COMING EVENTS Friday 16 April Last day of Term 1 Monday 3 May First day of Term 2 Wednesday 5 May Parents’ Association Meeting at 7.30pm in the staffroom Tuesday 11 May Teacher only day Wednesday 12, Thursday 13, Friday 14 & Saturday 15 May Jesus Christ Superstar, 7pm in the Renner Hall Monday 17 May Rongotai College Pasifika Parents’ Asosi at 6.30pm in the staffroom Thursday 27 May Board of Trustees’ meeting at 6pm in the Mackay Library Friday 31 May Reports posted home Wednesday 2 June Parents’ Association Meeting at 7.30pm in the staffroom Friday 4 June Mid Term Break Monday 7 June Queen’s Birthday holiday Friday 11 June Rongotai Experience Monday 14 June Rongotai College Pasifika Parents’ Asosi at 6.30pm in the staffroom Tuesday 15 June Open Evening

2021 TERM DATES

Term 2 Monday 3 May to Friday 9 July

Term 3 Monday 26 July to Friday 1 October

Term 4 Monday 18 October to Friday 10 December

2022 TERM DATES Term 1 Monday 31 January to

Thursday 14 April Term 2 Monday 2 May to Friday

8 July Term 3 Monday 25 July to Friday

30 September Term 4 Monday 17 October to Friday 9 December

RONGOTAI COLLEGE

PRINCIPAL’S NEWSLETTER

Week 11 (April) Term 1, 2021

As we come to the end of Term 1, it is a good time to take stock and reflect on the term.

STUDENT PROGRESS Overall, it has been a very good start to the student year. Most students settled down to work well during Term 1 and have made good progress. Teachers reported on your son’s progress in our Interim Reports in March. These were designed to provide you with a snapshot of your son’s attitude and progress so far this year. Copies of reports are available on the Parent Portal. You also had an opportunity to receive personal feedback from teachers at Parent-Teacher Interviews. Many thanks to the large number of you who came along; I hope you enjoyed meeting your son’s teachers and got some useful feedback from them. The next set of reports will be posted on 28 May. My only concern about student progress relates to attendance. Attendance during Term 1 has been lower than usual. While most absences are justified, Year 13 students have a high level of Intermittent Unjustified absences – truancy for want of a better word – which currently stands at 7.8%. This has to improve if our Year 13s want to improve their achievement levels.

YEAR 9 OPTION CHOICES During Term 1, Year 9 students have had the opportunity to experience the range of our option subjects, prior to selecting their two option choices for the remainder of the year. These option subjects will start at the beginning of Term 2. If you have any questions about options or wish to discuss your son’s choices, please contact the Year 9

Dean (Mr Leiataua) or your son’s form teacher.

PREFECTS Last week we added a further five prefects to our Student Leadership Team. Congratulations to Milan Bastiampillai, Mackenzie Htay, Junior Meafoou, Rohan Patel and, Wilbur Stanley on their appointment as Prefects.

Milan Bastiampillai Mackenzie Htay

Junior Meafoou Rohan Patel Wilbur Stanley SCHOOL UNIFORM With the cooler months approaching it is timely to remind you that it is expected that your son will wear his uniform in a correct manner and with pride. This means that only black jackets are permissible and NO

TUESDAY 11 MAY is a teacher only day for all college students in the Greater Wellington area, as teachers get up-dated on future changes to NCEA. Therefore there is no school for all students.

HOODIES of any description (including those with Rongotai logos on them). Rongotai College puffer jackets are available for purchase from the college shop.

PHYS ED UNIFORM All Year 9, 10 and 11 students are required to wear the Physical Education uniform. This consists of the school PE top and blue shorts. It has been pleasing to see the majority of students are wearing theirs. Students who have yet to purchase the Physical Education uniform are required to purchase theirs from the college shop as soon as possible. If there are any issues in meeting this expectation, please communicate this to your son’s PE teacher or Dean. I encourage your son to label their uniform so that it is easily identifiable.

STEVENSON MEDAL Congratulations to Jacob Inch, Jacob Timmins and Daniel Turner who

were recently awarded the Stevenson Medal. The Stevenson Medal is awarded annually to the top student in Level 1 Science. It is named after Rongotai College Old Boy, David Stevenson, an Astrophysicist at CalTech in the USA.

