Classes

BACK ROW: Teacher Aid- Sue Grazier, Isabelle Jo, Liliya Wu , Elaine Sun, Ana Firth, Chloe Chiu, Ava Milne, Class teacher -Brittany Abrahams. SECOND ROW: Josephina Somaratne, Olivia Rainsford, Nadia Sheikh, Annabelle Ellett, Océane Renault-Pollard FRONT ROW: Adele Davidson, Mikayla Chan, Charlotte Taylor, Amelie Jardine, Harriet Perry, Esme Sun 0ABR started off this year in Term 2 during the end of the first lockdown, with eight brand new Year 0 girls eagerly looking forward to starting school. We learned about St Cuthbert’s motto, ‘By Love Serve’ and how we can share kindness through ‘kind hearts, kind thoughts, kind actions and kind words’ which we still try to show every day. We learned about our class routines and rules, and how to be a kind friend to others. We celebrated Matariki by reading the story ‘The Little Kiwi’s Matariki’ and created our own artwork to go with it. In Term 3, we were joined by nine new students who were just as eager to begin their schooling experience at St Cuthbert’s. We were excited about finally becoming a full class and getting to know our new friends. Before we knew it, we were back in lockdown 2.0 and started to learn in a completely new way – over Zoom! We celebrated different letters of the alphabet each week by having a princess party, pyjamas day and even having a teddy bears’ picnic when we finally were able to come back to school!

We were glad to see our friends again and get back to our learning. Our P.E.A.C.E topic for the term was Plants and we enjoyed planting our own bean plants and watching them grow. We learned about the parts of the plant and what parts of the plant we could eat. We’ve had lots of fun experiences this year, some of our highlights were blowing bubbles and making popcorn so we could write some amazing recounts about them and we were lucky enough to go to the ‘Greedy Cat’ performance at the beginning of Term 4. We have made so much progress this year and had lots of fun along the way! What a fun year it’s been, even with lockdowns in the middle of it but we have learned to be resilient and to make the most of our time at school.

BACK ROW: Victoria Brabant, Tiffany Song, Veronica Sia Russell-Park, Averie-Lee Kaufusi FRONT ROW: Milly Williams, Amelia Sun, Florence Neal, Aideen Qin, Elsa Shi-Zhang

We have just started school but we have big dreams already

Elsa says:

When I grow up I want to be a teacher so I can read books to my class.

Florence says:

When I grow up I want to be a police lady so I can have a police car with lights.

Victoria says:

When I grow up I want to have a toy shop that sells pink bunnies and mermaids.

Milly says:

When I grow up I want to work at St Cuthbert’s and be like Miss Inglis.

Veronica says:

When I grow up I want to be a doctor so I can look after sick people.

Amelia says:

When I grow up I want to be a butterfly and fly everywhere.

Aideen says:

When I grow up I want to help my mum fix things at home.

Averie-Lee says:

When I grow up I want to be a painter so I can make my treehouse purple and pink.

Tiffany says:

When I grow up I want to be a policeman so I can catch the bad guys.

BACK ROW: Faye Mai, Hayley Hui, Olivia Li SECOND ROW: Nicola Roslik-Wilson, Olivia Mann, Sophia Mi, Isabella Hibbins, Kristin Inglis (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Emily Lim, Effie Ko, Melissa Wang, Meadow Nash, Savannah Ni

Three fantastic terms in 1ING

Here are some of the exciting things we experienced in our first year of school: • Having our first PE lessons with Mrs Curtis;

French lessons with Madame Hartinger;

J.A.M. with Mrs Porter; and Music with Mr

Stewart.

• Safe Walking lessons with Constable Gordon – our favourite part was having a ride in a real police car! • Learning some fancy dance moves –

We loved doing Jump Jam and

GoNoodle dances.

• Our 100 days at school celebration –

What a great day we had dressing up, doing 100 days themed activities and sharing a delicious lunch with the other Year 1 classes.

• Our first-ever school Cross Country.

We were absolute speedsters racing down the field.

• Making some new friends on our visit to see the Year 1 boys’ classes at

King’s School. • Walking up Mt St John – It was a long way up to the top but what a great view once we got there! • Watching Year 4’s baby chicks hatch.

The best part was getting to hold them when they were only a week old! • Our Book Week dress-up day –

We loved dressing up as our favourite book character. There were some amazing outfits in the parade too. • Always trying so hard to get our special sparkly gems to earn merit cards. We learnt to be amazing ‘By Love Serve’ girls and made Miss Inglis very proud. Miss Inglis says of 1ING – You are amazing!

BACK ROW: Grace Wang, Carina Liu, Isobel Brolese, Vivienne Guan, Samaira Singh, Ms Nicola Boyens (Teacher) SECOND ROW: Minka Car (Teacher), Monica Wang, Claudia Manson, Aeryl Zhang, Elena Zhao, Carren Wei FRONT ROW: Dina Feng, Olivia Chen, Emma Tang, Sisi Liu, Sophia Xu, Kerker Zhang

2020 has been a very crazy mixed up year for all of us.

