The Year 7 Girls competed first and although it was a tough course, they did their absolute best. Our top finishers were Zoe Brazier in 12th and Mae Reynolds in 21st.

Next up were the Year 7 Boys. Tyler Gagiano was our only entry and he managed to get 67th. He had a lot of tough competition, so we were very proud.

Next to compete were the Year 8 Girls. This was a tough race as they had to run an extra loop of 500m that included a decent hill, Danielle Asiata managed to come in at 10th place and Sophie White, a respectable 41st.

Finally the Year 8 Boys competed. They also had to run the extra loop, and it was quite clear from the start that Connor Boulton and Tyron Newell were not going to let anyone pass them, staying at the front of the pack for the majority of the race. Connor finished 6th and Tyron was 8th. The rest of the boys did an awesome job and managed to secure 2nd place overall in the team competition.

They had a great day, and all put in 100%. Special thanks to Roger Whatman for helping manage the teams and supporting the students on the day.

Her accomplishment was announced by Mr Chris Harris, CEO, Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, at a special assembly about the importance of standing up to prejudice and discrimination - a topic which Rosetta wrote passionately about. She will present her winning composition and receive her prize at the United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Day function in Wellington on January 27, 2020. An outstanding achievement Rosetta - Well done!

Our special guest speaker was Pita Alatini. Pita is a former professional rugby union footballer who played for the All Blacks, 4 Super Rugby franchises, and in Japan. Pita shared his journey from a boy playing in the back yard with his brothers, to representing New Zealand as an All Black. His story of success, failure and the support of his family was inspiring, with many students and adults reporting that his message resonated with them.

Many thanks to all the male staff who worked really hard to put on a fantastic and important event. A special thanks goes to Richard Weightman who organised our guest speaker and then expertly interviewed him during our bacon and egg breakfast.

Kapa Haka groups from a number of local primary, intermediates and colleges performed on the day.

Our Kapa Haka performed extremely well in the afternoon. They made us very proud and were honoured by former students following their performance.

A special thanks to Whaea Carolyn Pou for her mentoring and performing with the group at the festival, Destiny Anderson and Dayalan Pillay for their expertise and coaching, and other Somerville staff and parents who attended and supported this wonderful cultural event.

They displayed excellent sportswomanship and were always playing to the rules.

We saved our best game until last, and won a tight game late on against Pakuranga.

You have all worked so diligently and produced such innovative and creative projects. Everyone at Somerville is really proud of you!

The students will be receiving three 1st places, one 2nd place, one 3rd place (a joint award), two highly commended places, and four special awards, which is an amazing achievement for our school and we would like to congratulate them all for doing so well!

Camerone Chin, Aleisha Coleman, Sofia Currie, Olivia Dixon, Kishan Harry, Kayan Lawyer, Reuben Martin, Benjamin McLaren, Jo Thistlethwaite and Jack Want.

The winner of the Korean speech final was Jisoo Kim and the winner of the Mandarin speech final was Cindy Zhang. These girls went on to represent our school at the APPA international Korean and Mandarin speech finals at Farm Cove Intermediate.

Congratulations to Cindy (pictured left) who came 1st overall in the Mandarin speech final and Jisoo who gained 2nd place in the Korean speech final.

This competition was held at Auckland Girls Grammar school in Auckland City, and featured bands from a number of schools from across the Manukau region. The standard of all bands involved was high, and competition very tight.

The Somerville band played incredibly well, and were commended for their onstage energy. They also took a number of top prizes, with Lucy Lonie scooping the Rock Star award, and Kishan Harry taking both the Best Guitarist and Best Overall Musician awards!

It was an amazing night, and the Somerville Rock Band did our school proud.

The tournament consisted of 16 of the best Intermediates in Auckland.

We were off to a great start coming out of pool play undefeated.
Winning all 3 games convincingly.

vs
Baradene 15-2
West Harbour 30-4
St Mary's 20-6

Following this we won our quarter final against Carmel by one goal.

In the semi-final we faced a very physical Holy Cross School who pipped us at the end to beat us by two goals.

The girls secured a podium finish fining our 3rd/4th final against Henderson Intermediate 16-10.

The girls are ecstatic with 3rd place and we are ready to charge the mountain again at this weekends ANC Tournament.

GO SOMERVILLE!!

Year 7 Girls - 1st Place team competition
1st - Zoe Brazier
5th - Mae Reynolds
13th Rochelle Christie
14th - Ashley Fillet

Year 7 Boys - 3rd Place team competition
4th - Tyler Gagiano
15th - Finn

Year 8 Girls - 2nd Place team competition
2nd - Danielle Asiata
10th - Sophie White
12th - Lucy Lonie

Year 8 Boys - 1st Place team competition
2nd - Connor Boulton
3rd - Tyron Newell
6th - Ryan Burgoyne
7th - Isaac Smith
9th - Nicholas Rooney

It was a great day and we are very proud of you all. A special thanks to Roger Whatman, our PE/Sports Specialist, for helping out on the day!

The students put on their high visibility vests and worked with the New Zealand Police to helpenforce and promote the 40km speed limit around schools. The police used speed guns and pulled over any driver above the speed limit. Under police supervision, the students read a “bad driver” speech, explaining how speeding made them feel unsafe and asking them to slow down in future.

Drivers who were travelling at, or under the limit, were also pulled over. The students delivered a “good driver” thank you speech and presented them with a small gift.

Our Travelwise students were “buzzing” after being part of this exciting event. It was great to see the police in action; some of our students even got to try using the speed guns. We were also encouraged by all the motorists who were driving safely.

As a school, we would like to thank our local community constable, Ian Willets, Tracey Thompson from Auckland Transport and the New Zealand Police for their help in facilitating this event.

In conclusion, we would like to remind our community that school speed zones are in force throughout Auckland on school days. They operate 35 minutes before the start of school and 20 minutes at the end of the school day.

We would like to congratulate all our teams on their amazing technical, collaborative, critical thinking, creativity and engineering skills. The challenges lasted three hours, so the teams also had to have plenty of perseverance. All our students did so well and we are very proud of them.

There were 12 teams from different schools competing each evening. Our teams were:

The AI’s: Ethan O’Meara, Kieran Gawn, Benjamin Kee, Kishan Harry
Newton’s Apples: Caitlyn Blaauw, Kate Baxter, Selina Li, Kayan Lawyer
The Best Team: Emily Stark, Nicole Lin, Gurman Garg, Amy Zhang
Potato Squad: Yunmin Lee, Krish Tagra, Emily Shen, Valerie Perez
Galileo Galilei’s: Hunter Brown, Hadley Thompson, Alan Yang, Phoenix Thong
Super Squad: Nathan Cox, Annabelle Olsen, Rueben Martin, Kevin Yu

All our teams did very well and showed such amazing skills and sportsmanship. It was a fun evening for all the contestants, as well as for the parents and teachers. Thanks to everyone who came to support our teams.

A special congratulations to The AI’s and The Best Team who both came 1st on their respective evenings. We now look forward to them competing in the finals series starting in November and wish both teams the best of luck!