Reflection during 2020

Kia ora everyone,

I will be talking about my reflection during 2020 at school. 

There were many things/events that happened in our school. This year is my first year in high school,

many experiences I have been through and things I treasure just like memories with me and my

friends/teachers. I’ve learned a lot which I was expecting. The first day of school 2020, that day when I

was extremely nervous, I didn’t know anyone here, except for my brother and my friend, Rheanne.

Luckily, we have the same class. I was struggling on finding where my class is, but to be honest the

school is really big, but I managed to find my class. I get to know more about my fellow classmates.

There are many subjects that I never expected to be that much, in primary school there are only math,

reading and writing. Science is the subject where I was really interested, the subject I really enjoy was

art. I met many friends and they are Cate, Jaren, Shontai and Linny. We met for an unexpected moment,

me and Rheanne on the first day of school was dancing while waiting for the teacher outside the

classroom, then suddenly Cate came up to us and said that she knows the song of the dance, that time

we started talking. I met Shontai from Cate, they met each other from a game on the first day of school,

and Jaren from my other classmate, and met Linny from Jaren. During that time, everything was going

well, I was enjoying my high school life, not until the lockdown. I felt kinda disappointed because it’s my

first high school year but then there’s a covid that’s going on. But even though we are in a lockdown,

we still communicate with our teachers and classmates by zoom call, where we discuss our work, but

I never expected that lockdown can be fun. I get to hang out with my family, wake up late/sleep late,

do my hobbies and finish my homework. That was totally a fun experience which is new for me. 

For a month, we’re finally out of lockdown. I felt enthusiastic about it, I got to see my friends at school.

First day of school after lockdown was all fun, I tried to join activities in this school, but I wasn’t really

confident. I made more friends, being in high school is extremely tough, especially homeworks that you

must finish on time, and waking up early in the morning is tiring, but all of them are worth it when you

learn something new at school. During term 2, there was an upcoming sports event. We got to choose

what sports we wanted to do, I had an experience of playing hockey, on primary I really had fun so then

I chose hockey as my sports for the rest of the term.

Hurumanu’s: 

Each term, we have different hurumanu. It’s basically a subject in school. 

Hurumanu 1 (Reading/Social sciences):

• During the term, we watched videos about the history of the Aotearoa New Zealand war. Every

• 2 days we watch different videos. While the video is playing, we have to write all the things that

• happened in the video. We have to explain what the videos are about, what is happening in the

• story. In another word, summarising everything about the story, not necessarily everything, but

• only those things that we learnt in the video. 

• In reading, we’re all in a group. We have to read a story either in a book or in the chromebook.

• After reading the story, the teacher gave us some questions and tasks about the story. We have

• to answer the question and do the tasks that are given to us in order to complete our work.

Hurumanu 2 (Reading/Drama): 

• Monologues

• Novel Study reading - We are split into groups. Each group has to read a book and they must finish it.

• Doing different activities on novel study - After reading a book, we should finish those activities that

• are related to the book, for example summarising the story in the book. 

• Debate language (debates) - We should find a topic to have a debate on, there are 2 groups that have

• 3 or 4 teammates. 

• Speeches 

• Reading books - During wananga, we have a silent reading time.

• Research history/events. 

• Acting some roles (Drama, Monologues)

• Games

Hurumanu 3 (Writing/Science):

•  We watched the movie called “Martian”. The story is about a man left behind on mars when a big

• tragedy happened, he needs to plan on how to get out of mars. Part of the movie is about how to

• survive. In our science, we made biltong, if you don’t know, biltong is dried meat. Before making

• biltong, we had to practice telling instructions. What we did is we got into a partner, we made an

• instructional dance, and it must be step by step and really detailed so that the readers can understand.

• After making biltong. We have to put the instructions on how we made them, and we have to write

• the results. We also have to describe what we can see, hear, smell, feel and taste. 

• Another of our experiments is about the squeaky pop test. We made water out of acid. 

• Then we did the instructional again about the squeaky pop test. 

