House Reports

Dunblane

What an incredible year it has been to lead Dunblane House! We’ve absolutely loved strengthening our House ties and continuing to be tough competitors this year, and despite setbacks, it’s been amazing to see our Dunblanians strive to their personal best in all aspects of the College.

What started off as a normal year, quickly changed as we moved into online learning and uncertain times. Whilst this could have posed a challenge, Dunblane fully embraced the opportunity to be resilient and have a positive attitude to make this year not only full of fun, but memorable too. The way our girls were able to stay connected and responsible for their learning at home is certainly a reflection of the strong students that Dunblane has always had! Something that was really exciting during lockdown was the Big Sister Little Sister project that the Prefect team set up. During this project, Year 13 Dunblane students were partnered up with Year 7 Dunblane students, and the pairs could connect online and chat about what they were getting up to during lockdown. This reminded us all of the importance of taking the opportunity of lockdown to slow down and be present with ourselves and our families.

Our tutor leaders and tutor teachers were also huge pillars of support in keeping Dunblane connected, particularly through our weekly online ‘tutor class’.

We have been incredibly lucky to have had 3 school terms, where Dunblane was able

to participate in Athletics, Swimming Sports, House Flowers, Wearable Arts and House Performance – in all of which, our House did amazingly well. Gaining 3rd place at Athletics, and 3rd at Swimming Sports made us a strong competitor for the other houses! Wearable Arts fostered a chance for the tutor groups to connect and similarly, House Flowers was a great event to reunite the Year 13 Dunblane cohort. In these events, Dunblane gained 4th in the Box Dresser category, 2nd in the Futurist category and Year 7 were 1st equal with Lindisfarne for their wonderful decorations for Wearable Arts, and best Form and Balance for House flowers.

House Performance was an event that our leaders really pushed for, to make up for such a disrupted year and to bring the house together in what is arguably the most competitive, but hilarious, house event. Our theme was ‘Alexa Play… My Life as a Feminist’, where we explored one girl’s encounter with 5 influential female leaders. Dunblane put on a great performance, gaining the 'Best House involvement award', but more importantly gaining a day full of laughter and time together! Dunblane’s achievement and continuous participation to make this ‘not-normal’ year, a whole lot of fun, is testament to the amazing girls Dunblane has, and is something to be proud of. We would like to thank all of the tutor staff, Ms Roberts and of course, Ms Disbrowe who have helped us to achieve such an unforgettable year. Thank you to our Year 13 Dunblane Cohort for the creativity and leadership that you have contributed and thank you to the entire house for being such an amazing bunch of girls whom we can always count on. Leading Dunblane this year has been an incredible privilege for Hannah and me and we are both proud of the success of the House. It has been so rewarding to see how our Dunblanians have created an inclusive, determined and fun environment for all of us to enjoy. Our best wishes to the House and our girls next year; we will miss you all and can’t wait to see you achieve the amazing things you are capable of! —Niamh Orr-Walker and Hannah Fan

HOUSE Reports

Durham

It has been an absolute pleasure to watch and help the girls in Durham navigate and blossom into the young, independent women they are today. Although this year was heavily impacted by COVID-19, every single one of our girls has shown a huge amount of courage and has continued to put in huge amounts of effort into not just House events but into maintaining the sense of community we have in Durham. We could not have been more proud of our girls and it has been a privilege to lead them, hyping them up and fostering the caring nature that Durham has always been known for. Durham actively participated in each house event and we are proud to have received a few awards throughout the year. With Athletics Day and Swimming Sports to kick off the start of the year, we were all decked out in pink gear and filled with Durham pride as we cheered on our girls. Everyone participated in every event and tried her best. We were so ecstatic to have our amazing senior girls come 1st in 4x100m house relays at athletics. However, it wasn’t just the seniors as our younger girls all did their best in each event bringing their smiles and energy to the track events and swimming relays!!

The Year 13s all worked together to create our amazing masterpiece in the annual House Flowers event. This wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our whole House who brought in materials to help us construct our design. The theme for House Flowers this year was “time.” Our girls worked hard together to create a sculpture that represented the way life is affected by time. This was shown by the bright, colour of the flowers that gradually decayed moving down the sculpture. The sculpture highlighted the blossoming of new life and the falling of the dead leaves representing how in nature, as one plant dies, another blossoms.