We were off to a great start with our learning in the Life Education caravan with Harold the giraffe. He told us all about how to make friends and try new things. We learned about how we can keep stretching our brains and that a mistake is only a ‘beautiful oops’, we need to just ‘keep on trying!’. When we went into lockdown, we had to learn quickly to use our iPads and work on Zoom. We learned how to keep ourselves safe online and to login to lessons independently. We loved seeing our teachers and friends online. We went on lots of virtual tours around the seven continents, learning about each continent; what animals live there, what the weather is like, what languages are spoken and what types of food is eaten. Then, before we knew it, we were back at school and celebrating ‘100 Days of Learning’. We had so much fun dressing up as ‘Old Grandmas’. Then we went back into lockdown! While we were at home we investigated volcanoes and a plant’s life-cycle. We made our own erupting volcanoes and planted a scrap garden from food waste. Once we were back at school we joined the ‘Little Garden League’. We planted, cared for, and sampled lots of yummy vegetables We hope you enjoy looking at some of our amazing art from this year! Year One has been so much fun!

BACK ROW: Grace Fan, Valerie Sun, Alina An, Jiayi Li, Ama Liang, Emily Fraser SECOND ROW: Aubrey Hooper, Giselle Gong, Jennie Xu, Lara Sun, Xinrui Liu, Mrs Sheryl Meredith (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Saffron Heppner, Miranda Chen, Carla Hocken Cubi, Eva Liu, Annie He, Serena Chen We were all very excited about starting our first full year at school as 1MER girls, but yet did we know that this year was going to be like no other. We started our year by meeting a new friend in the Life Education bus, Harold the giraffe, and he showed us how we can be a kind friend. We followed on with ‘The Rainbow Fish’ a story on friendships and presented a play and song at our Year 1 Assembly based on this story. Our Year 1 friends from King’s School came to visit and we enjoyed playing games on the courts and singing songs. Then lockdown 1.0 happened; it was strange at first getting use to using Zoom, but we are adaptable learners in 1MER, and it wasn’t long before it felt like quite a ‘normal’ school day. Our P.E.A.C.E. unit during StCuth’s@home over Zoom was the seven continents and general knowledge about each one, we learned so much and really stretched our brain. Our favourite time of the day was when Captain Barron took us into different continents, onboard his virtual Air New Zealand plane; it was so exciting. We were excited to run in our first Cross Country race and a highlight was running with the kind Year 13 fairies.

Semester 2 was finally here, along with our Mathematical celebration of 100 Days at School. We laughed a lot when we saw each other dressed up as grandmas with our grey hair, handbags, cardigans and pearls. Mrs Meredith came as Gangsta Granny (she is so silly) and Mrs Barron was such a sweet granny, just like our own. We had a shared Year 1 lunch, with doughnuts, dumplings, cake and fruit; it was a wonderful way to end our 100th day at School. It was our turn to visit King’s School and we really enjoyed playing in their learning areas and making fruit kebabs (what girl doesn’t love marshmallows?). Then, overnight we went back into lockdown 2.0 and we were off again on our StCuth’s@home Zoom timetables and learning menus. ‘Once upon a time’ in Term 4 was a real highlight for us with dress-up and dramatic Fridays. We have learnt the elements of a fairy tale and with Mrs Meredith becoming a storyteller. During Dramatic Play she even turned into Witchy Pooh Meredith (bad) and used her magic to take the 1MER princesses (good) into her cottage. Yes, we did have a handsome prince riding by.

BACK ROW: Valeria Harris (Teacher), Rita Qiu, Karin Xu, Apple Lu, Rosie Gibbs, Samiya Liu, Miss Emily Fisher (Teacher) SECOND ROW: Sofia Sheikh, Charlotte Booth, Lucy Burton, Stella Chen, Kiki Strickett, Emelia Haydock FRONT ROW: Laura Egerton, Lisa Shi, Emma Mueller, Stefanie Wang, Amber Qu, Alina Chen, Lilian Peng ABSENT: Isabella Zhou

Year 2 has been a year full of fun, laughter and lots of glitter!

2020 has been quite a peculiar year, but we stuck together and made it through. For parts of this year we had to work from home in our bubbles. Every day we would log into our little square to learn. Zoom became our online classroom where we learnt, sang songs, danced and had fun with our friends. It was strange not being at school, but it was cool that we could still see our teachers and friends. Our favourite part of online learning was the fun language experiences. We loved planting our sunflowers, blowing bubbles, making popcorn and our very own rainbow glitter playdough. This year we learnt about our brilliant brains. We also learnt how to make our writing more exciting by adding adjectives and similes. We loved learning about fractions in Maths and we even got to make our own pizza… it was delicious! In Year 2 we got to make lots of amazing pieces of art. Our favourite pieces were our Eric Carle inspired flower gardens, our Matariki kites, our water coloured Mini Whinnies and our Christmas stockings. Every season we would spend time outdoors observing the change in season. We loved writing five senses season poems, with our favourite being our winter wonderland snow globes. We loved leading the Year 2 Assembly and had lots of fun creating our very own music video.

