New furniture is on its way!

After an outstanding effort at cleaning up from Tangaroa this morning,  Liz and Helen came to talk to us about the new furniture which will be arriving over the holidays. Ngā mihi nui ki a kōrua mo o kōrua mahi nui. We can't wait. What an exciting  start to our last term. 

Sci Fi story

I’m in a cell, regretting my choice of actions.

“I should have just stopped”

As I sit there regretting what I did a tray of food and water appear at the door. As I eat and drink I make a recount in my head of what I did.

I had heard about rumors which they have read in the newspaper about aliens appearing in our general area.  I was freaking out about how maybe people will connect the dots  and find out that I am not from this planet.  I had only recently found out about my powers when I accidentally used my power to move objects with my mind.  Let me explain.

A couple of days before that I had just found out that I had these unique abilities after I watched the Star Wars movie saga. I thought that The Force was real so I tried it out and I moved the TV remote from the other side of the room into my hand.  I told my parents.  Then they explained about how I’m not from here, neither are they, and and that the rumors are true because it was their U.F.O that people saw flying in the sky.  Of course this came as a shock to me but I always thought that our family was different.

The next day I was walking to school as I see a kid getting beaten up by a bigger kid,I go over and tell the bigger kid to leave him alone but, as I say that, he walks up to me and then my reflexes took-over.  The kid flew right onto the other side of the street and into someone’s garden.  One of the bigger kid’s friends called the cops and that was when I decided to run.

I ran towards home  but the cops were already there so I ran towards the beach. (Oh did I mention that our species are fast runners? Well we are).  I didn’t plan at all what I was going to do so I just had to wing it.  I heard sirens behind me and they were getting louder so that meant that they were gaining on me and fast.  I got to the beach but the cops were right behind me and when they came out with guns that was when it got worse.I flipped the three cop cars that were chasing me and that was when I realised that I was a real criminal so I decided to run some more.While I was running I heard a rumble and when I looked up I saw an army chopper.Then all of a sudden there was a loud BANG  then there was an explosion 10 metres beside me.  Luckily I didn’t get affected by the impact but there was just loud ringing in my ears and when I looked behind me there was a humongous tank.  When I turned back around a man was standing in front of me but before I could react he gave me a pistol handle to the face and the chase was over.

When I woke up I was in a big metal container I knew that I could break out easily but I knew that they would have all types of weapons at the ready.So I decided to stay until they eventually let me out.

So I have been here for about four years I’ve been counting the days on the walls I guess I’m gonna have to start writing on my arms. Just one more year until I’m out then it’s time for me and my family to commence mission objective:human extinction.  

By Delroy

Motor biking

When I was six my dad bought me a  fifty  cc mini motorbike.  At first  I hated the absolute heck out of it, mainly because it made me cut myself when dad told me to get on.

I learned how, six days later, and loved it.  Dad took me to a shop to get some brand new Fox gear with gloves, boots, pants, socks, helmet and t-shirt.

When I couldn’t fit them, which was when I was nine, dad got me new gear.  He was going to get a protective chest plate  which was going protect my chest from rocks and sharp things.  He was also going to get me a neck brace, so when I fall off my bike or jolt too far back or forward  I would have a better chance of not damaging my neck or head.  

I was without  a bike for 14 months then dad got me a 125 ccs  dirt bike early last year.  We go out on tracks at the Waimakariri.  We go on the beach a lot.  Whenever we go out to Okains Bay we would ride around the campgrounds.  

We went to this other one near the airport with Stella and Francis, then my bike got stolen and haven’t got it back or found it.  I went for my first ride in ages on a 230 ccs and then  dad got me a suzuki 200 ccs 4 weeks ago.

By Maraea

Spitfire rock the house

Amazing performance by the senior band Spitfire this morning at assembly. Well done!

Robotics

We have been doing programming for robots.  We had to do programmes on the computer and download it onto the robot.   The programming is so the robot can move.  You can also make the robot speak and have smiley faces on the screens.

There are differents types of programmes.  We used mindstorm.
At the start we learnt how to work the measurements to get the robot through an obstacle course.  We also learnt how to make it reverse.