Wearable Arts was another exciting House event our girls were a part of. This year was a little different as we created our outfits in Tutor Classes and it was a nice experience mingling with the younger and older girls in senior school. This year they used cardboard to create outfits for the various categories like Avant Garde, the Futurist and Box Dress. It was so good to see the creativity and ingenuity that came from the Durham girls for Wearable Arts.

Our final House event this year was House Music. The Durham girls all worked together to create an amazing performance to fit the theme ”Alexa Play Monopoly.” Definitely it was one of the highlights of the year seeing their enthusiasm in helping teach one another dances and, their hard work paid off as we also were awarded Most Inventive Costume! Ms Young and Ms Brabant for the love and support that they gave to Durham during the time that they were with us. We would also like to thank all the tutor teachers as well who were incredibly strong and persevered through the lockdowns supporting the girls and making sure everyone was nice and safe in their bubbles. We are grateful to have Mr Gilmour as our new Deputy; he is a wonderful, cheerful new member to the Durham community. To Ms Coleman, we could not be more grateful for the support she showed us and the House during this year putting in time not just at school, but extra time during the lockdown where she was so supportive and loving. We know this year has been quite the memorable one and will miss our House (the best House) so much!

HOUSE Reports

Elgin

As we all know, this year hasn’t been quite like others. However, despite the many months of lockdown, Elgin has still had great successes. We started the year off with Athletics and Swimming Sports which allowed our House to get to know one another and push one another to our fullest potential. Athletics was our first event in which we placed second. The participation in Elgin House events was amazing. We often had so many people signing up for races that we had our very own Elgin races! We were so proud of everyone’s spirit and enthusiasm towards the first event of the year and it made everyone very excited for the rest of the events for the year. Swimming Sports was our second and finest event of the year. We were able to come out on top for this one and take the win. We have some amazing swimmers in our house who placed very highly and gave it their all. What was most impressive was the effort and enthusiasm that everyone else in Elgin contributed. It can be daunting swimming in front of a big crowd when you are not a confident swimmer, however, every single girl there gave it a go and we had outstanding participation in the House Events. The combination of the phenomenal effort from the House and results from our swimmers, is what allowed us to achieve first place. Our last athletic activity of the year was Cross Country. The House section of this was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19 and only the championship racers competed in the 3.2km race. We had some girls racing in this from all three age groups and we had some amazing results, too.

It was a shame that this was cancelled but it made us even more eager for the other House events to come.

House Flowers was a huge success. Putting our own spin on the theme of “Elements”, Elgin created a piece inspired by the Amazon rainforest, creating a frog sitting in our hanging basket. We used a wide range of plant material including flax, succulents and vines, which wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the numerous donations from the girls. The effort of our Year 13 creators paid off as we ultimately came third, with a big thanks to our artistic directors Amanda and Sophie for pulling it all together. For House Music this year the theme was “Alexa Play...”. We decided on “Alexa play the movies of our childhoods”, and chose a range of iconic movies- ‘Matilda’ for Years 8 & 9, 'High School Musical’ for Year 10, ’10 Things I Hate About You’ for Year 11, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ for Year 12 and ‘Pitch Perfect’ for Year 13. We couldn’t have done it without our amazing choreographers and directors Sammy and Rachel, who all worked tirelessly to create the show. Overall, it was a very memorable day, aided by all the effort put in by the students. Our Wearable Arts event was held in Tutor Groups instead of Year groups, and, instead of newspaper, we were working with cardboard. Everyone worked extremely hard to create some amazing garments with the themes of “Flamboyant”, “Box Dress”, “Circus Circus”, “Isolation Garment”, “The Futurist” and “Avant Garde”. This was a great opportunity for leadership within the Tutor Groups and we were amazed at how many girls stepped up to lead in the creation of the garments. Overall, 2020 was a challenging year for many but we could not be prouder of how all the girls have come together and given everything their all, despite the circumstances. It has been our privilege to lead such an amazing group that has helped make our final year here such a great one. We wish all the girls the absolute best for next year. —Harriet Cook and Hannah Went

HOUSE Reports

Iona

This has been a strange year with the Coronavirus dominating. However we couldn’t be prouder, as leaders of Iona, of our kind, cooperative and enthusiastic House. Even though COVID-19 has caused disruptions to our lives, the fact that we still managed to enjoy so many House events together has been a huge highlight. The year began with swimming sports, our theme being Hawaiian/beach. Many of the girls involved themselves and enjoyed the day, but the best part of this event was just how supportive the girls were of one another. We were ‘super proud’ of our girls' efforts in this event.

