Westlake Girls’ High School

Kaumatua Jerry Norman, Principal Jane Stanley and Matua Eddie Hudson at the Blessing. Kaumatua Jerry Norman.

Prefects look around the almost-completed centre. Head Prefect Grace Chen speaks at the Blessing. Prefects and staff at the Blessing.

Westlake Girls Event Centre

Just before Lockdown hit, Westlake Girls High School was gearing up for the Grand Opening of its new 1,000- seat Event Centre on 20th August.

Governor-General The Rt Hon Dame Patsy Reddy and her husband Sir David Gasgoine were to officially open the Centre, accompanied by key players in the construction of the building. The hour-long ceremony was due to include performances by the school’s kapa haka group, Cantare choir and Westlake Symphony Orchestra. Sadly, while this was obviously unable to proceed, we will hold some sort of celebration once school returns.

The building was blessed on Friday 6th August. A small group gathered at 6.30am for the ceremony, including Senior Leadership Team members, Board of Trustees, and people involved in the building’s construction and design. Our Mätua Eddie Hudson, and Kaumatua Jerry Norman officiated the ceremony.

It's been an exciting couple of weeks migrating various school activities into the Event Centre. House Captains (minus one who was absent) and our Head and Deputy Head Prefects had the privilege of being the first students to take a tour of the building just before its completion.

Our first event open to parents was a Study Skills Evening on Monday 9 August – the same week assemblies were moved from the gym to the Centre. During those assemblies, state-of-the-art equipment was given a test-run through videos, music and speeches. As you can see from the photos, it was a huge success.

We are very excited about the possibilities this Centre opens up for Westlake Girls. It’s very quickly become the heart of our school, and a place where our students’ talents can be exhibited, appreciated and celebrated. It’s a place for creativity and the challenge to our students now is to dream big about how they can use it.

Bringing the world to Westlake

On Saturday 7th August, the annual Lake MUN (Model United Nations) took place at Westlake Boys High School.

This event was entirely volunteer run by our Westlake HSAs (including Westlake Girls students Grace Chen and myself) and additional tertiary students. Sixty students from both Westlake Girls High School and Westlake Boys High School attended the event.

In the morning there was a lively workshop about the UN's sustainable development goals, where students discussed the importance of each goal. We then moved into separate committees which were created based on different topics, such as foreign intervention in humanitarian crises, climate change, and corruption. Each student was assigned a country and represented that country in their committees to attempt to solve global issues according to their country’s views and beliefs.

This conference was extremely beneficial for students to develop their research skills, as well as becoming more confident in their public speaking. We received lots of positive feedback after the event, including one attendee who said; “It was truly a great day and I learnt a lot about both our world and how the UN works.”

By Jenny Howe

Peace Week activities bring students together

Peace Week is an annual event that coincides with the commemoration of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two. Friday 6th August 2021 marked the 76th Anniversary, and in memory of the victims of war and to advocate for peace, Westlake Girls commemorated with a variety of events organised by the Peace Week Committee.

On Monday, the annual Peace Week paper crane folding event was held with over 130 people attending. Following a quick introduction about Sadako Sasaki, a young Japanese girl who died from leukemia as a result of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, we began to fold the paper cranes.

Friendship-bracelet-making Wednesday was arguably one of the most popular Westlake Peace Week event to date. Then on Thursday three students performed One Love by Bob Marley & The Wailers. We also enjoyed two sing-alongs, Amazing Grace and Tūtira Mai.

Finally, on Friday we had a peace inspired Project Runway session in collaboration with students from Rosmini College.