SEZ Touch

Boys

The Somerville Boys Touch team had every reason to revel in their remarkable achievements at the SEZ tournament. Securing an impressive 2nd place finish. The team showcased extraordinary resilience, unwavering determination, and exemplary sportsmanship throughout the fiercely competitive event.

The entire squad made invaluable contributions, playing pivotal roles in the team's success. Their collective efforts were the driving force behind their remarkable journey to the final, marked by exceptional skills and seamless teamwork. Although their aspirations of claiming the coveted title were dashed by the formidable St Kents in the final match, their journey was nothing short of inspiring.

Congratulations are in order for the Somerville Boys Touch team, whose outstanding performance has not only earned them accolades, but also served as a shining example of professionalism for the entire school. Their accomplishments have set a lofty standard for future teams to aspire to. Kudos to each and every member of the team for their exceptional dedication and skill. Well done!


 

Girls

The girls had a rocky start to the SEZ Touch competition, with having to wait for fields to be marked out. By the time this was sorted, they had no time to warm up and had to use the first game to do this. It took a while to settle in and we had a few missed opportunities, with a misunderstanding on the field markings. This resulted in a loss. The girls rallied and kept their spirits high and finished the pool with 4 consecutive wins, these games showed some tremendous teamwork and sportsmanship. 

It was a tough day, with no breaks in between games and in the semi final play off against St Kents, the fatigue was starting to show. The girls showed grit and determination to only lose 2-0 to a very dominating St Kents who had won their pool convincingly. 

The girls tried really hard in their 3rd place play off, but the wares of the consecutive games and the brutal sun not relenting all day, meant that the very tired team ended up with a 4th placing for the South Eastern Zone tournament. The girls should be proud of their achievement!

 

Mixed

The Somerville Intermediate mixed touch rugby team played exceptionally well. The team showed great skill and effort to win all pool games convincingly. We won our semi-final against Bucklands Beach Intermediate 13-3 which put us in a good position for the final. Here, we won against Ormiston 13-1. The team should be very proud of their achievements!

We are looking forward to competitive games at the Auckland Champs. 

Auckland Champs

Taking out the South Eastern Zone tournament meant that Somerville’s mixed touch rugby team was able to progress to the Auckland Champs. Here, the level of skill on display was a massive step up for the team. This being said, it brought out the best in our players and led to some amazingly close games. We played hard and fair and ended up with some great wins on the day. Ultimately, we finished third which we were all very pleased with. Well done team!

Thomas entered the competition with his NIWA STEAM Innovations Project and came second, winning a share of a $20,000 pool of cash and prizes. His winning entry involved designing an energy generating system that could be built into homes and harness the power of rainwater to generate electricity. 

Thomas recently attended a prestigious ceremony with his family where he received his certificate and prize from the former Minister of Education, Jan Tinetti. 

We would like to acknowledge and congratulate Thomas for his success. If you would like to read the Howick and Pakuranga Times article, please click on the link.

We were able to share our beans with Food Tech, life skills lessons, students and staff.

We were astounded at the amount of food waste that was thrown away. Compostable food waste came to nearly 14kg! Our next big waste was paper at just over 14kg. Being a school, this might be understandable, but it is something we can work on. We weren't happy with the amount of "all other waste" category which goes straight to landfill and came in at 10.18kg! These are things like broken containers contaminated with food scraps, noodle containers, "recyclable" coffee cups, stationery etc.

We learned to rinse off food waste so that items can be recycled and that all compostable coffee cups are not recyclable in NZ, nor are the milk cartons and straws - they go straight to landfill. 

We now have the data and can put some plans in place to reduce our waste by 40% by early next year. 

Mr Adam Ward and the Kapa Haka performed a welcome and Mr Ward blessed our mural. Our prefects did an outstanding job of welcoming and guiding our guests. Whaea Taini Drummond, Matua Hemi, Whaea Carolyn and Matua Henare, were among our guests and some of our mural students were able to explain our mural meaning, once the mural had been unveiled by Ms Franke and Elena.

We would like to thank our guests for attending and give a special thanks to Rowena Rooney, our creative, for being a part of this project. Our mural students worked so hard over the course of this year and we would like to extend how proud we are of their accomplishments.

