Winning Year 8 Mathswell Team

As we draw to the end of another busy term, I would like to thank all of the parents and friends who have been amazing in supporting so many Wellesley events in these past weeks. It is a true delight to see you all engage so willingly in many social, sporting, school and Parents’ Association activities that bring us together as a community. I would also like to thank the staff and boys for all their hard work during Term 3. It is a pleasure to see the young men of Wellesley grow and develop over time, and we are truly blessed to have them with us. As you venture into the non-term time, please allow the boys and staff to recuperate and recharge ready for the end of the year. To those families departing Wellesley for the last time, please take with you the very best for your future and whatever lies ahead for you. Strategic Planning We have made significant progress with our strategic planning so far. You input has been of wonderful value. As we continue the journey please take the time to complete the online survey. A link has been sent to your personal email addresses. If you require it again, please contact the School Office. Bishop’s Call to Action Recently, Bishop Justin has announced a ‘Call to Action’ to gauge the ability for each parish to host a refugee family. With Wellesley being closely linked with St Alban’s, I would urge members of our community to contact Dr Rev Ellie Sanderson at St Alban’s to show your support and see how you can be involved as this situation develops. Bishop Justin and the Anglican Church are working with aid agencies as this situation unfolds. Often we consider a financial support as the best way to assist, however, I would urge you to contact Ellie and have a conversation about ways in which you may be of assistance, in a variety of ways.

Wellesley College Newsletter #6 Thursday 24th September 2015

Staffing Matters Sadly, I have accepted the resignation of three staff members. Mrs Fiona Donnelly, our well-respected Uniform Shop Manager has decided to move into a new line of work. I wish to thank Fiona for her dedicated nine years of service and wish her the very best with her new venture. Mr Jon Mackie, one of our dedicated and professional Year 7 teachers has been offered a role at Ngaio School as a Senior Teacher in 2016. On behalf of the Wellesley community, I would like to thank Jon for his professionalism over the years and his service to the school, and wish him every success in his new role. As most of you are already aware, Sarah Bleier (7/8B) will be taking Maternity Leave towards the end of Term 4. Finally, I have also accepted the resignation of a long-serving, well-respected and dedicated teacher. It is only appropriate that someone with similar time and service should write a tribute for all her work, dedication and service to Wellesley. Eve Owen, our inspirational art teacher finishes at the end of the year. Over the years she has taught the boys art in a way no other person could; she lives and breathes art and has developed a strong rapport and friendship with the boys she teaches. She has made them feel special about what they do by teaching them to view the world through an artist's eyes, observe, be curious and record what they see. The best teaching and learning occurs when that learning is linked to the real and physical world - Eve has always managed to do this - to link our unique environment - the sea and the bus-clad hills to the artwork the boys are doing. Whether it is in our current, beautiful art room, or the two-storey tin shed which some will remember, the art that her boys have created has been an outstanding expression of their environment and Eve’s thoughtful guidance. Her wonderful ability to weave science and literature into the boys' lives has been unique. Eve has inspired generations of artists and generations of boys to stop and think about the world around them, and then express their ideas through a variety of media. Our Wellesley art room won’t be the same. Her kindness and love of humanity has been a great model to the boys.

Ross Hampton

As we move into the last Term of 2015, I would encourage you to be involved in the final stages in refreshing the Vision, Values and Mission of this great school. We are in an exciting phase of the school’s life whereby this year has demonstrated to me that this community provides relevant, detailed, and useful feedback through a variety of channels. Emails about the Strategic Planning updates and your survey responses have been amazing. The community contribution and attendance at events has been outstanding and the support, leadership, and coordination of this year’s Gala to date has been exceptional. I am excited by what the coming weeks and months will bring for Wellesley and look forward to a bright future. Take care in the coming weeks and come back to school ready for a wonderful last Term. Regards Brendan