This year we have spent a lot of time talking about gratitude and the things we are grateful for. We finished the year with our Year 2 Apron Ceremony where we celebrated and reflected on our first few years at school together. Our theme for the Apron Ceremony was ‘we are all in this together’ and we enjoyed learning and singing songs from the movie ‘High School Musical’. We have loved Year 2 and will always treasure the special memories we have made during this rather unusual year.

BACK ROW: Chloe Ma, Mia Burt, Sarina Zhu, Yvonne Guan, Winnie Wang, Estella Jiang, Eva Boogaerts (Teacher) SECOND ROW: Sarah Klisser (Teacher), Michelle Tao, Joanna Cao, Clara MacCulloch, Melissa Zhu, Adela Mai, Livvy Boyes, Mrs Lisa Jane (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Aurelia Boldarin, Ashley Rao, Ma Yuan, Lucy Fenwick, Olivia Taylor, Annie Liu, Amelia Huang

This is what 2JAE thought about 2020…

2020 is definitely a year that will always stand out for us all. The girls in 2JAE showed incredible resilience and perseverance when our mode of learning changed dramatically, not once but twice!

We kicked off Term 1 with some fun Science by making our own flowing soap. Our first batch was such a success that we made more for all the teachers in the Junior School. The girls designed an individual label for each bottle.

Learning about Waitangi Day was so interesting; we made our own Class Treaty and then drew our very own waka. We drew ourselves in our waka with the proverb written underneath: ‘He waka eke noa’ (we’re all in this together). The learning never stopped even in lockdown! We planted sunflowers, blew bubbles made popcorn and rainbow playdough. Girls wrote letters to neighbours, essential workers and even the Prime minister.

Matariki provided some wonderful opportunities for reading, writing and glistening star art. The girls loved learning about the legend of the seven sisters and Māori New Year.

At the beginning of Term 3, the girls set themselves learning goals for Reading, Writing and Mathematics which are written on their individual placemats which sit on their tables. A highlight for all the girls in Year 2 was running the Junior School assembly, presenting a music video and performing the song ‘Magic in Me’. Their rendition and retelling of ‘Whoever We Are’ by Mem Fox was beautiful. In Stretch this year we had incredible activities and learning opportunities. The girls have learned some basic coding and then applied that learning to using Blue Bots robots. We had a big focus on Te Reo Māori and learning words for emotions, greetings and playground equipment. A trip to the Senior School to do Food Technology was a real highlight. We capped all that off with finding out about our amazing brains. A great way to end the year was learning all about the different celebrations from around the world. Our focus was mainly acknowledging important celebrations within our families and Aotearoa. The girls had their own celebrations to prepare for in Term 4, with the Year 2 Apron Ceremony. All the girls wrote amazing reflections about their time wearing aprons and what being a Year 2 girl meant to them.

BACK ROW: Mclane Cary, Chloe Liu, Missha Lin, Kiki Kilmister-Blue THIRD ROW: Kristen Slade (Learning Assistant), Lara Feng, Cate Power, Pansy Qu, Eadie Coote, Melody Lian, Mrs Victoria Mauala (Teacher) SECOND ROW: Jocelyn Ke, Alva Zhang, Van Nguyen, Lydia Tang, Olivia Zhang, Luna Wu FRONT ROW: Vanessa Chen, Yi Ke Liu, Charlotte Brolese, Audrey Yang, Sabrina You, Nina Ni, Juliette Clarke

Our favourite moments in Year 3

My favourite moment in Year 3 was the sleepover at school and visiting Kelly Tarlton’s because I had never seen a penguin in real life or a seahorse. I loved it! —Kiki Kilmister-Blue

My favourite moment in Year 3 was when we had the sleepover for Year 3 Camp. I loved watching “Rapunzel” at night in our pajamas and having apples for supper. I have also enjoyed learning about different celebrations around the world. —Yi Ke Liu

My favourite moment in Year 3 was doing the Year 13 Leavers Assembly. I really liked our sparkling and bossy outfits! We told the girls to just work hard and danced to Mamma Mia. I really liked our Year 3 camp too. I liked making my bed in the classroom and going to Kelly Tarlton’s and the Zoo. —Juliette Clarke

My favourite moment in Year 3 was going to the family picnic that we had before our sleepover. I love it because we got to see our family and sing our songs that we had been practising really hard. I also love doing Maths and Reading tests because it was hard and challenging! —Vanessa Chen