This year, these three boys could not be separated. CAREERS Following is a link to join the Year 13 Google Classroom, where the Careers Department can communicate with your son about his current studies and share information to help him to plan his future. https://classroom.google.com/c/Mjg4Mzc4MTIzNDYz?cjc=ct23vb6 Alternatively, this can be accessed from his Google Classroom using the invite code: ct23vb6

You may like to visit the Careers Department website for more information about career planning, tertiary studies, apprenticeships and more. https://sites.google.com/rongotai.school.nz/careers-rc/home

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR Rehearsals are progressing well for the 2021 Rongotai College production of “Jesus Christ Superstar”. The show will be staged in the second week of Term 2 - Wednesday 12, Thursday 13, Friday 14 and Saturday 15 May starting at 7pm in the college’s Renner Hall. Tickets are now on sale from the college shop - come and see our rendition of the show we all love! Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for children and students. During the shows we will have raffles to sell to assist with the costs of the production. If you are able to donate vouchers or goods that could be included in the raffle, your donation would be greatly appreciated. Donations can be handed to Ms Honeyman.

RONGOTAI COLLEGE BIG BAND The Big Band and Senior Jazz Combo participated in the NZ Youth Jazz Competition at the National Jazz Festival in Tauranga over Easter. Both groups gained Silver Awards and also got to play at the Tauranga

Jazz Festival with the internationally-acclaimed NZ Army Band (led by Bandmaster and Rongotai College Old Boy, Staff Sergeant David Fiu). What a great experience boys and congratulations on your success!

ATHLETICS – Nationals Congratulations to Xavior Sola and Marius Filo-Smith who represented Rongotai and Wellington at the Nationals in Hamilton.

Xavior Sola and Marius Filo-Smith

Marius Filo-Smith

4th

Junior 100m

7th

Junior 200m Xavior Sola

4th

Discus (40.40m)

3rd

Hammer (41.60m) PB

5th

Shot Put (11.78)

ATHLETICS – Regionals Congratulations to those students who attended the Regional Athletics competition recently and performed well. Results from our top performers were: Theo Bray

3rd

Junior 3km 10:46.62

SPORTS NEWS

ACADEMIC NEWS

CULTURAL

NEWS

Marius Filo-Smith

1st

Junior 100m 12.16s

2nd

Junior 200m 24.87s Ethan Mahoney

6th

Senior 100m final 11.62s Jude Sneddon

3rd

Senior Triple Jump 12.22m Xavior Sola

3rd

Junior Discus 38.73m

3rd

Junior Shot Put 11.33m FUTSAL Congratulations to our Junior A Futsal side who won the CSW Regional Futsal Championships in a hard fought final against St Pat’s Town. Well done also to the Senior A team who lost their final to Scots College.

SOFTBALL Congratulations to Arron Gollan and James Morrison who were named in the Under 15 New Zealand Softball squad and participated in the Easter tournament in Auckland. Mr Nichols (Head of Learning Support) was the coach of this team.

Arron Gollan James Morrison

SWIMMING Sports Captain, Sam Brown competed in the NZ Open Swimming Championships last week with outstanding results. Although the swimmers all swim together, there are two categories:

17 and 18 year old age group

Open (19year and over) Sam’s results are as follows - Individual Events: 400IM - 1

st in Age Group

- 3rd

in NZ Open

200 Free - 1st

in Age Group - 6

th in NZ Open

200 Breast - 1st

in Age Group - 5

th in NZ Open

200 Backstroke - 1

st in Age Group

- 3rd

in NZ Open 200 IM - 1

st in Age Group

- 3rd

in NZ Open (his time was also a new Age Group Wellington Record) Team Events (Relay): 4x100 Medley Relay - 3

rd

4x100 Freestyle Relay - 1st

4x200 freestyle Relay - 1

st

Sam was also awarded the NZ Swimming Alumni Emerging Swimmer of the Year for the All Stars region. Huge congratulations to Sam!

SUMMER TOURNAMENT WEEK

Teams from seven different sports competed at their respective summer nationals tournaments in late March. As the review below shows, it was a successful week of sport. 3x3 Basketball (Auckland) Two Senior and one Junior team travelled to Auckland for the National 3 x 3 Competition. The Juniors performed very well against some quality teams and finished a credible 8

th after going down to St

Andrews in the play–off 9 – 7. The Senior A team won the play off for 15

th beating MAGS 16-14. An

awesome effort from all our teams. Floorball (Wellington) The Juniors were going for a record 4-PEAT at Nationals and just fell short losing the semi-final to Wellington College. They picked up the bronze. The Seniors led by Alec Stewart who picked up the Top Goal Scorer award became NATIONAL CHAMPIONS after beating

Wellington College in the final 3 – 0 with goals to Hagan McFadyen, Alec Stewart and Jack Cobden-Cox – Great Work!