Mathswell The Wellesley Mathswell Team of Andrew Sutcliffe, Oliver Lynch and Max Abbot (Problem Solving) and Toby Marks, George He and Ethan Henry (Multi-choice) won this year’s Wellington Mathematics Association organised Mathswell Competition held at South Wellington Intermediate for the second successive year. 35 schools from the Wellington area were represented in the competition, with the Wellesley team finishing with scores of 24/25 in the Problem Solving section and 28/30 in the Multi-Choice section in what is a ‘cauldron’ of maths! It is a very hard competition to win. The boys in the team worked very hard preparing for this competition and can be very pleased with their meritorious result. Murray Blandford

Term 3 Citizenship Awards All the children in the school anonymously voted for the two boys in their class whom they respected most for their integrity and caring behaviour towards their classmates. The following boys gained the most votes. Many were very close behind and over the year I am sure we will see a good cross-section of names.

Time and Art Week Reflection

Opinion is widely divided over whether time is real. Sure, what we call time does exist but does the word time in itself exist? Time is artificial. We have created time since the Egyptian sundials to the most accurate atomic clocks that were invented merely 50 years ago. Although clocks are man-made, the day and night cycle is natural isn’t it? We can’t change that, but time is a way to explain how it works. Not only that, it’s a way that we can sort out our busy lives. Imagine a normal school day without the time. You wouldn’t be able to plan meetings, go to meetings, know when to go to maths and lots more. Time and clocks have a long history reaching back to about 3500 BC when the first calendar was invented by the Persians. It was the Egyptians though, that first came up with the 365 day year. The week was invented by the

Year 1 Harry Doddrell and Luke Hawthorn

Year 2 Ollie Morgan and Jack Stirling

Year 3 James Harriman-Skinn and Sebastian Heine-Sheldrake

Year 4C Theo Davies, Ariaan Rasheed and Ben Brunner

Year 4T Max MacLachlan and Tai Treadwell-Burke

Year 5P Jack Pettit and Sid Procter

Year 5S David Lillis and Lauri Halonen

Year 6L Nikhil Kulkarni and Thomas Sinclair

Year 60 Daniel Makowem and Oliver Pope

Year 6C Thomas Bain and Oscar Jackson

Year 7N Enzo Vatselias and Richard Jacobs Grant

Year 7M Thomas Dai and Tom Hercus

Year 7/8B Dugal Thomson and Luke Andrews

Year 7/8T Josh Kemp Whimp, Jim Lockwood and Will Saunders

Year 8B Ruaridh Ferguson, Oscar Hough and Alexi Zangouropoulos

Year 8P Paxton Jones and Robert Jones

Greeks, who had a ten day week. The Romans cut that down to an eight day week and in about AD. 200, they cut it down further to a now world-wide known 7 day week, reserving one day for resting and feasts. Julius Caesar was the inventor of the Roman calendar, which had a leap year to make up for lost time. Many years later, in 1582, Pope Gregory the XIII omitted three leap years every four centuries. What we use is very close to the Pope’s calendar. The first truly accurate sundial was made in 300BC. Fifty years later, a complex water clock was invented. These clocks could be rather unreliable if any of the water condensed in to steam, or froze into ice. From about the medieval times through the renaissance and through to even the very beginning of the baroque period, many different kinds of clock were invented. In 1275, the first mechanical clock was made. In 1335, a large scale bell clock was made, one that could be high up over the centre of a town square. At the time, clocks only had an hour hand, the minute hand being introduced later, followed by the second hand. In 1440 the spring clock was invented. In 1510, the first watch was invented. In 1657, a breakthrough was made by a Dutchman who invented the pendulum clock. By now, timepieces were not just tools, they could be made into beautiful pieces of furniture that now you can find in antique shops. Currently we can record time down to trillionths of a second, using an atomic clock, which loses one second every 30 million years. Time is good in the way that we can expect what is going to happen in the future. You can look forward to the weekend, sport, or other things that you may enjoy in the week. Time can also represent anxious times, for example before you go on to perform a music piece or something of the like you have to watch those 5 minutes count down ever so slowly. Time can be sad, signalling the time someone you love passes away. Time has a lot of emotions. But just imagine what would happen if we didn’t have time. You would be constantly be anxious that either you had run out of whatever would be instead of time, don’t have enough of whatever would be instead of time or how long it would take to do something. In short, time is really weird and crazy with its emotions. That’s enough about time but how does all this relate to Art Week? This years’ theme was Time. According to Mrs. Owen, time is the best gift you can give to anyone. Your artwork has to somehow relate to things in time. You could do a clock, but that’s not very far outside the box, if it’s outside the box at all. You could show a day and night cycle, how the moon relates to time, nature and wildlife, or whether time is circular or linear. Those were a few ideas suggested. I chose how a tree grows over time. Showing a picture of a bush, medium sized tree and fully grown tree. My first idea was to show a wheat field in the different seasons, but as I was in mosaics I couldn’t go into too much detail. I’m satisfied with how it came out, just if I had to do it again I would use tiles with the same thickness. It was a fun experience and it came out pretty much just as well as I had expected. Dugal Thomson 7/8B