My favourite moment in Year 3 was doing art. I loved doing the fruit bowl for Kwanzaa because I could do all the fruit I wanted and that I could add some depth by adding dark and light colours to make it look 3D. —Eadie Coote

My favourite moment in Year 3 was camp, it was super fun sleeping over in the 2FSH’s classroom. When we went to Kelly Tarlton’s we saw penguins that had eggs under their bellies, and at the Zoo, my favourite animal was the seals. They were playing in the water. —Pansy Qu My favourite moment in Year 3 was being in lockdown and our Zoom lessons, especially Maths. I loved learning about fractions through our virtual lessons. I loved also having break times because I could make things like paper aeroplanes from our home learning menu. —Luna Wu

My favourite moment in Year 3 was the Swimming Carnival. I loved cheering my friends on and having fun in the water. I also loved Camp. I liked sleeping in my sleeping bag and getting cosy as well as watching the movie, “Tangled”, before bed. —Olivia Zhang

BACK ROW: Kayla Fitchett, Hailey Ko, Annie Zhang, Bowie Adding, Raya Dinesh, Molly Burt, Alice Feng, Miss Elizabeth Stevens (Teacher) SECOND ROW: Zara Reddy, Talitha Mitchell, Olivia Webster, Elisa Xin, Harriet Glenie, Lyndsey Ma, Alira Patel FRONT ROW: Miaomiao Zhong Zhang, Kennedy Campbell, Gladys Hou, Nora Qu, Christina Yeou, Mia Pan, Ana Li ABSENT: Aimee Gill

In Year 3 Class 3STV loved...

Camp was exciting because we got to sleep in the classroom... because it is where we do all our learning and it was cool to be here at night. —Bowie

Camp was also my favourite part of this year because it was fun! After being in lockdown, we had so much to explore and I’m so thankful we got to go. —Hailey Spending time with my teacher and all my new friends. We did some amazing Art; my Australian finger painting was my favourite because I love animals and it was interesting to try a new way of painting. —Kennedy I loved seeing my teacher and going to Camp... Exploring the Zoo was great and I loved seeing all the animals. Sleeping in the classroom was fun too. —Ana

I loved seeing lots of animals at the Zoo when we went to camp... the red pandas were hiding in their cosy little house.. —Molly I liked Camp because I loved exploring the meerkat tunnels at the Zoo. I learned lots from the turtles! —Raya My favourite part of Year 3 was Maths... I loved learning lots of new things and working on challenging problems in my classroom. —Alice

I have made amazing friends. —Samantha T

Camp! It was the first time I slept at school and it made me feel excited —Aimee

Camp was my favourite because we got to sleepover in the classroom. We got to have a new experience that made Year 3 special. —Harriet

Creating our sleeping bag art – because it was fun to design our own sleeping bag and writing about Camp —Gladys Going to Camp! I think it might be cool to maybe be a Zookeeper, so it was a great experience to see the animals. —Lyndsey Creating the Australian art... getting my fingers covered in paint was fun... it felt slimy and gooey! —Talitha

BACK ROW: Katie Potter, Isabella Zhong Zhang, Olivia Andrews, Seraphina Som aratne, Emily Zhan SECOND ROW: Vicky Hacket Pain (Teacher), Nichole Mayer (Teacher), Leonie Grayston, Carmen O’Neill, Fiona Wang, Iris Wen, Sylvie Haldane, Ms Lynda Harris (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Chloe Cheng, Abigail Zhu, Mandy Feng, Annie Wang, Bella Guthrie, Alicia Li, Holly Ip ABSENT: Emily Wang

Hello, Kia ora, Ni hao,

4HAR had a total ‘blast’. We cooked, created art, did science experiments, discussed history and politics which Bella, Annie, Emily and Katie especially enjoyed and discovered the land of squelchy mud at Camp Adair. We are girls who are kind, positive, confident, persevere, take risks in learning and are happy to be ourselves. Here are our top 2020 moments. COVID-19 came and changed many things. With a positive growth mindset, we were determined to surf the Corona wave and keep learning. Zoom, let us fly to another person’s screen and gaze into another world like the Moa that roamed NZ long ago with our virtual trip to Auckland Museum, or create bands and plays in the breakout rooms.

