Year 7

The Year 7 girls did extremely well to finish second place in the Auckland Championship Football tournament held on Monday 14 June. The team were forced into a difficult penalty shoot out, after drawing with North Cross 1-1 at full time. They played hard and kept focused, despite the terrible weather conditions and were unlucky not to come away with first place.

A really awesome effort by all the players - Congratulations!

Year 8

Another successful day for the football girls with the Year 8's taking second place at Auckland Champs on Tuesday 15 June, after an unfortunate 1-0 loss to Baradene. They gave every match 110% and it just came down to tiredness after a long, hard day. Super proud of all the players - Congratulations!

Unfortunately, we started slow and lost the first two games. Farm Cove was fast and skilful. It was close until the last 10 minutes, when they scored two quick tries. We lost 21-5. The second game against Bucklands Beach was evenly matched. We came close to scoring a number of times. However, BBI managed to score in the last minute to take the game 5-0. The team came out with more energy in the final two games, winning against Howick 17-0 and St Kents 30-0. 

Mr Whatman and I were extremely impressed with the resilience of the team to come back from two losses, to win the second two games convincingly and to finish in third place. Moreover, the sportsmanship demonstrated by the boys was outstanding throughout the day. Well done boys!

The eight students from both Years 7 and 8, representing Somerville, were:

Saamya Sandal, Alice Li, Linda Zhang, Annika Wang, Anson Chee, Geoffrey Cai, Roy Kim and Evan Lu.  

At the end of the day, Somerville came away with first in the boys’ singles, thanks to the efforts of Geoffrey Cai, runners up in the boys’ and girls’ doubles, courtesy of Saamya Sandal, Linda Zhang, Anson Chee and Roy Kim.

Our students were great ambassadors for both our school and the game of badminton and we are proud of you all.

Keddell spoke to a packed school hall about being the best you can be and living up to the Olympic values of friendship, respect and excellence. 

We were so lucky to have DJ Forbes agree to come and speak. DJ was previously captain of the NZ Rugby Sevens team and is now the athlete engagement manager on the NZ Olympic Committee. He spoke about his own background, educational experience and the things he values when he looks back on that time now. DJ outlined the philosophy that drives him forward in his life and work. PADS  - Passion, Attitude, Discipline and Sacrifice. This was a way of thinking that really resonated with many of the audience, our Somerville students included.

Thank you to the Pasifika group who performed and to Mrs Mackenzie who supports them. Their performance was as polished and captivating as always.  Finally a huge thank you to all the families who came along to be part of this special evening. Thank you for giving us your time and your presence.

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The three year 7 girls teams and three year 8 girls teams competed in the morning in the twisters division, with our boys team and three individual gymnasts competing in the afternoon. 

It was an extremely competitive event with some really talented gymnasts giving it their all out there. We had some awesome support from our Somerville team, as well as our amazing parents. A special mention has to be made to Kirsten van Asten and Lorraine Nicholls, who helped and shared their expertise with the team. 

In the teams' twisters division, we came home with our Year 7 blue team (Olivia Thomas, Lara van Beerendonk, Lucia White and Kayla Ellwood) and Year 8 green team (Lucija Unkovich-Smith, Ayaan Lambat and Jayni Patel) placing 3rd overall, our boys' team (Nathan Leach, Matthew Gouws and Nicholas Fahey) placing 2nd overall and our Year 8 blue team (Mia van Asten, Maia Panton, Sienna Hands and Tamsin Low) placing 1st overall! From this group, Olivia Thomas also placed 2nd individually in the year 7 girls, Lucija Unkovich-Smith placed 3rd overall, Sienna Hands placed 2nd overall and Mia van Asten placed 1st overall in the Year 8 girls, and finally, Matthew Gouws placed 4th overall, with Nathan Leach placing 1st overall in the boys division. In the Open competition, all three of our gymnasts placed in the top 3. Louis Zhao and Abby van Beerendonk placed 2nd, with Chelsea Brennan placing 1st! 

All of the gymnasts mentioned above will move forward to represent Somerville in the Auckland Champs competition in Term 3. What an excellent result - congratulations to you all!

Year 7 Boys

The Year 7 boys' football team played admirably at this year's South Eastern Zone Football tournament, held on Thursday 20 May. After losing the first two games, the boys fought back to win the next three. Well done boys!

Year 8 Girls

What a fabulous day the Year 8 girls' football team had at the South Eastern Zone competition last week. The girls won their pool and also won against Howick in the semi finals 1-0.

We played St Kents again in the final and this time they really lifted their game, after we won 1-0 in the pool round. We ended up in penalties, which was nerve racking, but managed to get the win, resulting in Somerville taking away the title of SEZ Champions! Well done girls! Next up is Auckland champs.