Following this we had our annual Athletics day held at Mt Smart stadium. Rearing to go, Iona came into the event with enthusiasm dressed as purple pirates! From the sprints, to long jump, there were sweets, dances and songs and it was clear our House had a really fun day. Another amazing effort from Iona. Next we had the rewarding event of House Flowers. With the selected group of the most artsy and creative Year 13s, we fulfilled the theme of “the elements” by creating an hourglass to represent the element of time. Using flax, purple hydrangeas and ivy, we couldn’t be prouder of the beautiful floral installation the team created. With the supplied foliage and support from our younger Ionians, we were grateful for the House's contributions in helping us take away the award for 'best use of contrast'.

Our next House event was wearable arts. For this event, each tutor group from years 8 to 13 worked together to respond to a theme and form a costume out of limited material consisting of cardboard and tape.

Iona did an amazing job, managing to take out first place overall! Our tutor classes IAKAH and IAMIL were also the winners of their respective themes, IAKAH winning the ‘Isolation Garment’ theme with their stylish coronavirus costume and handbag, and IAMIL taking out first place in the ‘Avant Garde’ theme. In addition to the older girls, our year 7s gained third place overall in their Wearable Arts competition. Although we were not able to hold our Cross Country or spend the most amount of time as a House, the most rewarding part of being the House Leader for Iona this year was our service project Painga Trust as well as the ‘Big Sister, Little Sister’ programme during lockdowns and at school. Collecting books, toys, stationery, sanitary products and many much-appreciated goods, the girls in Iona contributed to the less fortunate lives of children in lower decile schools such as Kelvin Road, Papakura Intermediate, Red Hill and Edmund Hillary. With a hygiene bank held in June, there was a whole school collection of much needed hygiene products for this beloved project of Iona's. The collection, handed over in term 4, undoubtedly changed the lives of many children and families alike, and we thank the giving girls of Iona for their kindness. The last house event of the year was House Music. This was an exciting House competition which allowed everyone to show creativity and enthusiasm through dancing and singing. This year's theme was “Alexa play …” and took this crazy year as an opportunity to do “Alexa play the year of 2020”. Showcasing the major events of this year such as the Australian wildfires, climate strikes, US election, online learning, and of course COVID-19, this event was 100% student led and we spent a whole day in our year groups choreographing dances that we would perform together at the end of the day. The girls put so much effort in and it showed, as we managed to come away with the prize for best choreography in our performance, and third place overall! It has been a tricky year, however we have had ‘a blast’ as a House. Special thanks to our Tutor Group teachers for always looking after our girls, with our Deputy Dean Miss Donovan and our House Dean Ms Morrison who is always working behind the scenes. It has been a pleasure to see our House grow, become more inclusive and kinder to one another and the girls should all be proud of their achievements this year. We are very grateful to have been the leaders of this House for 2020 and we feel such a sense of pride for our achievements as a house. — Stella Stiven & Zoe Perkins

HOUSE Reports

Kelso

2020 for Kelso has been, while different and a challenge, an all round success. The participation of our House has been extraordinary this year. It has been a pleasure and honour for us to lead the girls, and we are so proud of the way that they were able to rally around each other to create an awesome blue team!

