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Term 3, Week 8 Wednesday 9 September 2026
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Message from our Principal
Kia ora tatou, Mālō e lele, Ann yeong haseyo, Ni hao, Dzień dobry, Buenos días, Bom dia,
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Upcoming Principal Delegation to China
Next Friday, 18th September, I am heading to China alongside 18 other New Zealand Principals and Deputy Principals as part of the Educators’ Delegation to China. Fully funded by the Confucius Institute in Auckland, this long-running initiative has connected over 100 Kiwi school leaders with Chinese culture and education over the past twelve years.
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Immersive Visits: Exploring historic cultural sites, local schools, local businesses, and our partner institution, Fudan University in Shanghai, as well as school visits in Beijing.
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Cultural Connection: Gaining firsthand insights into Chinese culture to better support our diverse students and whānau, ensuring our school remains an inclusive environment where every background is valued.
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Sharing Kiwi School Life: Delivering a presentation on New Zealand’s curriculum, school hours, and daily routines to host schools, beginning with an introduction spoken entirely in Mandarin.
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Stepping into the Learner's Shoes Preparing for this trip has been a wonderful humbling experience. Practicing Mandarin phrases, with plenty of helpful pronunciation coaching from our students, has placed me right back in the learner's seat. It has been a great reminder of the courage and patience our young people draw on every day when learning a new language.
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School Leadership During Week 10 While I am away during Week 10, Sarah Cattell will step into the role of Acting Principal.
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Thank you to our students and community for your support and encouragement as I prepare for this journey. I look forward to bringing back fresh perspectives and sharing my experiences with you all upon my return!
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Art Exhibition
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As we near the last couple of weeks of the term we are finishing with a BANG! It has been a truly magnificent week celebrating all things Pinehill.
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On Monday, we celebrated the opening to our Pinehill School Art Exhibition. The Art Exhibition is held every two years to celebrate the talents and efforts of our students and staff in the area of visual arts.
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Teachers have been planning, organising, preparing and timetabling in teaching towards their classes' piece of artwork, all year. The masterpieces displayed are all unique and quite breathtaking. Like any subject area, some of our students thrived in creating their piece of art, and some (like me) showed great resilience and perseverance in reworking their piece, modifying and in some cases making big changes for the final outcome.
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This year we have been wowed yet again with an incredibly colourful display of art, covering a range of media. We hope your children enjoyed the opportunity to share their art with you during the opening night. It is not too late to come along and see our exhibition. It will be open after school today from 3-3:45pm in the school hall. Thank you to all of our teachers for their efforts. A special mention and thank you to the art team who have supported with the planning and co-ordination of the exhibition to ensure the success of this event as well as the vision and execution of the final set up in the hall from Marg Milne and Karen Wilson Perry resulting in a spectacular display.
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Jump Jam
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Congratulations to both our Jump Jam teams who recently competed in the Strictly Jump Jam competition. Alongside many of our Pinehill whanau, I had the privilege of being an audience spectator and supporting and cheering on our Pinehill Jump Jam Teams that performed during the day at the competition run at Westlake Girls High School and had regular updates from the evening performance. I was a very proud principal, alongside very proud whanau, coaches and staff and commend both our teams for outstanding performances.
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Congratulations to the Year 3/4 Pinehill team who placed 3rd overall with excellence in technical execution and presentation.
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Congratulations to the Year 5/6 Pinehill team who placed 3rd overall with excellence in technical execution and presentation.
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It was a HUGE day and I’m sure there was lots of celebrating in households. We will need to make room in our trophy cabinet!
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A special mention to Karen Wilson Perry and Amy Koh who have made this happen and taken on this initiative for our students.
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End of Term Approaching
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Our last day this term is on Friday, September 25th.
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I wish you all a wonderful school holiday break ahead. Hopefully we get some more sunny weather to enjoy!
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We look forward to welcoming everyone back for Term 4 on Monday 12th October. A whakatau will be held at 9:00am in the school hall to welcome our new students and whānau. All are warmly invited to attend.
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Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini
Success is not the work of one, but the work of many.
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The Online Safety Hub
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The Online Safety Hub - pinehill.onlinesafetyhub.nz can be used to empower parents to more actively support their children online, and includes a free Qustodio account for every family at the school to protect children's devices at home. You can also find more information about it on our Linewize Customer Success Hub on the Online Safety Hub and Qustodio Page linked here. I can confirm that when you use Qustodio as a parent you do get a daily summary report for your child.
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The Garden Club Update
By Dahamlee, Shaun, and Hajun
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The garden has greatly improved since the last time it was used a few years ago. Many amazing Pinehill students have contributed to making our garden beautiful again. Before we began to weed, the garden was covered in weeds, but it is now thriving under our great care.
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Interestingly, there are now many different flowers, such as primrose, viola, and hellebore, that are thriving in our newly cleared garden. We also planted vegetables like lettuce, silverbeet, and beetroot to make it more purposeful and productive. Mrs Johnston, who has been very helpful with the garden, has kindly let us use her tools to help us plant and weed.
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We harvested lemons and gave them to the teachers during lunchtime. Mrs Chatterton made a lovely lemon pie and gave some to us – it was very tasty.
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While many of us are excited about harvesting, we are most delighted about the progress we have made with our garden. Our garden is now beautiful and vibrant, and we hope to maintain it by continuing to take care of the plants!
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Congratulations to the following students -NZ Nationals
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Shirley Yang - Won 1st place in (111m,333m,555 m) races and became the age C ISSNZ National Champion. She was also awarded the Most Promising Short Track Skater Trophy, a very special honour presented to only one skater each year.
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Shirley is off to Melbourne to compete in the Australian Open Short Track Championships. We are very proud of you Shirley.
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Anson Li and Marie Esterhuizen competed at the NZ National Schools Karate Competitions 2026 on Sunday 30th of August.
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Congratulations to Anson Li for achieving a silver medal at this event.
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SKIDS - School Holiday Bookings
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We Chat
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