AD SUMMA MARSDEN Ad Summa Greetings to the Marsden family Issue 9 June 2014 1 Inside this issue Big Sing 2 Year 12 Geography Trip 2 Bio Ethics Seminar 3 Religious Education 3 Cross Country 4 Zoo Visit 5 Samuel Marsden Collegiate School Whitby Starboard Lane, Whitby PO Box 58 040, Whitby Porirua 5245 Phone 04 234 1070 [email protected]www.marsden.school.nz In May, Wellington was lucky enough to host the Australasian Alliance of Girls’ Schools’ biennial conference. This year conference-goers, including a contingent from Marsden, explored the theme of ‘Creative girls, Creative Women’. It was an excellent opportunity for the 130 delegates – educators and experts - to explore the ‘shapes, shifts and changes in the educational landscape’ that make creativity so crucial to success in the 21st century. While the focus was on girls, the messages about creativity were relevant to both genders. Guest speakers included two highly creative Marsden Old Girls: Claudia Batten, entrepreneur and recent winner of the supreme award at the World Class New Zealand Awards and Miranda Harcourt, actor, writer and acting coach. We were also thrilled to hear from Felicity Evans, who spoke from her perspective in HR. As a Marsden parent she was able to endorse the message of creativity through her daughters’ experiences at Marsden Whitby. Miranda, Felicity and Claudia, with their vastly different backgrounds, epitomized the spirit of the conference, that creativity is inter-disciplinary. Former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley and Minister of Women’s Affairs Jo Goodhew delivered the keynote address in the Grand Hall at Parliament. A group of Marsden musicians, who provided some of the evening’s entertainment, were able to listen in and be inspired by their words. Other speakers over the following days included scientists, radical thinkers and business leaders. Every presenter showed how, in their particular field, creativity was the power to create something new and valuable, to innovate and create change. Discussion highlighted the fact that we have to encourage our students to dream big, to be courageous, to take calculated risks and to get comfortable being uncomfortable. We were reminded that ‘the magic happens outside your comfort zone’ and that ‘I don’t have enough time, I don’t know how and I don’t have enough money’ are great problems to have: creativity can’t happen without them. With flexible thinking and confidence, such problems can inspire some of our best creative thinking. And last but not least – our students have to learn how to fail, pick themselves up again and keep going. It’s such a difficult lesson to learn, but one that is advocated by the highest achievers. According to Churchill, ‘success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm’. With creativity as one of the four pillars that underpins the spirit of Marsden, the key messages of this very timely conference, spoke to the heart of what we do. Margaret Adeane Acting Principal
Transcript
AD SUMMA MARSDEN
Ad Summa Greetings to the Marsden family Issue 9 June 2014
In May, Wellington was lucky enough to host the Australasian Alliance of Girls’ Schools’ biennial conference. This year conference-goers, including a contingent from Marsden, explored the theme of ‘Creative girls, Creative Women’. It was an excellent opportunity for the 130 delegates – educators and experts - to explore the ‘shapes, shifts and changes in the educational landscape’ that make creativity so crucial to success in the 21st century. While the focus was on girls, the messages about creativity were relevant to both genders. Guest speakers included two highly creative Marsden Old Girls: Claudia Batten, entrepreneur and recent winner of the supreme award at the World Class New Zealand Awards and Miranda Harcourt, actor, writer and acting coach. We were also thrilled to hear from Felicity Evans, who spoke from her perspective in HR. As a Marsden parent she was able to endorse the message of creativity through her daughters’ experiences at Marsden
Whitby. Miranda, Felicity and Claudia, with their vastly different backgrounds, epitomized the spirit of the conference, that creativity is inter-disciplinary.
Former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley and Minister of Women’s Affairs Jo Goodhew delivered the keynote address in the Grand Hall at Parliament. A group of Marsden musicians, who provided some of the evening’s entertainment, were able to listen in and be inspired by their words. Other speakers over the following days included scientists, radical thinkers and business leaders. Every presenter showed how, in their particular field, creativity was the power to create something new and valuable, to innovate and create change.
Discussion highlighted the fact that we have to encourage our students to dream big, to be courageous, to take calculated risks and to get comfortable being uncomfortable. We were reminded that ‘the magic happens outside your
comfort zone’ and that ‘I don’t have enough time, I don’t know how and I don’t have enough money’ are great problems to have: creativity can’t happen without them. With flexible thinking and confidence, such problems can inspire some of our best creative thinking. And last but not least – our students have to learn how to fail, pick themselves up again and keep going. It’s such a difficult lesson to learn, but one that is advocated by the highest achievers. According to Churchill, ‘success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm’.
With creativity as one of the four pillars that underpins the spirit of Marsden, the key messages of this very timely conference, spoke to the heart of what we do.
Margaret AdeaneActing Principal
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Big SingMarsden Whitby school choir, Viridi Vocem, attended the recent Wellington festival of the national Big Sing series. We performed two songs - Lullaby by Billy Joel, arranged by Kirby Shaw, and No Umbrella Blues by New Zealand composer Cheryl Camm. We sang both our songs as part of the afternoon session so we got to sit and listen to all the other amazing choirs throughout the day. For some of the choir members it was their first time at the Big Sing and their first experience of the thrill of performing for a large audience. We returned to perform in the Gala Concert at 7pm, where we sang No Umbrella Blues. The Gala Concert is when all the choirs from the day perform one of their songs, and lots of parents, teachers and other music enthusiasts turn up to listen to all the incredible voices on offer. There is none of the pressure of competition from earlier in the day and it really has a great atmosphere.