This year we were ‘stoked’ to have our year 8 Kelso girls join us throughout our House events. They added such an awesome level of enthusiasm and determination, and we were very proud that they were representing us. With the addition of our year 8s, it has been even more special to watch the bonds and relationships form and grow throughout the year groups. The spirit from all the girls, challenging and supporting one another continues to grow every year, bringing along a very strong sense of pride for our blue House. A major highlight for Kelso this year was Athletics day, the participation from the house was unmatched, and the energy that the girls brought to the activities was exceptional. From great efforts in the gumboot throw and pretty much every girl participating in the optional 100m sprint, to coming first in both the senior and junior relays, Kelso really shone through. For the first time in many years, we took out first place and could not be prouder!! Another successful event for our House was the creation of our House flowers. With the overall theme being elements, we of course went for the obvious choice of using water.

We wanted to create something more than just a water droplet, and after many long hours of dedication from our hard working year thirteens, we created our sculpture, representing Waitapu – ‘sacred water’. We wanted to convey the overall message that we must respect the element of water, and not take advantage of this resource we have been provided with, our inspirational quote being “the more we look after our beautiful mother earth, the more she will look after us”.

Another great success for Kelso was our House performance. Our theme was Alexa Play… Musicals and from Lion King to Mamma Mia to Heathers, all the girls got involved. We won 'best overall design' thanks to our girls singing and dancing their hearts out. It was amazing to watch our visions and ideas come to life. The talent among Kelso was inspiring, and we have confidence that Kelso will continue to perform strongly over the coming years. We took out second place, which we were incredibly happy with and very proud of, and it was so awesome to see the whole Senior School finally having fun together. It has been really rewarding watching our House give their 100% effort and enthusiasm this year and, as leaders, we couldn’t ask for a better group of girls to work with. Thank you Kelso for making this year so memorable and always having high spirits. A huge thank you to all our tutor teachers, Mr Vink and especially Mrs Olsen – your dedication to our house is so special. —Hannah Stewart and Molly Want

HOUSE Reports

Lindisfarne

2020 was a year unlike any other, but Lindisfarne’s unwavering house spirit continued to thrive and grow through these unprecedented times. Lindisfarne started the year hesitantly with our sporting events such as athletics and swimming sports. It was clear that although we did not champion the sporting side of these, we certainly won in House spirit. With the theme doctors and nurses for athletics we saw Lindisfarnians from all year groups wearing face masks, stethoscopes and white coats. A little later into term one, Lindisfarne dived head first into swimming sports with the theme “Lindisfarm.” Our Lindisfarne girls loved participating in flipper races, relays and more, while also supporting their friends on the sidelines in farm animal inspired costumes. However, it became clear where Lindisfarne’s true talents lay as we watched our girls sweep up numerous victories in the artistic house events.

First with House flowers, Year 13 came together to create a beautiful floral arrangement inspired by the theme 'The Elements'. Our Year 13 team aimed to capture the beauty of flowing water through the construction of a magical garden fountain. Our artistic girls worked tirelessly from early hours in the morning to erect an intricate triple-layer wire structure, adorned with woven flax, draping vines, bubbly white hydrangeas, and fleshy succulents — a stunning display which ultimately won us 1st Place overall!

This was only the beginning for Lindisfarne, as we continued to demonstrate our talent in wearable arts. Lindisfarne girls in tutor groups worked to recycle cardboard boxes into outfits which were Avant Garde, future inspired and more.

In the final house event of the year, House Performance, Lindisfarne completed the prompt ‘Alexa play…’ with an iconic childhood memory: Disney. Led by creative director Noor Randhawa, our talented performers took the audience on an adventure through Disneyland: from Mickey Mouse’s Clubhouse to Elsa’s ice palace; each year group presented an energetic rendition of a beloved movie, capturing the euphoria of each fairy tale world through dance and song. At the end of the day, we were incredibly proud to be awarded 1st place, as well as the prize for 'most successful coordination of a large group'. This victory in House Music could not have been achieved thanks to our Year 13 and Year 12 choreographers, specifically Arabella Patrick and Victoria Ryan. Overall, this victory was a real ‘happily ever after’ for our hardworking performers. It has been a privilege to lead such an incredible House filled with girls who really took on the challenges of COVID-19 with open arms, helping to lead our house to incredible successes. We want to thank all the tutor teachers and most importantly our Dean Mrs Cullinane for their support throughout the year. We wish everyone a great 2021 and good luck to the next leaders of Lindisfarne.