ICAS Mathematics Competition 2015

Wellesley entered 219 students from Year 4 to Year 8 this year and the overall results were very pleasing. Six students gained High Distinctions which place them in the top 1% of all children who sat the test in New Zealand. Eddie Lethbridge, David Lillis, Leo Manktelow, Thomas Dai, Ethan Henry, and Andrew Sutcliffe received High Distinction. 37 students received Distinction: (top 12%) – James Bain, Arthur Fell, Oscar Horne, Rex Kemmitt, Rishabh Kharkar, Max MacLachlan, William Adams, Daniel Andrews, Alexander Cooke, Finn Heaton, Isac Henry, Jack Pettit, Seb Stewart, Krishin Cox, Alexander Heine-Sheldrake, Harry Zangouropoulos, Tom Adams, Judd Adamson, Matt Bevan, Archie Chandler, William Chandler, Hiroshi Craigie, James Hoskin, Anish Hota, Hugo Lethbridge, Ned Lutyens, Luke Sutton, Max Abbot, Oliver Hall, George He, Jim Lockwood, Oliver Lynch, Toby Marks, Will Saunders, Benjamin Stirling, Dugal Thomson, and Rowan Woolloff. 54 students received Credit certificates, 15 received Merit certificates, and 107 received Participation certificates. Many students were just 1 mark off going up a grade. In Year 6, six students were 1 mark below Distinction!

Most schools only enter their top students whereas Wellesley enters most of our Y7-8s and then any student who wishes to enter from Y4-6.

ICAS Science Competition 2015

This year has once again produced some outstanding results for the 116 Year 4-8 students from Wellesley College who completed the 2015 ICAS Science competition. The competition is sat by almost half a million students from NZ, Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. It assesses the students on a range of scientific skills including observing and measuring, interpreting data, inferring, predicting and concluding, investigating and reasoning and problem solving.

We are proud to acknowledge the achievements of nine boys who scored exceptionally well by gaining a High Distinction, with another 21 receiving Distinction.

The results are as follows: High Distinctions (top 1% nationally) Daniel Andrews, Eddie Lethbridge, David Lillis, Krishin Cox, Matt Bevan, Thomas Dai, Ethan Henry, Ben Stirling and Andrew Sutcliffe. Both David and Andrew are to be commended for answering all but one correct.

Distinctions (above the top 10% nationally) Oscar Horne, Nikhil Cox, Arthur Fell, Lauri Halonen, Henry Isac, Joshua Langford, Seb Stewart, Thomas Bain, Jake Breslin, Tim Stirling, Tom Adams, Judd Adamson, Atharva Barpande, Hiroshi Craigle, Gabriel Giller, Anish Hota, Ned Lutyens, Finn Walker, Max Abbot, George He, and Sam Paviour-Smith.

Another 35 students received Credit awards (top 25% and above nationally), 11 students received a Merit award (top 35% nationally) and the rest of the students gained Participation certificates.

