This year, the boys’ soccer team and Mrs Peffer went to the national tournament, held in Palmerston North. The week-long tournament saw the team play 8 games in 5 days.  The tournament team was made up of a mixture of players from the First XI and a number of developing players from the Second XI and the Junior team. The team experienced a number of injuries during the tournament but carried on to win two of their games.

Year 10 Fane Morgan was named Most Valuable Player of the tournament, as chosen by the opposing teams.

The full tournament squad is: Joshua Burlace, Reuben Cash, Royden Christensen, Joel Cox, Jordan Earl, Liam Fraser, Ethan Kitt, Daniel Little, Fane Morgan, Logan Motu, Jason Muir, Bradley Peffer, Ryan Stewart, Jack Stratton, Hamish Whitworth.

The team was well coached by local footballer Shaun Peta.

The Karamu High School Girls’ Rugby Team are the new Hawkes Bay Champions. The team has finished the season undefeated. Their wins have been convincing, as the points for (371) to points against (69) shows.

The team squad is: Molly-Mae Foote (Year 11), Samantha Gerretzen (Year 13), Hera Kahukera (Year 9), Chrissy Kemp (Year 9), Rima Kurupo (Year 11), Sharlena Maui (Year 13), Rangitaiki Morgan-Dunne (Year 10), Sky Peters-Prisk (Year 11), Lisa Mei Pritchard (Year 11), Keriana Salibury (Year 9), Tracy Smith-Whakaue (Year 9), Rearn Warner-Nukunuku (Year 11), Maia Wati-Cooper (Year 10).

Each year a number of junior social studies students enter the Asia-wise competition. This is an international research competition that students can complete on-line.

The following students received marks over 80%: Baileigh O’Donoghue, Breanna Lenz, Jasmine Rorrison, Levi Cox, Madison Bowey, Nikita Napier, Tiffany Buckley, Vinh Tran and Natalie Pallesen.

Coco Kerckhoffs, Justin Alsleben and Ridge Nairn all scored 96%.

Congratulations to these students for their fine effort.

The accelerate Year 10 class is doing a full Level One NCEA programme in Mathematics and Science plus  two standards in English and one in Social Studies.

This year, for the first time, as part of the programme they spent a day at Massey University in Palmerston North. They spent an hour in each of the Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics areas where they were involved in hands-on practical science and mathematics.

Working in groups of two in the Chemistry laboratory, they made electro-chemical cells using blueberries. Using Mathematics they were involved solving “number guessing problems”. After a cafeteria lunch and a look around the campus, the students spent time in the Physics laboratory riding on a hovercraft made from a vacuum cleaner device, and actively involved in demonstrations related to forces, gravity, torque and momentum, the effect of a vacuum and liquid nitrogen.

In their feedback the students were very positive about their day, and can see a career using Science and Mathematics as very possible.

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Karamu has had still more writing success with the news that two students involved in the Writer-in-Residence scheme were among the seven students short-listed for the BNZ Literary Awards. Beth Rust, Year 13, and Madeleine Ross, Year 10, were both short-listed for the secondary section of the award, which is New Zealand’s premier writing competiton.

Beth’s story, Catch Smoke, is about  the people a girl meets while walking around the streets of a town one afternoon. Madeleine’s story, Now,  skilfully depicts an elderly man suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Follow this link to the Hawkes Bay Today article about the girls.

Maesey Smiler, Year 9, and Jessy  Wilson-Rowe, Year 10,  have been selected as Under 15 Basketball representatives. Maesey recently returned from a regional tournament in Porirua, where their team was 4^th.

Jessy is also an Under 14 rugby representative. He has started training with the team, playing as number 8 or lock.

Aimee Fisher, Year 12, has recently returned from the Junior Canoe Sprint World Championships held in Brandenburg, Germany.  Aimee went to Europe as part of the New Zealand Junior team.

The team spent a month together training and attending the Czech Nationals as well as the World Championships.  Her results from the Czech Nationals were:  1^st in Junior Women’s K4 500m, 2^nd in Junior Women’s K2 200m and 6^th in Junior Women’s K1 200m.

Aimee was also very pleased with the results from the Junior World Championships as the standard of international racing was a real eye-opener for her. She was 6^th in the B-Final K4 500m (15^th overall) and 3^rd in the B-Final K2 200m (12^th overall).

Aimee feels these results are especially good as they came very close to the big kayaking nations and the girls they were racing against were two years older.

The Junior Canoe Sprint Championships are held every two years and Aimee is very pleased that she will still be eligible in two years’ time.

Following on from her prose writing successes of last year, Alexandra Morris has recently received two poetry awards. She has been named one of ten finalists in the National Schools Poetry Competition, for her poem ‘Grace’. As part of her prize, Alex will be attending a one-day poetry masterclass at the International Institute of Modern Letters in Wellington, in August.

Alex, Year 13, has also received a Highly Commended award in the New Zealand Poetry Society 2011 International Poetry Competition, for her poem ‘Brother’. Her poem was one of nearly 400 entered.

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