We were amazed and enthralled by the talent of our students, with stunning performances from our Rock Band, Kapa Haka, Choir, Stage Ensemble, SomVoices, Dance Groups including Hip Hop, Pasifika, Lyrical and High School Musical, the graceful and beautiful Chinese Fan Dance and creative Wearable Arts models.

Thank you to all of the Somerville families who came along and enjoyed this special evening. After the disruptions with Covid throughout 2020, it was wonderful to come together and showcase our many talented students, who have worked extremely hard to perfect their performances.

A huge thanks to the many Somerville staff who have dedicated a lot of time in bringing this extravaganza together. Special mention must go to Mrs Sonya Koshy, who was the main organiser of this event.

We look forward to our school production ' Madagascar' in 2021!

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Their solution was uploaded onto the EPro8 Workshop Portal and needed to include: a 2 minute video showing their build, a team photo (including their build) and  a one page report. They competed against other schools in our area. 

A big congratulations to all 4 of our teams who entered a robotic animal. They all did very well against some really stiff opposition and their animal robotic creatures were very convincing and authentic. 

One of our teams came 4th out of 25 teams and will be representing our school in the EPro8 Challenge Inter-School Finals series. A special congratulations to: The Leaping Lizards - Nathan Cox, Joelle Tan, Daniel Revans and Linda Zhang, who made a crocodile with snapping jaws.

We wish this team well as they compete against 11 other teams in the semi finals on Thursday 19th November.

Girls

It was a beautiful day out at Bruce Pulman Arena where our girls squad competed in the South Eastern Zone Volleyball Competition. Led by Zahara (C), the girls played exceptionally well, winning 4 out of 6 of their pool games. 

Moving on to the semi finals, the girls narrowly lost to Ormiston Junior, but regained their composure and won convincingly over BBI for 7th place. The girls played brilliantly as a team and showed a high level of sportsmanship throughout the day. 

Congratulations to the team:
Zahara Tuinikuafe, Laura Cuberos, Addison Doeg, Ashley Fillet, Ayvah Mokoi, Charlie Lindsay, Sierra Lau’Ese, Ivy He, and Holly Mellor.

Boys

On 22 October, the Somerville Boys’ Volleyball squad travelled to Bruce Pulman Park to compete in the 2020 South Eastern Zone volleyball competition. 11 teams competed in the tournament.The teams in our pool were: Sir Edmund Hilary, Ormiston, Ferguson and Beachlands.

At the end of pool play we had losses to Sir Edmund Hilary, Ormiston, and Ferguson and one win against Beachlands. This placed us 5th in our pool of 6. Our next game pitted us against Howick, which we lost, meaning we would play against Redoubt to decide 7th and 8th place. This game saw us lose narrowly 2 - 1 and secured us 8th place overall.   

Our boys showed true fighting spirit, terrific sportsmanship and were a credit to the school. The 2020 squad comprised; Roy Kim , Isaac Knox, Lennox Johnson, Khavin Kannan, Zhilin Shen, Aryan Goshal, Ben Xie, Finn Wessels, Josh Briones and Enrique Kirkwood.

Students are enjoying this new facility. In addition to free play at morning intervals and lunchtimes, the playground also provides structured 'play' during PE/Sport programmes. It provides a balance between upper and lower body activities that can be applied at different heights. The enjoyment factor is a high priority with a deliberate focus on building confidence, balance, strength and coordination. 

Girls

The girls had a great day out at Bruce Pulman Arena on Wednesday 14 October. The girls' knowledge of the game and their incredible determination was the reason behind their success on the day. After comfortably winning our two pool games, we played Redoubt North for a place in the final. A heart stopping game in which we found ourselves 11 points down at one stage, went right down to the final seconds and we incredibly scored 12 in a row to win 21-20.

The final was against Ferguson Intermediate. The girls held their own against tough opposition and finished second overall. An incredible achievement!

The girls did themselves proud with their attitude and effort in every single game! Well done girls - it has been a pleasure to manage you and a huge thanks to Peter, John, and Karen, the coaches!

Boys

This week, the Year 7 and 8 Boys Basketball team attended the SEZ Intermediate competition. With the many interruptions of this year, the team came together extremely well and gained valuable experience playing against some of the top teams in their first two games.

Unfortunately, we did not place this year, but overall the boys can be proud of their performances, especially in the hard-fought second game.

Morgan Alley with her creation titled 'Piwakawaka Are you a Fan?' achieved second place nationally. The judges loved her colour palette and her strong sculptural focus. They thought her garment was well thought through from head to toe.

Somerville achieved three national finalist placings: 

'Our Birds of Paradise' by Kayleigh Thistlethwaite is a garment centred around using aluminium cans and was about New Zealand's native wildlife and showing off the beautiful colours that are found in our country. Kayleigh spent hours sewing cut cans into a gorgeous skirt and creating accessories to match.

'Utopia versus Dystopia' is a garment created by Maddy Owen, Mya Booth and Bhavya Madan. This garment showed how we have created devastation to our seas by contrasting a utopian sea against a polluted sea. The result was a striking and inventive - garment complete with an octopus head piece.