EPro8 Technology Challenge

Two teams represented Wellesley at the new EPro8 Technology Challenge event. Both teams did very well and the team consisting of Tobias Maling, Fynn Holmes, Toby Cook and Noah Latham went on to compete in the semi-final. These boys did exceptionally well, but were just ‘pipped at the post’.

Dancesplash

On the 4th September Artsplash Dance was held at the Michael Fowler Centre. Artsplash is a festival of performances where schools are required to sing or dance. The schools come together every year to show their dance performance and musical talent. Each school has a theme and this year our theme was the Anzacs, we chose this theme because we wanted to celebrate their 100 year remembrance.

Our performance started with the boys marching and chanting. One class performance was about training for war, another class was the landing at Gallipoli and the last class was The Remembrance Day. It was quite sad to see the boys getting shot. It was amazing to get up on stage but we bet everyone had a little stage fright.

Overall Artsplash this year had a lot of talent and we hope it will be the same next year. By Harry and Zak

Performing Arts It’s been a busy and rewarding time in the Performing Arts.

All Year 6 boys were involved in Artsplash Dance in Term 3. This year the focus of the dance was ‘Celebrating the ANZACS’. The classes choreographed dances to ‘Being called up for duty’, ‘The Gallipoli Landing’ and ‘Remembering the Anzacs’. The boys performed well and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Artsplash Choir 2015 proved to be a wonderful performance opportunity for the boys in Years 4 and 5. This year centred around two themes, ‘The Phantom of the Opera” and the ANZACs. The boys rose to the occasion beautifully. The concert concluded with a heartfelt medley of WW1 songs, with the audience joining in the fun. In August the Foundation Youth Pipe Band of New Zealand visited Wellesley. The whole school gathered in the inner quad and the performance was outstanding. Youth in the band are auditioned from all around New Zealand Grandparents’ and Friends’ Day is always a very special event on the calendar. Congratulations to the Wellesley Orchestra, Y6 Choir, Senior Choir, Rock Band and all the musicians who performed at the afternoon assembly. The Senior Choir has also enjoyed a very successful exchange with Chilton St James Choir and along with the Rockband, a performance at Arts Evening. Congratulations to the orchestra for their performance at the Wellington Bands and Orchestra Festival held at St Patrick’s College, Silverstream. This event is open to college and community bands and orchestras, and judges give feedback on performances so is always a very good experience for our young musicians. The recent Itinerant Music Teachers’ concerts held at Wellesley College showcased the hard work of our students and their music teachers. This year the standard was exceptionally high and some of our tutors provided the audience and the boys with an extra treat by performing themselves. We farewell our beloved singing tutor Sarah Lineham who is taking maternity leave. Sarah will be replaced by her sister Kate until she is ready to return to Wellesley. Kate is also a singing teacher with wide teaching experience and a well-known profile on the musical scene in Wellington. Student writing: You might think Artsplash is about art. Actually there's a little bit of art but mostly its about singing. For three nights lots of Wellington schools go into the Michael Fowler Centre to sing a whole lot of songs that they have been practising for a while.

My parents and grandma were part of the audience and I was on stage with Wellesley. It was quite fun. When the first song started, the boy sitting next to me got a fright and nearly fell of his chair. My favourite song was Don't Dream It's Over because it sounded good. Well, Artsplash is over now and next year I will be in Dancesplash instead. Sam Gilkison Y5S.

Celebration of the Arts - ARTBOURNE artist in residence

Sam Duckor -Jones finished his residency in the art room and his work was celebrated along with the boys work from Art Week last Wednesday evening. It was a very successful occasion where the importance of art in our boys’ life was evident in the quality and thought behind the work. Sam has been a great role model to the boys. A young man full of wonder, courage, kindness, integrity and humour and also enormously talented!

Part of the artist in residence programme is showing the boys that creativity can lead to a career in art and that artists like Sam make a living out of their art, along with the help of dealer galleries. To showcase the work that Sam did during his residency, an exhibition for sale of his leaning men series was held, with partial proceeds of the sales going towards the Wellesley College Foundation, and specifically the scholarship campaign- promising futures for boys. Thank you to those who purchased these pieces and supported Sam and the Foundation. In all, 23 pieces out of 32 were sold.