We had a beautiful surprise, tiny little chick filled eggs were in our classroom! A webcam was set up so the school could also watch the chicks hatch. The first adorable chick popped out called Taco and afterwards came fluffy chaos as the eggs started to hatch. Soon we were all holding warm bundles of cuteness. “It’s amazing!” said, the girls as they gazed up at a gigantic mountain of sugar inside the Chelsea Sugar Factory. A million wonderful fragrances swirled around us like an aurora of deliciousness as we stepped into the kitchen to bake cookies and left eating our scrumptious delights. Singing, “Oh no he’s got my toe!” around the flickering flames of the bonfire and toasting yummy marshmallows at Camp Adair was awesome! The most challenging activity was sloshing through ponds of cold mud, crawling under nets and swinging on tyres, monkey style, across deep muddy pools to finish the confidence course covered in disgusting mud which Sylvie and others loved! With ‘By Love Serve’ in mind, we wanted other children to also come and experience camp but knew that some kids couldn’t afford it. The idea of a “Treasure chest” was created and soon overflowed with gear thanks to Junior School support which the Y.M.C.A appreciated. Our class had many amazing experiences which came with new knowledge wrapped up in a bow of joy and friendship! —Written by the talented 4HAR Girls 2020

BACK ROW: Nichole Mayer (Teacher), Chloe Lu, Samantha Thomson, Yiyi Tao, Hope Wang, Chloe Zhang SECOND ROW: Vicky Hacket Pain (Teacher), Nalani Tuhoe, Miri Harrison, Mila Firth, Ashley Mi, Olivia Lambie, Lyvia Sun, Miss Jacqui Tyler (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Iris Dun, Meera Thayalan, Aashna Sidhu-Brar, Hannah Warren, Lila Dilly, Gracie Xu, Hannah Yun ABSENT: Katie Xie At the beginning of the year, we all had mixed emotions and thoughts swirling around our heads. Some people were really excited, some were nervous and some were a mixture of both. However we were all looking forward to having a great year with Miss Tyler.

In the first term, our Art project was the ‘By Love Serve’ collage. Everyone had to do a letter and each letter had an amazing colour. After a few weeks in Term 1, we quickly went into lockdown and had online Zoom School. One thing that we really focused on in lockdown was measurement. We even made a one-metre ruler to measure things! We also did lots of different tasks related to ‘The BFG’ book and listened to the audio. In Term 2, we started in lockdown but we were so happy when we went back to School! Then we prepared for Cross Country. We spent the morning at the fields. It was so fun but tiring. Next was our Samoan art. We put a lot of effort in and when we finished it looked amazing. Then it was the bake sale. There was a prize – the class with the most entries would get a pizza lunch. Lots of 4TYL girls entered and we won... THE PIZZA LUNCH! It was DELICIOUS!

In Term 3, we had a surprise lockdown. Luckily it only lasted a few weeks and a very exciting trip was awaiting us. In preparation for our trip to the Chelsea Sugar Factory we learnt about where sugar is found. Everyone got to do exciting activities. Part way through Term 3, we received 10 chick eggs. We put them in an incubator and they hatched! We were so excited and played with them every day. Four lucky people got to adopt and take them home. In Term 4, we went to Camp Adair. We did lots of interesting and fun activities at camp and learned lots of challenging stuff we hadn’t done previously. The activities included the Flying Kiwi, the Confidence Course, and Kayaking. There was even a 50% chance of sleeping on the top bunk of the bunk bed! Everyone had a wonderful time at camp. Back at School, we got to read ‘Wayside School: Beneath the Cloud of Doom!’ Everyone loved the book, activities, and we worked really hard.

It has been a weird year with COVID-19 and lockdowns happening, but 4TYL persevered and we all made new friends and have lots of special memories. We will miss Miss Tyler, Mrs Mayer and Mrs Hacket Pain. 4TYL’s highlights of the year were going on Camp, going into the great outdoors and gaining more confidence.

BACK ROW: Nichole Mayer (Teacher), Iris Zhou, Isabel Mahon, Kate Xu, Lucia Yoon, Lexi Liu SECOND ROW: Vicky Hacket Pain (Teacher), Sophia Zhang, Molly Atkins, Jessica Yeoman, Indi Rowe, Isla Mitchell, Anna Xu, Joanna Wells (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Hazel Lo, Billie Wild, Nicolee Fernando, Bella Wang, Ariel Su, Georgia Mollison, Sophia Gong 2020 has been like the windiest road in the world and COVID-19 made it hard for our learning, but we pushed through it together and conquered the land of Zoom! Back in the classroom some of our highlights included designing siapo patterns, dyeing our New Zealand Landscape Art, creating fraction fish and our study of the novel, ‘Wayside School: Under the Cloud of Doom!’. Art was fun this year and we worked on a number of different pieces. We created traditional Samoan siapo patterns which are made up of repeating patterns in the shapes of trees, mountains and lines. When making our New Zealand landscape, rainbow colours were used to create a tranquil view of our beautiful country. We learned that the difficulty of the art depends on you. If you draw basic outlines then the art will be simple, but if you are very careful to add more detail then your art will be very effective. In Term 4, it was fun designing our own creative fraction fish decorating them with colourful, shiny scales. They were painted them with bright brilliant colours and they were beautiful. Have you ever seen a cloud that was about to explode, or even suck up an umbrella? We have been reading ‘Wayside School: Under the Cloud of Doom!’, by Louis Sachar. Wayside School is such an interesting novel. It was enjoyable completing some activities related to Wayside School, including inventing how to cure the hiccups, writing recipes for rainbow stew and creating an iMovie trailer about the story. We set off on an adventure to the Chelsea Sugar Factory. Inside the factory there was a huge pile of sugar that was taller than a house and we got to make delicious chocolate chip cookies. The train ride took us around all the buildings and the guide told us all about the process of how sugar is made. At the end of our tour the group got to taste all the variety of syrups including vanilla, caramel and butterscotch. One of our best experiences was going to Camp Adair because it was so muddy. On the confidence course, some of us dove into the mud one by one like penguins while others swung across like monkeys. Another great memory was the mudslide. Everyone flew down one by one, weeee! Rushing up the side, we couldn’t wait to do it all over again. At night, there was a campfire and we roasted marshmallows. Amongst the giant trees surrounding us appeared a two-headed monster (which was clearly Paul and Joe – our instructors) and they made up silly songs making us laugh. The darker the night became, the more creepy crawlies and fire flies came out. Camp was so much fun and it was our favourite thing this year!