'Food for Thought, Honey Bees and Flower Power'
by Gabriella Dalton Wilson.
This is a garment was made from old egg cartons, milk bottles and food scrubbing brushes. Her commentary on the importance of honey bees is clear to see in her garment and was well liked by the judges.

As well as national finalists, Somerville had three highly commended garments. They were:

'Bed and Breakfast' by Nathaniel Dalton Wilson
'Pacific Scream' by Die-Anche Rautenbach
'Morpho Butterfly'
by Amelia Higson, Natalie Dennison and Keira McGrath

All students who took part this year in our wearable arts are to be commended for their resilience, creativity and high levels of self motivation. The community can look forward to seeing all garments on display at our Somerville Arts and Cultural evening. 

This is an initiative from the APPA, designed to enliven oral language learning, enjoyment and achievement in Auckland. 

The judges for this event were Thomas Stacey from Howick College and Chermaynbe Gibson from Elim, with Nicky Smirk and Chris West, local professional rappers rounding out the group. Theirs was an unenviable task!

The morning involved students presenting in a range of genres which included prepared speeches, RAPs, spoken word and flash talks. There were seven schools involved and we were treated to a feast of wonderfully polished presentations from students from around our area. Representing Somerville Intermediate were Morgan Alley, Ben McLaren and Aria Takle-Lee. Competition was fierce and the judges had a very challenging job to choose a winner in each category. 

In the event, the winners were as follows: 

Prepared Speech:
Aria Takle-Lee (SIS) - What is Beauty?

Spoken Word:
Lily-Ann Sanileva (BBI) - The Reality of Being a Girl

RAP:
Ethan Firth (BBI) - Words of Wisdom

Flash Talk:
Ben McLaren (SIS) - The Philosophy of Wisdom

Well done to everyone concerned!

All eligible voters will receive a nomination form and a notice calling for nominations, via email or post, by Sunday 11 October 2020. You can use this form to nominate yourself or someone in your community. 

Please hand deliver, post or email completed nomination forms to:

Hayley Russell
Somerville Intermediate School
39 Somerville Road
Shelly Park
Auckland 2014
hrussell@somint.school.nz 

If you need further nomination forms, please contact the school office during school hours.

Nominations close at 12.00 noon on Sunday 1 November 2020. You may provide a signed candidate statement and photograph with your nomination.

The voting roll is held at the school and can be viewed during normal school hours.

As nominations are received, there will be a list of candidates’ names kept at the school up until election day, which you can view.  

Voting closes at 4.00 pm on Friday 4 December 2020.

This is a recent initiative, designed to reinvigorate and promote a variety of oral language skills in our school and Auckland-wide. Students competed across four disciplines and there was a very high standard overall, with Year 7's and Year 8's competing together. Congratulations to the winners on the day: 

Spoken Word
1st - Morgan Alley
Runner Up - Annabelle Olsen

Prepared Speech
1st - Aria Takle-Lee
Runner Up - Toby McCormack

Flash Talk
1st - Ben McLaren
Runner Up - Tayla Ashfield

RAP
1st - Ayvah Mokoi and Sierra Lau'ese
Runner Up - Samuel Ting

It was a great event, enjoyed by all.

Each whānau spent the day undertaking a wide range of personal and collaborative challenges aimed at building different skills relating to problem solving, risk taking, creativity and resilience.

Both students, teachers and accompanying parents really enjoyed the day, reporting it was well run, challenging and fun.  It was great to see students outside in the environment, working with one another and having a huge smiles on their faces.

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Pictured from left to right in the photo are Whānau captains, Benjamin Owen, Khavin Kannan, Helena Dunn and Lucy McCabe.

The standard was once again really high and the judges were most impressed. This year’s Fair has unfortunately been a little different to previous years, as the students never got an opportunity to share their work with the scientists who were judging their projects. Despite this, Somerville did extremely well.

Congratulations to all the students who won awards this year. Your hard work and dedication has really paid off and we are all very proud of you. Thanks to the teachers and parents who helped along the way.

Year 7&8 Intermediate Consumer Science
1st Place:
Kelly Ma - Be Gone, Glad Wraps


3rd Place:   
Tiffany Ong - Battle of the Toilet Paper


Highly Commended:
Georgia and Kate Sole - Blasting Bliss Balls 


Year 7&8 Living World
2nd Place:
Valerie Perez - Food waste - Liquid Fertiliser

3rd Place:
Nyesa Khurana - Blue light has a Dark Side

Highly Commended:
Charlotte Radford - DIY Masks - Who Nose?


Year 7&8 Physical and Material World
1st Place:
Annabelle Olsen        Grip or Slip


Year 7&8 Environmental Science
1st Place:
Ben McLaren - The Sustainable Garden


Year 7-10 Technology/Innovations
3rd Place:    
Die-anche Rautenbach - A Gauge from Dad’s Book


Highly Commended:
Asher Coomes - Love Your Shelf


Special Awards:
Annabelle Olsen - Best Year 8 Project
Morgan Alley - Environmental Award (Years 7-13)


Tiffany Ong - Best Year 7&8 Scientific Method