We finished with robot battles.  You had to programme your robot to have speed or spinning advantages to take out other robots.

Awesome mathematicians!

In Tangaroa, many of our students like to sharpen their math skills on a fun, game based website called Sumdog.   This week we took part in a challenge against 20 other schools throughout New Zealand. Students had to answer 1000 questions and results are based on percentage correct.

We topped the leaderboard on Monday, and were third overall, but even better, we had 4 students (Cole, Josh, Lizzie and Dara) placing in the top 6! 

They were closely followed by Samantha, Ruth, Nile, Jayden and Sophie T, all placing in the top 20. 

Well done everyone who took part. 

Karim The Panda Warrior -Origins

Once upon time in a town called Wuhan, there was a boy, well a panda, who was destined to be a panda warrior. He just didn’t know it yet. His name was Karim. He was adventurous, exciting and fun but nobody liked him because he was over enthusiatic.

Karim  woke up to the sound of his mother yelling from the bathroom.

“Honey, the hot water’s not working.  Can you go and see the plumber?”.

“Okay mum” he sarcastically.

He ran down to the shop.  The man was eating noodles.  Karim yelled for the man.  The man ignored him. Karim left.

As he was walking home some kids from Karim's class sneered at him.   Akro, the leader of the bunch, pointed at him.  They ran at him so he turned and ran. They were fast.  Karim was running as fast as he could but Akro was the fastest child in Wuhan.

Akro caught him. They started beating him up. Then out of nowhere the plumber came and attacked the boys.  Karim moved away.    The boys bolted.  Karim thanked him.

The plumber took him home. He told his mum the boys are now banned from the streets without an adult.  Karim was safe.  

By Campbell

Everest

Day 1

As I lay in the crisp snow it slowly eats away my only body warmth I need to survive.My skin screams every time I make a move.It feels like my skin is one with the icy snow.

Why did I even want to come here?  Now because of me I’m risking my life.I sit up bend forward and check my fingers,they are purple, solid and extremely sore.

I don’t have anything on me, I lost everything when I slipped. I only have the clothes on my back and a crushed biscuit in my pocket to live off.

I’m literally hanging by a thread on the side of this powder-covered mountain.The only things holding me here are my crampons and my reliable ice axe.  I would say I’m roughly two thousand meters above ground and if I slip it would be a deadly ending.

Anything could go wrong in the matter of seconds.

Day 2

A night and day has past and I need help severely.  The cold is making my strength deteriorate and I’m nearly the size of a matchstick,I also think my hypothermia will soon become deadly.  I’m too tired, too weak to hold on any longer,when will my help arrive?But on the other hand I don’t want to move as I’m in pain and scared of what could happen if I do. The best thing to do is to sleep. That’s the only way I can escape the cold for a minute.

Icicles start to form at the end of my nostrils, the cold wind whips my face and the bright snow blinds my eyes.

Day 3

With my health worsening I need to find a way down fast. I try hard to think but my brain is frozen numb. I then see a helicopter flying high going in and out of the clouds that hug the gigantic mountain, I do everything in my power to get the pilot’s attention. After minutes of waving, yelling, screaming and pretty much anything it just slowly fades into the distance.

I think the only way out now is to use my crampons and slide down the mountain and slowly manoeuvre around big rocks to the bottom.  I have no choice. I get into a suitable position to do so and start on the big slope.

My tongues dry and my stomach is growling for food and my feet are starting to cramp up from wearing the crampons for so long.I try to push through the pain and think about all the things I could live for when I do get out.

After a few hours of moving quickly I’m now 200 meters above ground. My hands are now solid and they crunch as I bend them to grasp the ice axe. Tears start rolling down my cheeks because I know that help and safety is very near.

As people rush out to help me I thank god he brought me back safe and I kiss the ground beneath my feet.

