The team from HNS wish you all a safe and relaxing holiday with your family and we look forward to seeing you back on Monday 6th October. 

This week we celebrated the learning of the children in Rooms 6, 7, 9 & 10 who performed their production of 'A Brand New History'.  It was a wonderful display of the arts with acting, dancing, music and incredible visual arts in the form of backdrops, costuming and prop designs. This production was completely created from scratch with the students' fingerprints on every element of the performance. Our students absolutely shined throughout the whole process and have earned a well deserved two weeks off.

Term 1 - Monday 2nd February to Thursday 2nd April  

Term 2 - Monday 20th April to Friday 3 July                

Term 3 - Monday 20th July to Friday 25th September  

Term 4 - Monday 12th October to Wednesday 16th December 

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS 2026

After a year of planning we had our breaking the ground ceremony and blessing for our carving shed.  This is due to be opened at the end of week 2, term 4. 

In whānau class we have been making Kowhaiwhai prints.  We have been learning about negative detailing at the same time as learning about the different patterns that we see in Kowhaiwhai.  We have learnt that the main patterns are koru, mangopare, pātiki. They represent new growth, courage and bravery, and manaakitanga (caring for people).

We started by sketching our designs on foam and then used carving tools to make indents.  We then had to use printing ink to replicate our pattern on paper.  This was tricky because we had to make sure there was the right amount of ink and that we didn’t get too covered in ink.  To get a nice even spread we had to use the special rollers to make sure it was nice and smooth. Once we had the ink on our plate, we stamped them onto new coloured paper to see what it looked like.  We experimented using different coloured paper to see what different impacts we got in our negative space.  Some of us even tried using different ink colours.

Did you know that different colours can represent different things?  Mā (white) can represent peace and light, pango (black) can mean darkness or night and whero (red) represents life force and vitality.  Some of us used these meanings to help us with our artistic choices for our final prints.

When we finished creating our art prints, we then wrote our stories that reflect our koru that we choose.  Lots of our stories were about our whānau and how their personalities can be seen in our different koru designs.

By Holly, Ariah, Sylvie and Isabella M

To register for this event as part of group Hillcrest Normal School please follow these steps :

1. Go to the website using this link: https://eventplus.net/RTB25?code=HNS25
2. Either create your account, or login if you already have an eventplus account. You can request a password reset if you need to.
3. After logging in you should be prompted to join the group.
4. Your group code is HNS25
5. Valid categories for this group are: Kids Challenge

This year's Sanitarium Weet-Bix Kids TRYathlon will be held on Sunday 7th December at St Peter's Cambridge.  More information will come out closer to the time.  

Congratulations and thank you, to Marlee who won a Silver Ferns competition and chose to donate your winning netball balls to the school.