Middles News

By Amy McBeath | Posted: Thursday November 3, 2022

Kaua e hoki i te waewae tūtuki, ā, āpā anō hei te ūpoko pakaru ~ Do not turn back because of minor obstacles but press ahead to the desired goal.

Demonstrating the KAIK Values in Term 4:

Being KIND ~ Atawhai

It's been a busy couple of weeks with swimming, our daytrip to Tirohanga and the start of our end of year testing.  We've been doing a lot of talk in classes about being kind to ourselves and others.  While this term is full of challenges, our key message is that as long as we are trying our best, we should feel proud of ourselves.  

Being ASPIRING ~ Wawata

Classes have begun working on our last PBL for the year which is based around financial literacy.  Over the next few weeks, children will look at lots of ideas relating to money.  There have been some interesting discussions happening in classes already, with many children talking about savings and goals around money (some more realistic than others - but we've all got to start somewhere).

Being INDEPENDENT ~ Mana Motuhake

It has been great to see how hard children have been working on a range of tasks both in and out of the classroom.  As part of our lead up to Tirohanga, children were able to identify the sorts of things that they needed to be aware of to help keep themselves and others safe.

Being KEEN ~ Hīkaka

The biggest demonstration of being keen has to have been our trip to Tirohanga.  Whether it was on the confidence course, bouldering wall, or the bush walk, children were willing to give each activity a go.  There was lots of encouragement from parent helpers and each other to help build confidence and achieve success in a new activity.

Tirohanga Day Trip  

Our trip to Tirohanga is a highlight every year for the middle syndicate.  For some children, it is their first time giving activities like the confidence course a go.  For others, there is the challenge of improving on what they were able to do the previous year.  Seeing and hearing (from children and parents) about the success achieved in different activities was awesome and will hopefully inspire students to give other new challenges a go.  There is quite a lot packed into the day and everybody was keen to give things a go.  A huge thank you to the parents who helped out - we wouldn't be able to run these activities without lots of you giving up your time to join us.  

Student Comments

My favourite things to do at Tirohanga were the bouldering wall, the confidence course, and the bush walk. My favourite thing to do on the bush walk was walk all the way to the top. On the way to the top, we walked by a double tree. It is two separate trees stuck together, we walked by lots of streams and we walked on top of lots of bridges, any time we crossed a bridge or when the path was really narrow we would shout “SINGLE FILE!”. At the top we each got a piece of ‘fresh fruit.’ There was strawberry, orange, banana, lime and wild berry. So healthy! NOT. We actually got a fruit burst. Now the confidence course my favourite part of that was the moving balance beam and a seesaw that we need to walk over. At the end of the course we had to walk on a wire, there are two more wires above for us to hold on. My absolute favourite activity is the bouldering wall. The problem was that it was the last activity that I did so I was so tired. Clarissa  

My favorite activity at camp was the confidence course I liked it because it was fun going down the poll. My 2nd favorite thing to do at camp was the bush walk because we went past double tree. It was fun when we got to the top of the hill because we got fruit. Felix

Bean bags, teams, points, and more, quite a funny name for the game. Today I am going to tell you about…Cornhole. It's where you have to chuck a small square bean bag into a hole in a board. If you get it on the board it means two points. If you get into the hole it means 5 points. So what you have to do is there are a few people lining up behind a cone and the first person in the line gets two bean bags and you get two turns to through it in the hole and the team with the most points wins. In one of the teams, we ended up getting more than 250 points! We played it at tirohanga camp. Aria 

My favourite thing at Tirohanga was the confidence course. It had lots of balance beams and it was so hard but I did it. It was so fun, my favourite thing about the confidence course. The balance beam at the end it was so fun. And my 2nd favourite thing was the tirees I loved it. Andre

My two favorite things that I did at Tirohanga were the confidence course and the bouldering wall. I'll start with the bouldering wall. We were all split into two different groups. One group did the cornhole while the other did the wall. I did the wall 2nd. I did it twice both times I got from the start to the end.  My mum was parent help and she helped me get along the wall one time and Jill helped me the other. At the end of the wall, the holes got really hard to hold and I almost fell off but I still got to the end. Riley  

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