By Hollie

Gulf of Guinea Part 1. Hull breach

Gulf of Guinea Part 1. Hull breach

It was another day the Guinea Gulf.  We had just finished a raid on the British alcohol transfer ship.  We gained $1,000 of rum and it was going to be a fine night for me and my lads. We drank for hours on end until we were all drunk that some of the lads fell off my ship THE SPARROW.   I said to my lads “Pull ‘em out with the fishin’ net!”

1 week later we had sold the rum for a profit $785. Later in the town of Nigeria a young boy came out of a crowd of people and told me “Captain Peter Mullet I heard a group of British Captains talk about hunting you for a bounty of $1,000 for you wanted dead or alive,” I replied “Thanks boy, here’s $50 for your help.”

I ran back to THE SPARROW and told the lads. “We’ve got to set sail, or we’ve got a fight on ours hands.” We packed up the supplies and set into the sea.

Once in the Gulf, but not past the border, I saw some British patrol boats guarding the border. I told the cannon crew to load up the cannon balls, the bola crews to load up the bolas and mortar crew to load up and aim at the British boats. I told the bola crew to shoot at the sails, cannon crew at the hull and the mortar crew to shoot at the steering wheel and top deck.

1 hour later, still in the battle, we destroyed 5 British boats but there were the same amount remaining.  Later, a member of the cannon crew yelled out to me “HULL BREACH!” I yelled back “Evacuate now, get out of there!”  We sailed as far away as we could until we hit a sea mine.  THE SPARROW was sent into the air, traveling at a speed of  70kmh and crashed into a deserted island.

TO BE CONTINUED

By Akasha

KIDNAPPED!

KIDNAPPED!

It was all over the news paper. My girl. My daughter, gone, what do I do? She’s missing and I can’t do anything about It. I’m useless to her, I’m such a bad mum. But I have to keep trying. She has to be around here somewhere right?

I spend the whole week looking for her round the town we live In but nothing. I miss her so much, she Is the only thing I have. Who has the nerve to take my daughter! I get angry really angry. My daughter Is gone and I don’t know where. Someone’s taken her. Away from me, what If she never comes back.

As I’m driving down the street still looking for something I don’t even know. I hit something. I jump back in shock when I slam on the breaks not knowing what I hit. I’m getting out of the car scared to what I’m going to see.

I walk round to the front of the car seeing the start of what I hit. As i get closer I can see that It’s a person but It was my daughter! I ran to her with tears streaming down my face uncontrollably. But when I get to her i see what I have done.

She’s gone. dead , not alive because of me. I don’t even know where she was, or what happened to her. I killed her.

Blood all over my hands and my clothes I take her into my arms not letting her go “ baby please don’t go” but It’s too late crying my eyes out I say “goodbye my baby”.

By Lizzie

Ginger Addiction

Ginger Addiction

Written by Tiana

She showed up at his door soaking wet, bruised and covered in glitter.

“Don’t ask,” she mumbled as she slipped past his open mouth, and shocked expression.

She disappeared into the bathroom for a while and when she re-emerged she had gotten a bit of the glitter off, although it was all through her hair and it still stuck to her skin.

She slumped on the couch, by the warm fire to dry herself off, he went to the kitchen.

She could hear him banging around doing something and when he came back he had two mugs of hot cocoa.

They both seemed to sink into the couch, while the warmth washed over them in small heat waves.

He was about to fall asleep when she suddenly whined:

“There was only one gingerbread man in all of the market,”

“So you what? Tripped and fell into a pond, got a truck of glitter tipped over you, threw yourself onto the gingerbread stall and it collapsed around you?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” she said after much thought.

“No surprise there then,” he remarked quietly.

“Hey!” she said with a hurt expression on her wet, sparkly face.

“Well, your addiction to ginger is not human!” He said truthfully,

“Did you get it?’ He added inquiringly

“no!” she said solemnly, they kicked me out of the market.

“Yes, well, I can go to the supermarket and buy you one,” he sighed knowing full well that it will most likely end up a gingerbread house.

“Yay! Thank you! You’re the best friend ever!’’ she screamed hiding the $2.00 glitter packets in her wet pockets,

“Oh, did I mention that there is this new crystalized ginger flavour…”

He sighed, this was going to be a long day.