PE and Sport

A very busy winter season has all but come to an end. The wintery weather this week makes it difficult to think we are heading into the summer sporting season. Most cricket clubs had their registration days last weekend and online registrations are due to close. Tennis and softball clubs are also taking registrations for the new season. Cricket Wellington coaches delivered the Cricket Awareness programme to the Junior, Year 4 and Year 5 classes. These fun sessions looked at the skills of cricket and encouraged the boys to think about joining clubs in the upcoming season. Tennis coach Jakim Malan has been running the Hot Shot programme in the Junior classes. The hall nets, racquets and low compression tennis balls have enabled these sessions to be taken inside. There has been steady improvement in the skill development of the boys. The school tennis championships are well under way but have been halted this week with the weather. There has been an enthusiastic approach to playing at breaks and in PE sessions.

The Year 5/6 Colts teams hosted Waterloo School on Friday 14 August. The games were very evenly contested and played great weather.

Rugby won 28-9

Football won 5-4

Hockey won 1-0 It was disappointing for the Colts hockey players that the Zone tournament was unable to take place due to the weather. This is normally a great morning of hockey for the hockey squad. Huntley School hosted Wellesley in the annual winter fixture on Thursday 20 August. The Colts hockey and rugby teams travelled up early followed by the Senior teams. Huntley were unable to put up as many football teams this year so the Colts, 2nd and 3rd XI teams stayed back at school.

1st XI Football won 17-0

1st XV Rugby lost 5-72

2nd XV Rugby won 51-12

Colts Rugby lost 22-38

1st XI Hockey lost 0-4

2nd XI Hockey drew 1-1 We were able to reschedule the Colts ‘B’ football fixture with St Mark’s. The strength of our football was illustrated with this side being too strong winning 11-0. The return winter fixture with Scots College took place on Thursday 27 August. This was the last fixture for the year and the teams built on the results from Term 2. It was a great day to play sport and the skill level and sportsmanship complemented the day well.

1st XV Rugby won 74-0

2nd XV Rugby won 34-21

Colts Rugby won 48-19

1st XI Football won 3-1

2nd XI Football won 2-0

Colts Football won 16-0

1st XI Hockey drew 1 all

2nd XI Hockey won 3-0

Colts Hockey lost 4-5

Basketball for the term finished last week in the Hutt and finishes this week in Karori. The highlight was the Year 6 Hutt Fire team winning the grade by beating the Hutt Central Sonics 20-12 in the final. The boys were enthusiastic finalists and thoroughly deserved their win! The Year 8 Knicks just missed out on making the final on count back but won their play-off for third. The six Karori teams finish this week with the two Year 8 teams carrying on next term. All the teams have played well and the Year 8 teams have benefitted from playing in the league over the past two years. The two Senior Waterpolo teams have finished their seasons. The Wellesley ‘A’ team made the ‘A’ grade final but lost to HIBS 12-7. The Wellesley ‘B’ team were third in the ‘B’ grade. Thank you to the teachers and parents for the time and effort transporting and managing these teams. In the recent Underwater tournament on 12 September Wellesley was able to field two teams. Wellesley ‘A’ was beaten 6-1 in the final by Marsden. Wellesley ‘B’ were placed 8th after their golden goal loss to Plimmerton. There was a huge improvement in the skill level of lots of the players. Tiaki Freeman, Ambrose Hill and Jude Albiston were the ones that caught the coach’s eye in this area. Ben Stirling and Jude were MVPs for their respective teams.