—Arabella Cryer and Belinda Hu

HOUSE Reports

Melrose

Melrose has had a funfilled and exciting year despite the difficulties of 2020. We have a very talented House with strengths in all different areas which was helpful when it came to our overall success in House events this year. We started off with Swimming Sports and had a few great successes over all age groups, taking out second place overall! Everyone participated on this day and took part in the relays which made it a lot more fun and competitive. Next up we had Athletics Day, which was great fun, and although we didn’t place as a House, we had some great individual successes from Melrose.

It was then House Flowers when the year 13s came to school nice and early to create our eye-catching red flower which represented the current state of the earth due to climate change and global warming. This was a fun experience for all the year 13s. Throughout the day of House Flowers, we saw Melrose girls from all year groups come to support the House and look at our design. In term 4, we had House Music and Melrose chose the theme ‘Alexa play… 2020 rewind’ in which each year group in Melrose performed a dance to represent a few of the many events that got cancelled this year due to COVID-19. We all had so much fun on this day and we won the award of 'most striking performance'. This year, we also had the year 8s join us in House activities and join our tutor groups. We really enjoyed this as they had a lot of energy to bring to the House and had a lot of spirit when it came to the House events which we loved.

This year, we have seen a huge step up in participation from everyone across Melrose which has been great. We love seeing everyone get involved and have fun when it comes to House events.

Overall, Melrose has had a great year and a lot of fun along the way thanks to all the amazing, hardworking girls who we have in Melrose and thanks to our awesome Dean, Ms Ford. It’s been a pleasure being in Melrose for 13 years now since I was in year 1, and Mel for 5 years. We can’t wait to see the success of Melrose in the future.

—Mel Nosseir and India Swney

HOUSE Reports

York

It has been a great pleasure leading York alongside our year 13 cohort this year! We have worked hard together, put our best efforts forward and most importantly, had fun in every event possible making 2020 (despite the COVID-19 limitations) a successful year for York house. From House events throughout the year such as Athletics and Swimming Sports to House Flowers, Wearable Arts and House Performance, ‘Yorkies’ have truly shown the best of our abilities in both the sports and creative areas. At the beginning of 2020, we had Athletics and Swimming Sports in which we displayed our House spirit in all aspects, with girls dressing up in orange ‘Disco’ themed outfits and participating in every event. As both events had welcomed us with hot and sunny weather, it was incredible to witness so many of our girls getting involved and contributing to our House points, even if the athletic events were not their strongest suit. Although being the smallest House, we celebrated each person who took part by cheering them on and chanting at the top of our voices, no matter if they were running 100 meters or swimming 25 meters freestyle. With the overall theme of House Flowers being ‘Elements’, a group of Year 13 girls from York utilised bright orange Cockscomb flowers and a variety of foliage to construct a flame, symbolising our response to the theme – fire.

Working from 6am with the support of the girls from our House, and procurring a continuous supply of newspaper, we were able to take out second place and overall 'best House response to theme'. This was an incredible result and we are so grateful for everyone who contributed to our success in this event!

Wearable Arts, the next event, was also so much fun and an extremely successful House event. Our tutor groups had performed and crafted such creative garments in response to all six themes; The Isolation Garment, Circus Circus, Avant Garde, The Futurist, Box Dress and Flamboyant Dresser. In collaboration with other year levels in their tutor classes, YKTIP was awarded the overall prize for Flamboyant dresser and YKWAH. House Performance was the final House event of the year, in which the theme was ‘Alexa play…’, York chose the theme of ‘Alexa play Kiwiana’. Showing an array of typical New Zealand childhood moments, involving many memorable Kiwiana jokes and television moments, we danced to many well known artists from New Zealand such as Benee, SIX60 and Drax Project. As a House we won the award for 'best realisation of a theme or story'. We have greatly appreciated all the fun, excitement, supportive network and memorable moments there have been throughout this year. A big thank you to Mrs Adsett, Ms Choi and all other York tutor staff for their support and the love they’ve put into York house. We are so incredibly grateful for our York Year 13 cohort and their immense dedication in making sure 2020 in York was a year to remember - we couldn't have done any of this without you! —Bella McDonald and Caitlin Reelick