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Our year 7 Mathex team came away winners of the Papakura Mathex competition last night, held at Papakura Normal school. The team of Aaryan Goel, Ezekiel Sterling, Jwalin Shah and Ethan Foo, pictured with Maths teacher Mrs Sheldon, won with an impressive perfect score of 100. The team will go on to compete at the Auckland schools’ Mathex competition at the ASB Stadium in Kohimarama next week.

Two teams of year 12 and 13 Physics students spent last Saturday at school to take part in a  day long problem solving competition organised by the University of Auckland Engineering Science Faculty. Competing against 177 other New Zealand Secondary School, their task was to find the answer to the following question:

How many rocket launches from Mahia Peninsula would it take to establish a lunar colony?

The teams worked from 9am to 6pm and had to produce a 10 page report answering the question which included a mathematical model as part of their solution. Interestingly, each team came up with a totally different answer, with one team claiming it would take four rockets and another claiming over 400!

With a $6000 first prize reward as an incentive, both teams will be hoping they are close to the winning answer.

Last term, year 9 student Siobhan Balle represented Strathallan in the annual New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country Championships held down in Christchurch. Siobhan competed in the year 9 girls’ competition at Barry Curtis Park where she placed 14th, completing 3km in a time of 11.39.  We congratulate Siobhan on her amazing achievement.

Year 10 student, Mikaela Peszynski, recently took part in a 10 day voyage on the Spirit of Adventure. She had an amazing time and received the award for the trainee displaying outstanding endeavour and personal growth.

Today has been a wonderful day. The Year five and six students were joined by Te Hihi School and Ardmore School students to learn about and experience a few of the many things that are part of the Chinese Culture.

We started out with an opening ceremony with lots of demonstrations and performances by ACG Strathallan College students and Chinese specialist teachers. We particularly enjoyed the students showing their diabolo skills and the Tai Chi demonstrations.

After that we were sorted into our groups and we went in our groups to different activities. Some of our favourite activities were:

“My favourite part was making a Chinese mask and learning twenty Chinese characters in ten minutes”. – Liam.

“When I was doing the diabolo I learnt how to loop it in the air and then throw it in the air and catch it”. – Melvin.

“When we were doing the diabolo I found it really hard at first and then one of the teachers helped me and then I started helping others and I liked that”. – Madeline.

Some of the activities we did included:
Diabolo
Chinese Calligraphy
Chinese Games
Chinese folding and cutting
Tai Chi
Making Chinese masks

After we had finished our workshops we had the closing ceremony in the School Hall. We watched three instructors do the diabolo. They were highly skilled, tremendously awesome, and entertaining to watch! Then we had an ending speech by Mrs Shapcott and feedback from a student representative of each school. We found today fascinating, exhilarating, and fantastic. We felt it was a great way to be able to learn about the Chinese Culture and to take part.

Year 13 students celebrated their final day at Strathallan on Friday before heading off on study leave for their final CIE examinations next term … and to mark the occasion they organised an obstacle course bouncy castle for the day for the whole school to enjoy! A very positive end to a very positive year.

Buenos Tardes! After a fascinating time at Quito we travelled by bus to Machachi then onto El Chaupi, where our acclimitisation trek lay ahead. Our current home away from home is chuquiragua lodge, where we have camped for the last 2 nights but finally get the luxury of the soft beds and warm showers tonight staying in the cabins within the lodge.

Yesterday we endured the first of our 2 treks, a 5 hour walk (which somehow turned to 7) up to 3700 metres with breathtaking views across El Chaupi and the mountains nearby, including the magnificent Cotopaxi. This morning´s trek was a much shorter 3 hours up to the summit of the hills, and we are currently browsing the markets of Machachi and preparing for our main trek beginning tomorrow.

There will be little contact as we then follow on to the community but be sure we are all having an unforgettable time.
Adios!