Futsal (Wellington) Both Seniors and Juniors had good tournaments, but both unfortunately lost to the eventual winners in their respective quarter-finals. The Junior’s qualified second in their pool and took on eventual champions, Hamilton Boys, in the quarter final after they topped their pool. The game went down to the wire and ended 3—3 at full time. The game went to penalties and unfortunately we went down. Some great individual performances but this was a true team effort. The Seniors fought back after losing a pool game to New Plymouth Boys’ High to qualify for the top 8 after winning their remaining matches. The highs of getting through were followed by the lows of sport, going down 3-0 to eventual champions Tauranga Boys in the quarter final.

Softball (Palmerston North) The Senior Softball team played in the North Island Championships held in Palmerston North. The boys put in a solid effort in the final against St Pat’s Silverstream and made a strong comeback before going down and picking up the Runners Up award – congratulations to the team.

Waka Ama (Rotorua) Rongotai took away 19 students to the Waka Awa Sprint Champs in Rotorua. We had four crews and also crews with Wellington College and Wellington East Girls’ College. The students enjoyed the newly purchased carbon fibre paddles and life vests purchased through funding grants thanks to Ms Nadine Coulter. Some good results with Mahe Carter coming 5

th in the U16 single

paddler event.

1

st Cricket (Wellington)

The 1st

XI competed in the Hunt T20 Trophy against other 1

st XIs from the

region. The team put together some bowling performances with Jack Pulford, George Wells, Harrison Jarvis and the Fa’avae brothers all amongst the wicket takers. Unfortunately, we were not good enough with the bat which saw us play off for 7

th against Newlands

College. We put this game to bed early having them all out for 83 and getting the runs ourselves in 10 overs. Congratulations to our 2

nd XI who

took out the Premier 4 competition.

SPORTS FEES Students of Rongotai College are expected to pay fees if they represent the college in sport. If you are unsure about the amount of the fee then please contact Mr Hemant Lala, Sports Director. The fees are vital to the operation of sport, and can be paid at the college shop.

PROACTIVE PHYSIO The physio will be back at school in Terms 2 and 3. Times and days are yet to be advised, but will be advertised in the school notices. Any boys with injuries are encouraged to make an appointment through the school office. The service is free and we are grateful to the continued support of Proactive.

SPORTS COACHES We would like to thank and acknowledge all the sport volunteers who have helped make sport possible in Term 1. Parent and staff support continues to be the driving force behind sport and without it, sport simply would not exist. Every parent who coaches, manages, transports or helps in any capacity, is appreciated and we sincerely thank you for your support.

Whether playing sport for fun with friends or competitively, it remains an important part of life at Rongotai College and it was great to again see such high sport participation rates in

Term 1. We hope all boys play at least one sport each year and it is not too late if your son hasn’t registered for winter 2021, please contact our Sports Department (sport@rongotai.school.nz), to discuss what might be a good fit for your son and appeal to his interests. Thank you to all those who have offered to help in winter too. We still need more volunteers so please contact the sports office if you can coach, referee, manage or help with transport in any of our winter codes. We have boys competing in over 30 different sports at both senior and junior levels: national, regional, local and social. If you would like to be a part of the development and expansion of Rongotai College sport please contact our Sports Department by phone (939 3050) or by email sport@rongotai.school.nz.

Have an enjoyable and safe holiday and best wishes for Term 2! Kind regards, Kevin Carter PRINCIPAL

170 Coutts St, Kilbirnie, Wellington PO Box 14-063, Kilbirnie, Wellington, 6022

PHONE: +64 4 939 3050 EMAIL: the.principal@rongotai.school.nz

www.rongotai.school.nz

www.facebook.com/RongotaiCollege

www.youtube.com/RongotaiCollegeNZ

ATTENDANCE EMAILS

The college has an email address for absences attendance@rongotai.school.nz Please use this address as a means of advising the school of your son’s absence. Please also advise the reason for his absence.

RONGOTAI COLLEGE