We loved singing for the audience and hearing the other choirs perform. Everybody was very supportive and it was awesome to see all our work over the last few months come to life. Special thanks go to Mrs Young who put in hours and hours of her own time into developing us as a choir, and she has done a magnificent job especially considering it is her first time directing a choir. Also, a big thanks to Linda Monk for accompanying us on the piano. After ten hours of being on the go we were shattered, but we all had an excellent day and are looking forward to more fun times ahead!
Benjamin Eagle – Year 12
Moana Smith, Jack McConville and Nopera Dennis-McCarthy in anticipation of the Hangi
Rotorua TripYear 13 Geography students from Marsden Whitby and Karori travelled to Rotovegas! This was to gather information for our external exam. We visited a range of major Rotorua attractions such as; Te Puia, Skyline, Mitai Maori concert, Rotorua museum, Polynesian Spa and the Agrodome. A highlight for the group was the OGO – a competitor for the Zorb. The girls tried hard to beat the boys on the luge but only Mr Hardy was overtaken. It was an enjoyable experience and a great event for other geographers to look forward to.
Maggie Regnault – Year 13
Y13 Geography students outside Rotorua Museum
Agrodome farm show. Maggie Regnault and Katie Holcroft participateTe Puia Geothermal centre. Mr Hardy and Josh Hunt
Bio Ethics SeminarRecently several senior students, accompanied by Ms Lamont, attended a bio-ethics seminar hosted at Wellington Girls which took the form of a road show consisting of many presenters from varying backgrounds. The first discussions centred on the idea of what it means to be human, and how we define ourselves and our identities. Presentations ranged from parallels between the intricate complexities of our solar system and the human mind to the idea of artificial intelligence; ethics surrounding organ transplants; the human identity and sex in advertising and censorship. The topics were connected by the bio-ethical approach and the main point of the day was to encourage us to think about and engage with things not usually brought up. A lot of the material was not only controversial but also quite confrontational and encouraged us to think about how these things affect our daily lives.
In the afternoon we discussed various popular figures and examined why certain people are more well-known than others - for example, why is Martin Luther King Jr more well-known than Rosa Parks? These deliberations led our afternoon programme and there was a strong emphasis on discussing objectification in the media and how companies use and exploit sex to sell products, often when there is no relevant need to.
To finish off the day we had an impromptu debate on the moot “That the New Zealand government should censor sexually explicit material in the media.” This was an interesting moot because throughout the day we had been presented with material to both affirm and negate this idea. A large number of very talented, engaging and interesting presenters spoke to us about their varying fields and interests and made the day truly interesting and thought-provoking. As these are the issues our generation will be facing in the coming years it is important that they are exposed to us at a young age and open discussion about them is encouraged. The seminar raised a lot more questions than it answered but by doing this I think it has encouraged us to now go and seek these answers for ourselves.
The day was one of conversation and confrontation and one of the high points from the event was how we were encouraged and mentored on how to think outside the box and view issues from a perspective that was very different (and in fact often the opposite) to our own. Special thanks to Ms Lamont who provided us with the opportunity to attend the event.
Nopera Dennis-McCarthy, Alexandra Macfarlane, Sam Mills – Year 13
Religious EducationYear 9 students are studying a unit of work called ‘Religious Diversity in New Zealand’. During their Term 2 programme they visited the Orthodox Synagogue and the Holocaust Centre in Wellington as part of their programme of study. The trip included a guided tour, providing a lot of opportunity for students to experience and discuss beliefs and practices of Judaism, as well as raising their awareness about the Holocaust and its impact on the Jewish community both abroad and in New Zealand.
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Juniors Ready to start
Cross CountryPhysical Education staff were thrilled with new courses for all age groups bringing the Senior Course up to 5km, Intermediates up to 4km and Juniors 3km. This made it more competitive and a more enjoyable challenge for competitive runners with the start and finish now on the school field. Students took on the new courses with vigour and quickly improved their aerobic endurance in the lead up to Cross Country.
There was plenty of wet, windy weather prior to the event and students loved the big muddy sections of the track through the old golf course.
The sun was out first thing on race day but was gone by the afternoon. It was chilly and a small fall of hail came down just before the start. Perfect cross country running weather! Whilst it was a bit slippery underfoot it made for exciting racing and lots of great House spirit.
After House meetings and a quick warm up the school came out onto the field for briefing and were set off. Seniors first, across the field, through the tunnel and left up the new track to the back of Adventure Park.
The Senior boys race was a closely contested race:-
Year 12 Benjamin Eagle came in first closely followed by Year 12 Jesse Baxter. The Junior Boys winner Year 7 Jack Plummer was clearly ahead by a significant amount. Susannah Crysell, Year 12
Intermediate Boys Nico Hackner and Todd Bishop approaching the finish Intermediate start
Juniors off to a flying start
The staff and parents were so impressed with the great House spirit and support spirit shown to all runners.
The music crew of Michael Lennon Winton Year 12 and Liam Hunt Year 11 set up a great mix of music from outside the gym to keep the motivation up and create a carnival experience. This led to a great “Dance Off” at the conclusion of the Cross Country with all the students enjoying the beats!
Coralie Morrison
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Year 10 Zoo Trip
Year 10 Geography students recently visited Wellington Zoo to assist their studies.
coffee supplier to marsdeN schoolCaffe L’affare | 27 College Street | Wellington