BACK ROW: Yeih Seol, Ava Burt, Coco Alpe, Jessica Thomson, Alice Li, Bella Chen SECOND ROW: Arya Dixit, Zala Prasnikar, Tanya Li, Alyssa Yuan, Mariana Somaratne, Ms Laura Hadfield (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Freida Coote, Micayla Lin, Coco Cutfield, Joyce Liu, Sophie Qu, Olivia Liu ABSENT: Esmeralda Sinclair Ahhhhhhhhh! It’s lockdown! There was so much shouting, talking about how they were stuck at home and they would miss their friends way too much! Miss Hadfield managed to console most of us and so we started our first day of online learning! Our class has really enjoyed spending time with our families and doing arts and crafts with our wonderful teacher, though we didn’t enjoy not seeing our friends in person or our teacher. One thing we learnt was new subjects and things in Maths, Reading, and PEACE. We tried really hard to make lockdown fun. But one major achievement was learning how to navigate better on zoom, google drive and email. The other things on online learning, apart from lessons with Miss Hadfield, were the whole Year 5 cohort doing PE, Music, and French together. We also did International Dress Day online when we were all dressed up as a different culture. It was so much fun seeing all our friends in different costumes. We also PREPARED to go back to school which we were very very happy to do. In the end we had a lot of fun, but there was one very important rule we had learnt – stay healthy, stay safe! — Bella Chen, Coco Cutfield, Tanya Li, Joyce Liu, Olivia Liu and Alyssa Yuan (5HAD)

Splash! Oh no, I’ve stepped in a puddle already, oh look what I’ve found a little hermit crab! “ “I’m holding a crab!” I climbed onto a rock. “Ahhhhh!” Trembling, I put on another crate. The cold sea wind blew and made my crate tower shake. I freaked out. Another crate came up from my buddy as I heard voices coming from down below saying “You can do it!” “Keep going!’ As I heard encouragement from my team, I knew that I could do it.

The gentle ocean breeze brushed past me, softly swishing the planks of wood that my buddy and I climbed over. Each plank of wood grew further apart, each step was more difficult than the last. We struggled to get to the top. As our team cheered us on, we helped each other climb up; soon we were at the top. We cautiously floated down, and soon we were on the ground again. Ping, the arrow hit the mark! I couldn’t believe it, I hit the bull’s eye. Archery was so much fun. Three people hit the bull’s eye. A huge wave, my body shivered as my surfboard flipped “Ouch!” I mumbled. At one point Ava and Lilah and I all caught a wave at the same time; it was awesome.

BACK ROW: Mr Jamie Witlock (Teacher), Isabella Clarke, Amy Tang, Aidi Li, Sherine Chen, Sophie Webster SECOND ROW: Isla Thompson, Ava Schaumkel, Sophie Qu, Charlotte Bruford, Lillian Tang, Ms Melissa Hayes (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Bella Deng, Nicole Zhang, Teresa Sun, Leila Roosen, Aveia Renault-Pollard, Elsa Chen ABSENT: Abby Ma

Camp

Camp was fun, with the glistening sun Each day we did an activity, one was surfing, and we were also learning We had fun with the stack-em tower, we stayed at the beach for many hours We had biscuits for tea, and dinner with peas At night we watched a movie, and some of the music was quite groovy Camp was the best, it was a big success It was the end of camp, oh dear oh dear, but at least I overcame my fear —Ava S, Sherine C, Sophie Q, Aveia RP, Abby M and Teresa S

Stay Home

Home learning is fun we enjoyed it a ton Spotty day pink and yellow day, Lockdown made things slow down a fun kind of way Creations were made and worries started to fade Locked up tight we got a little fright Siblings fighting and dogs are biting The air is at it’s best and we’re getting more rest We’re not allowed in the mall It’s like a big brick wall As the keys are clicking the clocks are ticking Back on Zoom And the flowers start to bloom lockdown is over And we’re out of our enclosure

