Westlake Boys’ High School

Senior NZSSAA Cross Country Champs. Junior NZSSAA Cross Country Champs.

Westlake leading the pack. Year 9 NZSSAA Cross Country Champs Runners-Up.

Runaway success at the National Cross-Country Championship

The Westlake Boys Cross Country team were never more eager or ready to compete at this year’s Auckland and New Zealand Cross Country Champs after the disappointment of event cancellations in 2020.

Groundwork started during the April school holidays with a training camp for the respective age groups in Rotorua. The training they received provided the important foundations to help develop their fitness and running technique for the upcoming season.

In May the distance runners competed at the North Harbour and West Auckland Cross Country Champs held at Moire Park in Massey. The team consisted of 62 students, 22 of which were racing for the first time, and they went on to celebrate a group success by winning all teams and individual categories.

At the Auckland Champs, the team performed exceptionally well on a challenging course at St. Kentigern College where they took away gold in eight of the nine categories. This was an unprecedented result for Westlake cross country and this success certainly helped build their confidence leading into Nationals.

The New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country Champs took place in Hawera in mid-July and proved to be the epitome of Cross Country with persistent rain on a very muddy course. The team’s performance did not disappoint with the Senior and Junior boys winning the National Six-Person team title and the Year 9 boys achieving runner-up in the same category. In addition to this the Senior and Year 9 Three-Person teams performed admirably and took away

At the Auckland Champs, the team performed exceptionally well on a challenging course at St. Kentigern College where they took away gold in eight of the nine categories.

a silver medal. All the boys raced with determination, particularly Cameron Maunder, Sam Berry, Toby Saxby, Alfie Steedman and Jamie Maunder who finished in the Top 12 for their respective races. To their delight, Sam and Cameron were later named in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country team.

The team will now focus on their preparation for the upcoming Road Race season. Special thanks to the team’s sponsor, Nick Kearney from Schnauer & Co, and the many parents and helpers who have supported the students in this exhilarating sport.

Visual Extravaganza at Westlake’s Korean Night Concert

The Westlake Korean Night is a highly anticipated and hugely popular concert on the Westlake calendar and sells out each year to an enthusiastic audience of around 1,500 fans.

The event is a celebration of Korean culture shown through a collaboration of traditional and contemporary performances by Korean students from the Westlake Boys and Girls schools. The concert is the culmination of months of preparation into a single evening of energetic and entertaining acts that proudly showcase Korean culture to the community. Event organisers are heartened to see that the audience now includes people from a range of ages, ethnicities and backgrounds which makes the performers very proud to take the stage and perform.

This year the event opened with a Haka to honour everyone involved in producing the concert, and was followed by a speech from our Headmaster, Mr Ferguson, who welcomed the audience in Korean. The concert started with the junior students who skilfully performed the Doll dance and were followed by a Nanta drum act that demonstrated skills in rhythm and speed. Taekwondo provided an excellent display of acrobatic movements which was very entertaining. Samulnori, a traditional Korean percussion group, returned from their debut in 2020 to give a wonderful performance using traditional buk,

An extravagant night filled with a variety of performances!

janggu, jing and kkwaenggwari instruments. The exquisite Fan Dance filled the stage with beautiful colour and movement as the audience sat enthralled, before they were treated to the fun and clever Mask Dance. Later in the evening the concert moved into contemporary performances including K-Pop dance, music bands, and Korean Hip Hop rapping which included this year’s special guest singer, and teacher, Mr Will Kim. The audience’s excitement could barely be contained as they clapped and cheered after each of these superb performances. It is tradition for the Korean Night organisers to donate funds that match the year, to a local charity so this year $2,021 will be donated to Starship Hospital to help assist with medical care of children and young people in New Zealand.