Year 8 Boys

Last week, the Year 8 Somerville boys' football team played in the SEZ Football competition.  The team did very well, finishing as runners up. Overall we won 4/5 games, scoring 16 goals and conceding 3.

In our first game against Pakuranga Intermediate we won 8-0. In game 2 we won against Howick Intermediate 2-0. We also won against Sancta Maria 4 -0 in the quarter final. This put us in to the semi-final, against Farm Cove. It was a really close contest which we won in a penalty shoot out. Our final was against our old foe, BBI. It was a tense, end to end game, which we unfortunately lost 2-1. 

The boys showed great sportsmanship. Thank you to all the parents that came along and supported us on the day.

Three local schools took part: Cockle Bay Primary, Howick College and Somerville Intermediate. There was a hint of rain at the beginning of the day and we did receive the odd light shower, but our wet weather gear did the job and it didn’t last long.

We started the day by helping transfer the carex plants across to the plant site. Ella taught us how to plant “like a ninja”. Then equipped with spades, gloves and a bucket load of enthusiasm, we set about our task. The Eco-Warriors worked in small groups, often with students from other schools. It was amazing to see the younger students working with the intermediate and college age students. The older ones got alongside and took them under their wing. First the older students dug the holes, then removed the carex plants from their pots. After placement in the hole, the soil was replaced and patted down. With carefully calculated spacing, the newly planted carex plants will form a natural buffer to help shield the manuka trees. Altogether, we planted three hundred carex plants in total.

We returned to school to eat our lunch and make some clay seed balls. It was great to host Cockle Bay School and Howick College while we had lunch and made the seed balls.

The advantage of our school being located right next to Mangemangeroa is that we have a wonderful outdoor classroom. It is easy to access and when the opportunity arises, it is great to contribute to maintaining and preserving the reserve.

It was a tired, yet satisfied group of students who went home at the end of the day; our legs were fatigued and our muscles ached. Yet, we all had an awesome time and learnt a lot throughout the day. Mr Read and Miss Dubey would like to thank Kerry, for his assistance, and the wonderful team from Gecko Trust and Sustainability Schools. It was a privilege to be part of this carex planting.

All the students who visited the roadshow had so much fun and enjoyed all the interactive learning experiences. They learnt so many science skills and concepts along the way. The displays showcased a range of over 60 hands-on exhibits grouped under the following six themes:
Electricity — Te Hiko, Fair Tests — Ngā Whakamātau Tika, Flight Lab — Taiwhanga Rere, Human Performance — Mahi Tangata, Light — Te Aho, Magnetism — Te Autō.

The 2 shows were very entertaining:
Experimenting! — He Whakamātau! and Up, down, all around — Ki runga, ki raro, hurinoa. The explosive gases were particularly entertaining as was the fire tornado.

One of the Year 8 explainers, Lochlan Moon, has this to say about the Roadshow: “It was an amazing experience seeing all of the students giving the interactive activities a go and having so much fun at the same time.”

Some Year 7 reflections:

My favourite part about the science roadshow was all of the awesome experiments that they did! I liked this because it taught us an amazing and fun way of learning science and exploring different things and experiments - Lexi Anson

The most exciting thing about the Science Roadshow was the fire tornado and learning so many different things about science. All the other experiments were so cool. I loved the one where the skeleton appeared from the chair when the light was on because of the mirror - Cooper Wallace

My favourite part was when they put hydrogen or helium in the balloon and lit it up - Louis Zhao

My favourite part was when they lit a balloon with hydrogen inside it gave a heat wave and a big bang - Aden Lee

It was a fantastic way to learn about SCIENCE! I absolutely loved the hard work they put into making the stalls so attractive and easy to understand. Each stall taught you something new and all the experiments or investigations had really cool prototypes we could also engage with. The show they did was just 'out of this world' and was a very cool way to teach us about different gases and why we need them. It was truly AWESOME! - Saamya Sandal

Thanks so much to all the parents who assisted us during the day. We value your ongoing support.

This was held at St Cuthbert’s College over a period of three hours, with over fifty teams entered. There were ten themed rounds to the quiz, and Quizmaster, Wayne Mills, lived up to his reputation by asking very challenging questions. Tricky categories included Aviation, Forests and Manga. 

The Somerville teams consisted of: Charlotte Hutton, Lochlan Moon, Ella Haschick, Inaaya Dhar (Team 1) and Reshmi Abhyankar, Haeni Jung, Rehmat Gill and Ariana Hayward (Team 2).

Everyone had prepared long and hard for this big day, spending weekly morning teas practising and reading as much as they could in their spare time. We were very proud of their efforts and everyone had a fantastic day! 

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 We wish them all the best at the Auckland Champs!