—Leila, Sophie W, Bella, Charlotte, and Nicole

Preservation Poem

Preservation, Conservation, Presentation of our nation! Stop deforestation, No hesitation Let’s make a potion of devotion, And that potion will help our ocean! The Earth is ours to embrace, So we must not leave a trace! GO...Preservation! —Lillian Tang, Amy Tang, Isabella Clarke, Elsa Chen, Aidi Li and Isla Thompson

BACK ROW: Scarlett Harvey, Maya Sheikh, Ava Hua, Peng Ming Qu, Anya Patel SECOND ROW: Claudia Milne, Adele Zhou, Zoe Yuan, Olivia Storey, Celine Liu, Mrs Leigh Knight (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Thea Yi, Isabelle Qu, Lilah McDonald, Tara Murphy, Annie Han, Cedar Adding In Week 9 of Term 1, an unexpected lockdown happened. We had to stay home and for the first time learning was through Zoom and StCuth’s@home! The home learning work got easier and we had no homework and, we got to wear Mufti every day! But there were some downsides;, for example, we weren’t allowed to connect with friends, except for Zoom, of course. But apart from that, it was really fun especially lunch! From a different angle it was actually a blessing in disguise, because as we stayed at home, there was less pollution in the world! And, at home, we could spend more time with our family. In conclusion, we think that home learning was the best thing ever. —Maya, Anya, Olivia, Scarlett and Peng Ming In Week 3 of Term 4, we finally got to go to Camp. It was very exciting. After we arrived, we started our activities. It was exhaustingly tiring. We were put into our groups. First off was surfing. We caught many big waves but fell off our boards, a lot. Archery came next. Everyone was striving to hit the bullseye. Each turn we got three shots. The mosquitoes were flying everywhere. The Giant’s Ladder was extremely high. Many people got scared. You would climb up the ladder and frog-hop down. As it got higher, each rung became further apart. Four people were attached to your harness and moved back as you climbed up. Mountain biking was where we went on a bike ride around the park. We all had fun and learned good skills —Claudia, Ava, Annie, Tara and Lilah

At the start of Term 3, we learned about preserving Antarctica. We had a lovely visitor, Mark Stewart, a member of the Antarctica Heritage Trust. He talked about Antarctica and how Global Warming is affecting it. He showed us photos of explorers and huts which people built, how they preserved them and what was inside. Towards the end of Term 3, we started writing our speeches. These were about certain places and animals that needed protecting. We presented our speeches towards the end of Term 3. We also drew art works about preserving nature and finished it over two terms. In Term 4, before we went to camp, we had a visitor called Sara Kulins. She talked about respecting marine life. She showed us the wonders of the ocean, how people are polluting the ocean and how it’s affecting the animals in the ocean and our life on land. She told us about the rocky shore and about what would be at our camp. This year has been fun and exciting. —Isabelle, Cedar, Celine, Zoe and Adele

BACK ROW: Lilian Qiu, Samantha Sutherland, Jessica Wang, Fulina Fu, Christabella Amos Hourigan, Sienna Cutfield SECOND ROW: Adora Zhang, Cynthia Yang, Anemone Morgan, Jackie Xu, Angela Wei, Molly Manson, Amy Blanchard (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Adeline Iverson, Mae-Li Darroch, Harriet Bell, Lila Weenink, Mei Peacock, Linda Fang ABSENT: Lucy Gill One of our favourite parts of 2020 was Leadership Day at the start of Term 1. We learned to work together as a team, experience new things and make lots of new friends. During Term 1, our topic was resilience where we learned what resilience means and how it can benefit our well-being. We enjoyed the speaker series where a few different visitors shared their understanding of resilience. The understanding gained from this supported us during lockdown when we needed to demonstrate perseverance and flexibility towards online learning and the situation we all faced. We also created superhero animations on our iPads to demonstrate how resilience could help during difficult situations.

Our Term 2 topic was ‘Why is New Zealand called a ‘melting pot’ of cultures?’ As this term started in lockdown, we got to host a dinner party which was themed on a culture of our choice. We interviewed people in our family to find out where our ancestors came from, and how they came to be in New Zealand today.

Due to the second lockdown, our camp was cancelled so we had to experience it online. During ‘camp lockdown’ we revisited the topic of resilience and developed our understanding of collaboration. The few days were filled with nature-themed activities, like making beautiful mandalas using plants and flowers, and we were even asked to construct a solar oven to bake our s’mores in. We wore our screen-printed camp t-shirts and the teachers made a wonderful video of camp lockdown, so overall it was a delightful experience.

The Wonder Project – Rocket Challenge was our fun creative project for Term 3. It included creating, launching and learning about rockets with the help of our three ambassadors: Amy, Kate and Nidhi. We discovered who Sir Isaac Newton was and how his three laws of motion work. We learned from our mistakes many times and kept on trying until we had a successful rocket launch.

