaki Intermediate is a big job ! You need to be up and ready when you play against them.

Later on, we had our ‘Pt England vs Tamaki intermediate’ game. We ran on to the field and it was on. They kicked and we chased, we got the ball. Tamaki obviously wasn’t as easy to play as Bailey Road because Tamaki has some pretty big girls and it was quite hard to pass them. But we tried our hardest, and in the end we lost 5-7 !! We were so close.

I didn’t quite care that we lost, because on that day, we played very well and were able to win at least one game. Rugby is a very tough game...that’s why I enjoy playing it and am excited about our up-coming games !

The Japanese Vowels

This term in Taoga time, we have been learning how to do mihi's in Maori. But as well as learning Maori, we are also learning Japanese ! So far, we have learnt how to greet each other, say good morning, good afternoon and good evening and count to 10. As part of our lessons, we had to create something to put on our blog that shows one thing we learnt. I chose to draw up the vowels ( A E I O U ) both in Japanese and English.

Soccer Tournament

It was our first game out of three, Mr Harris said we were just here to have fun and learn on the way. But everyone was just SO nervous! It was our very first time playing soccer for the school...ever! The referee blew the whistle and the games had begun.

Pt England started up a girls and boys soccer team and on the 24th of May, the girls soccer team had their first tournament. It was down at Crossfield Park in Glendowie.

Ellerslie was the school we were playing against and to us, they seemed like professionals! Kicking the ball to each other and looking so co-ordinated, like little David Beckhams. There was this one girl in particular who was very good and kept on scoring their goals. On the other hand though, our team was kicking the ball anywhere and everywhere. Just trying to get the ball as far away from their goal as possible. But, in the end we lost to them. I’m not sure what the score was but we lost something nil.

Our game had finished and it was time for our 25 minute break. During our break, we observed the other schools play and as we were, Mr Harris was giving us a few tips. He told us not to bunch around each other like a group of bees, some people should be in the front and some in the back. Like in rugby, with the backs and forwards.

25 minutes had passed and now it was time for our next game ! Panmure District School was the next school we were playing. They were similar to us, weren't very co-ordinated and were kicking the ball anywhere. But we still lost to them, 1-0.

So we were on a losing streak. We had another 25 minute break and then it was time for our next game, this time against Church Hill Park School. We were about 15 minutes into the game and for the first time in the competition, we scored a goal ! We were all very overjoyed, jumping around, screaming with joy. But, the game wasn’t over yet. There were still about 10 more minutes left. We played hard until then and in the end, we won by 1 point !!

The day had ended and we came back to school with one victory. Still, it was better then nothing. Anyway, I think that we did pretty good seeing it was our first time playing soccer, I can’t wait until we have another game!

Immersion Rotation Week

Imagination, Creativity, Discovery, Innovation and Practicality are 5 words our teachers thought they’d teach us more about since it was related to our topic. So we had an immersion rotation around our Team 5 classes (18, 19, 20, 21 & 22) and each teacher took a word and taught us more about what it meant.

Mrs Lagitupu took imagination. For imagination, she had us make a Zinger Pinger. A Zinger Pinger is an imaginary pet that requires lots of imagination. As well as a Zinger Pinger, we had to make an imaginary island and name it. Unfortunately, I am not the most imaginative person in our class so my Zinger Pinger looks like a human with horns and a tail. My island wasn’t any different either. From a birds eye view, it’s supposed to look like a happy face with houses, roads and buildings on it. I named it ‘De-Island.’

Creativity was taken by Ms Tito. We had to take our name and design/create it in a different way. There would be a competition for the person who had designed/created the best name. The prize would be a giant sling-shot. The plan is that the winner, will get to fire water balloons at their class and their teacher ! Many people made very creative designs like Raven and Moses.

Mrs Nua took us for discovery. She gave us a challenge that included these materials: An egg, some straws, popsicle sticks, rubber bands and tape. The objective of the challenge was to create a protective barrier around the egg so that when we drop it from a metre high above the ground, it won’t crack. My group and I weren’t really organised so when it was time to drop the eggs, we just started wrapping tape around it, sticking popsicle sticks in and tying rubber bands around it.

When it was time for us to drop our egg, we stood in front of Mrs Nua and held the egg a metre above the ground. “3” everybody started counting down “2, 1”, Helen dropped the egg. As it hit the ground Kezia, Helen & I waited for a few nerve-racking seconds and then...we saw the yolk slip out of the egg ! Our egg cracked ! We didn’t win the challenge, no one did except for Tanielu and Casey. But it didn’t matter because we had fun !

Mr Harris taught us more about innovation. I was there for a bit of the lesson but then I had to leave and do a job. But for the time I was there he did a little skit sort of thing to teach us about Innovation. He asked us a riddle, which, I think went a bit like this: How do you throw a ball without using a bat or anything and it will come right back to you? That’s not entirely right but the answer was you throw it up in the air and it comes back down to you.

Mr Barks was taking practicality. In his class he was showing us some scissors and hedge clippers and along with those items, was a story. His story was about his neighbour and how his neighbour would trim the weeds on the side of his footpath with scissors instead of using hedge slippers. Since he was teaching us about practicality, after his story he asked us whether his story was practical or impractical. After a few wrong answers, we finally got the answer right. It was impractical.

I had lots fun doing the immersion rotation so next term when we start learning about a new topic, I hope we do another immersion rotation !

My Zinger Pinger

My Zinger Pinger is the best pet in the world because she’s very small and portable. When you go out, you can slip her into your pocket and go. Her name is Sheziah and her favourite things to do are running around like a crazy animal and kick around a rugby ball. She wears a normally black T-Shirt that changes colour depending on her mood. Her favourite colours are black, green and red.

‘De-Island’ is the name of the island she lives on. She lives in a haunted mansion filled with all kinds of creepy crawlies and ghosts ! But she doesn’t mind because she loves to be surprised by the bugs and ghosts in her house...and because she’s tough !

Honesty

At Pt England School, we have 9 values. They are Service, Learning, Joy, Co-operation, respect, Honesty, Responsibilty, Hope and Caring. We had to pick one of the 9 values and make a short animation about it. The value that I chose was honesty. Hopefully you will enoy my movie!

My Friends

Q:What do I like/dislike about my friends?

Helen, Kezia, Destiney and Paulitia are my closest friends, we have been best friends since we started school. What is cool about our friendship is that we’re all multi-cultured. Helen and Paulitia are both Samoan, Destiney’s Maori, Kezia’s a Cook Islander and I’m a Tongan.

I don’t think that there’s anything I dislike about my friends. But if there was one thing that I disliked about my friends, it would have to be the times when we all don’t get along with each other. But that hardly ever happens and if it does, it never lasts long. That’s what I like about my friends, if anything like this happens we can always get back along with each other just like that!

Sports and music are just some of the many things we all like. But even though we have many things in common, we all have our differences. Like the fact that, even thought we all like sports, we’re all into different kinds of sports. Tia and Helen like netball, Kezia and Destiney like touch and I like rugby! We’ve been friends for a really long time and unfortunately Destiney is going to Australia next week. We’ll all be very upset but she has confirmed that she’ll come back and visit us.
Once again, we have been friends for a long time and we’ll be friends for more years to come.