Kia ora koutou

This term there have been some wonderful learning through the Arts taking place with authentic learning experiences happening across the school.  Our Year 3 and 4 team enjoyed sharing with whānau yesterday in their classrooms, while the Year 1 and 2 tamariki in the junior team are having a learning celebration with their kapa haka performance tomorrow.  The second senior production team is in full rehearsal mode preparing for our ‘Brand New History’ performances next week.

Congratulations to our team who competed at the inter-school cross country event last week at the Hamilton Gardens.  We were incredibly proud of you all for your sportsmanship and the support that you gave each other.  A special mention to our two students who won their events, as well as to the many students who finished in the top ten of their events.

Our Orchestra has been practising hard over the last two terms, with the opportunity in preparation for the Hillcrest Orchestral Music Festival.  They were fortunate to perform with the Berkley and Hillcrest High School Music Groups, with both individual and combined items.  It was great to see such a big turnout of whānau to support.

A reminder that the last day of term three will be Friday 19th September and school finishes at the usual time of 3pm with After School Care running on that day.

Noho ora mai

Junior School

This term Room 19 and the Year two team has been studying Multiplication and Division in our Maths sessions. We are exploring what multiplication is as well as beginning to learn our times tables.  When teaching we explain that multiplication starts with repeated addition for example:  4 + 4 + 4 = 3 x 4 = 12.

Then we use real-life examples such as: "You have 3 bags of 4 apples each. How many apples do you have in total?" If you look in the accompanying photos you can see we use a lot of practical materials. We also created and used arrays to help solve problems, for example, show how 5 × 4 is 5 columns of 4 items.  It's important for our students to start learning multiplication and division because these are the building blocks for many math skills they’ll need later. 

They realise it helps them a lot by…

• Making counting faster 
• Helping with real-life problems
• Preparing for harder maths later
• Building number sense

Middle School

Senior School

Production

On Wednesday the 17th and Thursday the 18th of September the following classes; 6, 7, 9, and 10 will be performing an outstanding production called A Brand New History.  They will do 2 performances on each day.

These are our dates and times for the production performances:

On Wednesday the 17th, the matinee is at 11:00am and the evening show will be at 6:30pm. The times are the same for the two performances on Thursday the 18th.

Each ticket will be $2 per person or $5 for a family.

We would love to see you come along and watch A Brand New History.  We hope you enjoy it!

By Sara and Pippa.

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We have two acting casts performing, one cast each day. The children who are not in the acting cast on a day will be doing other jobs during that production, such as dancing, singing, tech support or organising props. This means that all children will be required to be present for all of the performances. Both casts will be performing a matinee at 10:45 am in front of the school, which parents/grandparents are also welcome to attend, and then an evening performance at 6:30 pm. The show is expected to go for approximately 90 minutes.

As the evening show starts at 6:30 pm, we ask that all children be dropped off at school at 5:30 pm to the doors of Room 10. They will stay inside during this time and be cared for by our teachers. This will give us 1 hour to get everyone into costumes, makeup, and ready to perform. This will also allow enough time after school for your child to go home, have a break and eat some dinner before returning for their evening performance. It is important that there is a caregiver to pick up each child at 8:15 pm, after the evening show, at the deck between rooms 6 & 7.

A_Brand_New_History_3_.pdf

A_Brand_New_History_3 pdf 10.81 MB

Nau mai, Haere mai, come and join us tomorrow on the covered court by the school hall at 11:30am.

We are excited to show you all the learning that we have been doing during kapa haka over the last term. We will share waiata and our school haka with you. After that you are welcome to go to your child's classroom to see the other arts mahi that they have been focusing on this term.

We are looking forward to seeing you.

What an incredibly beautiful sound the audience heard as three kura joined together to make music at the inaugural Hillcrest Orchestra Festival.  It certainly was a celebration of the arts.

Last Friday a group of about 50 of our tamariki went to Hillcrest High School to perform with them and Berkley Normal Middle School.

We played one piece called the Can Can altogether - that was probably about 100 musicians led by Tony Wu, our school conductor.  Then we performed three other pieces with just our orchestra.

Six of our talented singers joined the orchestra for a special version of Pepeha by SIX60.

Our staff were very impressed by the way the children managed themselves as it was a busy one hour of music.  The children rose to the occasion and played extremely well.  We were so proud of them! They sounded fantastic considering that our youngest orchestra members are not even seven yet.  It was also heartwarming from an educators point of view to see so many ex HNS pupils in the other two orchestras.

Thank you very much to Tony our conductor and Marjorie our orchestra leader,  for their enthusiasm and vision to make this happen.  Thank you also to our whānau supporters for being a wonderful audience. We are already looking forward to repeating the festival next year.

The middle team had their learning celebration this week and we had a wonderful turnout from our supportive whānau.  The student's were proud to share their learning around the arts from this term as well as other areas of learning.  Thank you to everyone who was able to attend.  It was heartwarming to see the engagement!

On Thursday, a team of 36 top runners from Hillcrest Normal represented our school to compete in the South East Primary Cluster Interschool Cross Country Event.

Some students trained hard in the weeks leading up to the running event, and their hard work paid off as they performed exceptionally well on race day.  Despite tough competition, they all persevered, with several students proudly earning places in the top 10.  All participants represented the school with pride and determination, and it was lovely to see them support each other by cheering on at the finish line.

Thank you to all the parents who offered to help on the trip.  Below are the top 10 results from the event:

Results

With the senior school production happening next week, ASC will be held in the library on both Wednesday and Thursday afternoon.

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

This year we have had an awesome hockey season full of great support and encouragement.

A big thanks to all the coaches and managers for supporting everyone and making this hockey season happen, we could not do it without you!

Some of the places that we played at were Gallagher Hockey Center, DIO and St Johns.

All of our teams did an awesome job and had a great time.  Also a big thanks to Louise and for being so amazing and getting all the teams together.  On Saturday we had our hockey prizegiving and had some kai.  After we ate we had our own mini hockey olympics where everyone had a go and had fun.

By Pippa

Voting has now closed for the School Board Elections.  In line with Ministry requirements, results will be announced on Tuesday 16 September.

Celebrate the month-long Biketober festival by getting on your bike and having some fun!

Sign up for one of the free bike activities these school holidays — from biking basics to bike maintenance, there's something for all ages!

To learn more or register for an activity head to hamilton.govt.nz/biketober