Please come and take a look at the mural and scan the QR code to be a part of the meaning of our mural. We are sure the mural will be a living, learning opportunity for our students in their future learning at Somerville, as the meaning suggests Ka Mua Ka Muri - walking backwards into the future.



Ka pai Somerville mural students!

After two days of brain-frying chess, the team got a fantastic second place out of many of the best chess teams in the country! Daqi M also received a remarkable gold medal for first in Board One. 

The team finished with five wins, one draw, and one loss.

The individual results are as follows: 
Daqi M: 7/7, First Board One
Arush G: 5½/7
Tracy T: 3½/7
Grishma K: 2/4
Anson L: 2/3

Congratulations to both James and Ava who delivered outstanding presentations that stood out alongside speeches from schools across Auckland. The judges included Blake Ihimaera, Te Kahu Rolleston, Ethan Alderson-Hughes and Stacey Leilua.

Somerville Intermediate School

School Board Elections

Parent and Staff Elections Results Declaration (non voting election)

Signed

Hayley Russell

Returning Officer

Des Hunt gave a fun, interactive presentation on how to structure a story, while keeping your audience engaged. Written over 25 books, Des Hunt was a Science teacher before he became an author. The students enjoyed his presentation which featured fun experiment-based metaphors related to story writing.

Camp started on Monday afternoon and finished on Friday at lunch time. During the week our team competed in over 30 different sports:                       
Basketball, Croquet, Netball, Petanque, Rugby, Soccer,  Softball, Tennis, Touch, Volleyball. We also have some one off events: Athletics, Cross Country, Frisbee Golf, Hole in one Golf, Mini Golf, Kayaking, Swimming and Team Triathlon. One of the highlights of camp is after dinner we keep going  with night sports including Indoor Bowls, Cage Soccer, Chess, Darts, Draughts, Indoor Hockey and Indoor Soccer. Plus the camps own unique sports - Cheer Night, Scramball, Spikeball and Wall Ball.

Some of our best performances came with a first place in the kayaking event, runners up in chess and indoor bowls and making it into the semi finals for mixed tennis, croquet and hockey.

It was a week of individual growth, developing resilience and stamina, life lessons, responsibility, self management, hard work, building relationships, health and fitness, and improving skills on and off the field.

The highlight for us was the presentation of our school cheer. We had put in many hours learning the steps, developing the dances and working as a team to successfully present to the group of 300 other students. There was great satisfaction when we achieved 3rd place overall in the cheer competition.

A huge thank you goes to our organiser, Mrs Pietersen, parent helpers Amy Hillerby and Mark Johnson, and to our SIS Camp specialist Gary Carr, who helped make the camp such a success!

To view more photos, please click here.

One of our teams, ‘The Cranky Gearboxes,’ finished the Tetris activity and made a promising start on the Pac Man challenge. Our other Somerville team ‘0n3 sh0rt fus3’ finished the Pac Man challenge and was able to begin the Tetris challenge.  After two long hours of engineering, the team ‘0n3 sh0rt fus3,’ finished in third place with 340 points, which means that they have just managed to qualify for the grand final. 10 points behind, the Cranky Gearboxes finished in fourth place. However due to an overlap in schedules, the second place team, ‘The GOATS,’ is currently unable to make it to the next competition. This means both of our Somerville ePro8 teams will participate in the grand finals being held at Pasadena Intermediate School on Thursday 21st  September.

During this event, students from various whānau across the school came together to collaborate and work on an age-old problem. Divided into groups of civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and forensic engineers, students were challenged to construct and test a protective nest for an egg. They then got to test their efforts with the use of the 20kg ‘Thorminator’ hammer. Students not only gained a profound appreciation for engineering functions but also developed a genuine excitement for the world of tools and problem-solving.

The fusion of education and fun during this challenge is a testament to the benefits of the partnerships between industries and schools and the opportunities they provide. This fantastic experience was made possible by Scott McGovern from Fisher and Paykel Healthcare, MESNZ (Maintenance and Engineering Society NZ), and Joel Leonard from Makesboro USA. Thank you for giving some of our students a learning experience they will forever cherish and remember.