Panda

Panda

Omph! Something heavy lands on me,

I open my blurry eyes to a black and white face,

I gently push him away with my paw,

He fights back, this means war!

I hear the gate shut, click.

I’d better hurry, quick, quick!

The lady comes in with a basket,

A basket of bamboo!

Yummy, scrummy, i eat the rest,

I love bamboo, it’s the best!

The lady picks me up,

And rolls me down a hill!

Rolling, rolling, down the hill

Is it ever gonna end? I hope it will!

I finally come to a stop, when i hit a panda

Right in the face!

She batts me away, i jump on her,

Now i have really dirty fur,

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

I look behind me, two more rolling down the hill!

We jump, we fight, we play, we roll

We run, we tumble, we push, we bowl

Our eyes and ears droop down low,

As we stack up for a nap, so fluffy and warm.

We wake up after midday,

And start another play,

We race each other up the hill,

As we smell that yummy bamboo!

We see something move

Its that lady, trying to leave

Darn, we were too late

Don’t worry

We...

Will...

Wait.

By Tiana

My Knee

My Knee.

My knee is a special knee. It has this thing called Osgoods Schlatters Disease.

Also known as apophysitis of the tibial tubercle, or lannelongues disease.  It’s basically a painful bump under your knee. Most often seen in young men, but is showing more in women due to the fact girls are taking part in more sports.

It’s when there is a inflammation of the bone, cartilage and/or tendon at the top of the shinbone. Where the tendon from the kneecap attaches. Most often only one knee is affected, I feel sorry for anyone with it in both knees. Because when it hurts, it hurts.

In kid terms, basically a bump appears and it hurts.

Most likely, when you get it you’ve been involved in running, twisting and jumping. Such as basketball, football, volleyball, soccer, tennis, figure skating and gymnastics. I got mine at age 9, doing gymnastics, running, jumping, twisting and netball.

It can also happen when you’re growing rapidly. Which makes this most common with girls between ages 8 to 13 for girls and 10 to 15 for boys.

Once you get it, you might be experiencing extreme pain for the first 7 months.

The other symptoms are

• The pain getting worse with more exercise
• Relief of pain with rest
• Swelling or tenderness under the knee and over the shinbone
• Limping after exercise
• Tightness of the muscles around the knee.

Sadly, I had every single one. This caused me to stop doing my one and a half hour lessons after school for circus. Which was mostly just trapeze and tissue. (aka the tissue is rope thingys) Also making me quit or stop doing fitness & sports regularly.

Even though the disease sounds painful, it isn’t in daily life. As long as you don’t overwork it or bang it, it should be fine. My advice is just take it easy, check with a doctor is your not sure and if you’re a sport freak. Maybe calm it down a little.

By Lucy

The Final Percentage

The Final Percentage

My phone is my life, literally. How our world works is at the age of 20 we get a special chip put into our arm that starts at 100%. Every day the percentage goes down by one. So basically, when we turn 20 we have 100 days left to live. It connects to our phone via an app that goes by the name of Control. It helps us keep track of how many days we have left to live. At about 10% you start getting sicker and get put into the hospital of life which takes care of you until your final day.

One day I was sitting in the living room watching the news with my younger brother when something really caught my attention. The woman on the T.V said that someone had hacked into the chips on every 20 year old's arm and made it so the percentage goes down twice as fast! The hackers had changed the passcode so no one else could access the chips to revert them back. In my mind I was freaking out but didn’t want to alarm my younger brother. That night when I was up late checking my emails I found something that could change everything.

It was a clue from the hackers! It read, the first letters of our names correspond to the numbers you gave. I stayed up all night researching to try and find the hackers names. As I was researching I thought to myself that this clue they gave me could be the passcode to access the chips. I kept looking and found out the hackers names were Ezra, Jim, Sally and Tyler. Then I started joining the letters up with the numbers. For example, A=1 B=2 C=3 and so on. So E=5, J=10, S=19 and T=20. I emailed Control and asked them how many numbers the passcode was, they replied back with 7. So I sent them back the 7 digit code that I discovered, 5101920.