Due to Grandparents’ and Friends’ Day clashing with this year’s Wellington Primary School Table Tennis Championships, Wellesley only entered two teams, instead of the normal four. Both teams did very well though, with the ‘A’ team of Oliver Hall, Alexi Zangouropoulos and William Stevenson coming second to a very strong Clyde Quay School in the top division, while the ‘B’ team of Fynn Holmes, Ruaridh Ferguson and Oscar Hough won the second division easily. Congratulations to all the boys for achieving such creditable results. The Athletics programme has started and will continue next term. Next term the Junior School will take part in the Get, Set, Go Athletics programme which concentrates on fundamental skill development in a fun and engaging way. A big thank you to the coaches, managers and parents who have contributed to such a successful winter season! If you have any Wellesley gear hanging around at home please return it to me at school.

Darren Houston

UNDERWATER HOCKEY - Gold Medal - NZ Men’s U19 World Championships in Castellon, Spain Ben Paviour-Smith (Wellesley 2006-2010) was part of the NZ Men’s U19 UWH team that won the gold medal at the world championships in August. In the U19 grade ten countries took part. The New Zealand team were very strong scoring 108 goals across the twelve matches played in the competition and conceding only three goals against them. In the quarter final they thrashed Italy by 17-0, then in the semi-final they played Colombia and won 5-1. In the final they met France and won 6-1. In the U23 Men’s team, Wellesley Old Boy Nick Healy (2005-2008) came away with a bronze medal in the world championship, which was also a great achievement. These boys commenced their association with underwater hockey

through Wellesley College in the underwater hockey mini-league which year 7/8 children can participate in.

Tournament of Minds Winners

Congratulations to our National Tournament of Minds winners. Josh, Alexi, Toby, Charlie, Judd, William and Hugo. The International Final is being held in Sydney later in the year. Wellesley has won the National Final four years in a row, seriously impressive effort boys, because the quality of competition at the regional stages was extremely good. Well Done!!

Grandparents’ and Friends’ Day

What a fabulous day and many thanks to everyone involved. This is always a highlight on the school calendar and the boys just love hosting the occasion. We had 450+ visitors attend. Thank you to those parents who sent along delicious sandwiches and baking and to all our helpers on the day who worked tirelessly to set up and serve an outstanding afternoon tea.

World Vision Scholarship Day As I jumped into the car with my hair standing on end I didn't know what to expect. Drama, emotion or even humour but I knew that it was going to be great fun. We picked up both Luke and Oliver and headed full speed ahead for the Little Theatre in Lower Hutt. When we arrived we realised it was named after its appearance. Very little indeed! We headed through the front doors and into the foyer. Music and dancing greeted us. Everyone was enjoying themselves and having a great time. We put a name tag on and started to walk around tentatively, not sure of what to do. We were then instructed to move into the theatre itself. It was huge and we only filled up half of it! We were told that after morning tea we were going to play a game of survival. To survive you had to cross the border of the country and then use the doctors, the school, the jail, a shop and a factory in which you could work to survive. I went to jail a lot but all of the reasons I went were extremely harsh. Doing a victory dance, talking and even scrunching up paper! After the game we were told that the reason the police officer was so mean was because in Africa you can get arrested for pretty much anything. So life really isn't fair for those living in Africa, is it? You could walk for miles and miles and turn up at the doctors needing medicine for your dying sister only to find that they were closed. We were extremely lucky to listen to a guest speaker from Zimbabwe who told us about her life and then she interviewed a friend from Tanzania and they started to compare their very different lives growing up. One lived in a house of mud and went to school under trees while the other lived in a townhouse and went to a posh school. Both people were living in Africa. What a difference! Then two World Vision youth ambassadors spoke about their recent trip to Africa to witness the change that had been made over there as a result of World Vision's work and the results were outstanding. People now had fresh water and food and could afford to send their children to schools. Over all the 10-20 schools at the event we managed to raise a massive $130,000 which would of changed many people's lives in Africa. Since we raised so much each school was presented with a certificate and was invited up on stage. Over the day we played a few more games teaching us about what we want in the world and how to improve people's lives in Africa. Overall the day was amazing and I had a ball. I couldn't believe how much money we raised and the change we made in people's lives on the other side of the world after one weekends fundraising in New Zealand. Just imagine if we did the famine all year round. I was proud to be representing our school at such an awesome event and I hope I can go next year. Oscar Jackson