With the 2020 elections, our Term 4 topic was ‘Have your say’. We learned about voting, rules, laws and how decisions are made. We also worked hard towards our Year 6 Graduation. The ‘shoot for the stars’ theme was revealed during the chapel launch, and on Thursday 5 November, the Graduation took place in Clouston Hall. The event was very grand and all girls had a wonderful time.

BACK ROW: Yanni Zhang, Ruby Kristensen, Olivia Lindon, Amber Zhou, Anh Kim Nguyen, Eliza Zhan, Rachel Wight SECOND ROW: Bonnie McCarrison, Ella Vickers, Angela Hsu, Lucy Wright, Aimee Bradley, Sophie Sun, Ms Shelley Ireton (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Xolaris Anushan, Sascha Newland, Aisha Mitha, Michelle Sun, Lily Darby, Imogen Gifford-Maposua, Talia Gluckman

Wow what a year, what can we say!

Our learning in 2020 has been an adventure never to be forgotten. In Term 1, our focus was resilience and how it benefits our wellbeing. We had to show our resilience during both lockdowns, thanks to jolly COVID-19! We showed resilience by persevering when times were tough. This especially was useful when Camp was postponed in Term 2, and then cancelled again during lockdown 2! Fortunately, Camp went ahead as our wonderful teachers came up with a splendid solution, an online Camp! The teachers created a virtual camping experience in which we got to make pancakes, solar ovens, forts, colourful mandalas and to wear our camp t-shirts which were designed in Term 1.

In Term 2, we went back to generations before, to discover our ancestors’ cultural history. We learned who we are and where we come from. This was also known as our melting pot, where we embraced our cultural diversities. We made a special book using book creator, to showcase our learning about our families and our history. We learned that our families are actually very interesting and that everyone’s cultures are different.

Zoom! Zoom! back into lockdown. Up at 8.30am dressed in the theme for the day. The appearance of COVID-19 again put our Wonder Project on pause and it didn’t lift-off till we were out of lockdown and back at School. Our ambassador, Kate, led us through our rocket journey. We learned about Sir Isaac Newton’s three Laws of Motion as well how to design, build and launch our very own water rocket. After many attempts our rockets were finally launched successfully. The Graduation was nearing and we prepared items in groups to present to our parents. It was a phenomenal evening which we all thoroughly enjoyed. The theme was ‘Shoot For The Stars’, which was very apt, because this year certainly taught us to be resilient, as we try and shine bright like a diamond, being ‘the very best’ that we can always be. Year 6 has been a rollercoaster year that will never be forgotten. It has had challenges that have been beyond imaginable, yet we have been resilient, had fun along the way and are now ready to blast our way over into Year 7. —Class of 6IRE

BACK ROW: Tiffany Ye, Georgia Wilcox, Meg Fowler, Rosabelle Penaflorida, Zara Sharp, Emma Zheng, Peony Westwood SECOND ROW: Ava Kennedy-Grant, Melody Ding, Valentina Hania, Aamani Patel, Amélie Jarvis, Meher Randhawa, Mrs Stacey Pinique (Teacher) FRONT ROW: Claire Dun, Sienna Lala, Amy Glengarry, Sonia Reddy, Alesha Mehta, Rose Larmer, Ranmeng Yang 6PIN is a creative and fun-loving, lively class. We have a mix of girls with amazing skills and talents and we all work together and can overcome any challenge. We love art, strive to do our best, look after each other and most importantly, love coming to school every day. We are a keen, enthusiastic and polite class. This year has been like no other, travel plans cancelled, learning from home and a need for us to develop our independence very quickly. In Term 1 we were learning about resilience. COVID-19 tested our learning around resilience and created a few ‘bumps in the road’ for the learning journey we were expecting. We soon learned how to work together online and use a new variety of technology overnight! Term 2 began in lockdown. We celebrated ANZAC day at dawn at our letterboxes, made biscuits, poppies and lanterns. We were supposed to have our camp in May, but COVID-19 said “no”. The focus question for the term was “How did New Zealand become known as a Melting Pot of Cultures?” We interviewed our family members, dug out old photos and discovered family stories; researched foods from other cultures and hosted amazing dinner parties and retold traditional stories.

Our Term 3 focus was The Wonder Project. We designed, tested, re-designed and launched rockets, collaborating with class and group members. We discovered Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion and the science behind launching a rocket. During library, Mrs Elisara gave us a book called “Pom-pom Mania”, which developed a passion for our class of making pom poms. At the end of the term, we collectively decided to make a pom pom wreath for the door. Term 4 was SUPER busy and flew by while preparing for our graduation. It was an exhilarating night and the theme was even more bewildering and breathtaking as it was ‘Shooting for the Stars.’ Even though 2020 was disorderly, we all coped and it has become one of the most significant and special years for our class.

—The magnificent team of 6PIN.