As a result they emailed back saying that the code had worked and thanking me over and over again. When I scrolled down past the thank yous I saw a final part to the email. It said that they were going to remove the chip from my arm until I was 60. I jumped up and down with tears of joy running down my face. After they came round and removed my chip I had my dinner and went to bed grateful for the extra 40 years I had been given.

By Neco

News Item summary

Police looking for a man who took a hitchhiker

This happened in Central Otago and the person was a 22 year old woman who was picked up at between 8am and 9am around school time which would be a bit worrying if she had kids but she was hitchhiking.

The weird thing was the person who picked her up was being looked for, which makes it even scarier that she might have been picked up by a murderer or a wanted man.  Also the woman was subjected to unwanted advances .

She got dropped off Cromwell where it was stormy.   A photographer saw and thought “poor girl, if only I was heading that way I could help her  And so the photographer called the police to help her which is a nice thing to do and by the sounds of it the photographer was a nice guy.  He was with 2 kids and a nice labrador dog.  The 2 kids were twin sisters .

By Ryan N

Leprechaun Land

Once upon a time in the land of the leprechauns where Guinness was brewed and the accent was amazing but hard to understand, there lived a young man named Pat O’Neill. Pat was based in County Clare and had lived there his whole entire life. In his home he was anything but surrounded. He lived in a castle which was dark and lonely, the closest people near him were a little ice cream store ran by to young friends. This store was about 10km away.

You are probably wondering how Pat got food?  Well, he had something that no one else had; his cousin Jimmy the leprechaun. Every week Jimmy would drop a huge food basket at Pat’s castle

And leave either a note or a letter. Pat would never ever see him though.

The funny thing was Pat had never met Jimmy, well at least not physically. Every week Pat would receive the massive food basket and a letter/note. One week the food basket was placed but no letter was to be seen. So the next week Pat placed a letter of his own on the doorstep the night before Jimmy came. The next morning There was no food basket, Pats letter was gone and a new letter was there.

Dear Pat,

Sorry for any inconveniences this week but my life is slowly coming to an end. I wish you could visit me but that would be against leprechaun laws.

Sincerely, your cousin Jimmy.

P.S. If you are feeling lonely you can always be a leprechaun and live with me and my friends. All you have to do is go into the closest forest and there will be a blue ribbon tied around a tree. When you find that tree you have to climb up it and there will be a magical pot of gold. Then you just place two hands on the pot of gold and you will arrive in leprechaun land.

The next morning Pat set off to the nearest forest. As soon as he got to the forest he knew he was fooled. Every single tree in his sight had a blue ribbon tied around it. Even though there were probably hundreds of trees all at least 8 metres high Pat started climbing…

It was already pitch black and Pat hadn’t found the pot of gold. After two days Pat still hadn’t found it. Pat was feeling nervous and really tired, was this trick going to turn into something worse when all of a sudden Jimmy appeared.   “You have earned your right to be a leprechaun after all this hard work”.

By Dara

The Sports

The Sports

The sports at Rawhiti School are Amazing you get so many opportunities and get to have a go at a sport. Rawhiti has many different sports to have a go at and no matter if you know how to play it or not.

I think the sports here are so good because there are so many competitions that we enter and it’s so much FUN!

There are many different sports like:

• Netball
• Rugby
• Soccer
• Hockey
• Table Tennis
• Bowls

A thing we take part in is East Side Zones, that’s when we go to another school for a day and verse other teams. It’s a lot of fun and I so recommend doing it.  

I play Netball and the Netball team signs up for loads of different competitions like Koru Games. In Koru games this year we signed up for:

• Netball
• Touch
• Table Tennis
• Bowls
• Basketball
• Hockey

But you can also sign up different sports as well.

Koru Games is when you go for a three day competition. It’s close to the end of the year, but it’s good because you get loads of practise.

We haven’t been yet but it’s coming up soon and I know it’s going to be FANTASTIC! As long as you bring good attitude, take part and helping out the team, being part of the team, it’s going to be AMAZING for you and everyone else.

By Kayla