• We’ve been learning about “Life on Mars”. Every week there’s a question that we have to research,

• the questions are about Mars. After life on mars, we were also learning about life on earth and did

• the same thing. 

• Egg drop is an experiment we recently did. We have to build a car using a lego and put an egg in the

• middle of it, but the challenge is that egg shouldn’t crack. I was in a group with Rheanne, We also

• have to make a parachute. After making the car, we have to drop it and see if the egg breaks. 

Hurumanu 4 (Writing/Visual arts):

• Perspective drawing - We have to make a perspective drawing about what our character looks like

• for the Heroes and Villains story. Setting drawing - We had to copy a step by step perspective

• drawing.

• Making stories (Heroes and Villains) - We had to make a story that includes a Hero and a Villian,

• and it has to have a problem in the story. Heroes and Villains slide - We had to write more information

• about the story that we are making (Heros and Villians. We must include the characters personality,

• appearance and etc. We started writing our draft story.

• Blog - We had to share (post on blog) the work that we have been doing during hurumanu 4.

• Ancient Greece - We watched a video about Ancient Greece, while watching the video we have

• to describe what we can see and write it on a google doc. 

• Show not tell - We were separated in different groups, each group gets to do show not tell with a

• teacher. We sit as a group together and discuss the show, not tell. 

Hurumanu 5 (Maths/PE):

• Probability - We had to solve a puzzle, and it’s called “Murder Mystery”. There are some questions

• that we have to answer, it’s like we are the investigator. We also did team work during probability,

• we have to answer the question about probability and whenever it's correct, we get to have another

• question. We also did the ice cream probability, and went to the court, we had each turns to shoot a

• basketball into the hoop, then add up how many scores we managed to shoot, and then we went to

• the field and did the same thing but instead of a basketball, we used soccer ball and add up all of our

• scores. 

•  Multisports - Whenever we finish our work during hurumanu 5, we get to have multisports. What we

• usually do during multisport is we play different games. Such 

• Measuring: Area, Volume, Diameter, circumference, radius - During hurumanu 5, we have done a lot

• of measuring. We measure to find the area, volume, diameter, circumference and radius. We also

• measured a random object to find the area and record them in our math book. 

• Math games: Mangahigh, Mathletics - Mathletics is a math game where you have to answer math

• questions. Mangahigh is also a math game, It’s like Matheltics but Mangahigh is a competitive math

• game, it shows your record and then there’s a leaderboard where you can see who is in the top. 

• We learnt about geometry.

Hurumanu 6 (Maths/Health): 

•  In the past few weeks, we have been in different groups in maths. Every day, we have a new task

• that is written in a book in our chromebook. There are some different and interesting questions about

• math. The math groups depend on what level we can do. The teachers call 1 or 2 groups during math.

• They will have a discussion with the teachers about math stuff, and learn new things and some tricks. 

• In a healthy lifestyle, what we have to do is to write and describe what we do everyday. In the morning,

• before school, after school and what we do in our free time. 

• We learned about roman numerals. We learnt which signs belong to what number. 

• We also learned about health. We talked about all of the diseases that happened to some people,

• and picked at least 3 diseases and wrote information about it. There should be about 7-8 paragraphs

• included. (I chose depression, Anxiety and Suicide). 

HR (Homeroom): 

• Every week, we research different countries in the world and write some facts about that country. 

• We learned about daylight saving in New Zealand. 

Cooking class:

• We cooked many different foods, one of my favourite was the Cookie. 

Wood tech:

• We made a Whistle and propeller using wood but we haven’t finished it yet. 

Japanese:

• We were learning Hiragana, and made some Origami. We also learn basic common words that

• are used in Japanese like greetings, and the numbers as well. 

Maori: 

• We learnt about Matariki, and some Maori language. 

ESOL: 

• We did read theory and learned about prepositions, spelling, part of speech, and many other things. 

Market day:

There were many events during this year, on term 3, we had a market day. A market day is when we have

to be creative and make something that we can sell. We were meant to be in a group of 4, I remember

I was in a group with Lhysette, Cate and Jaren. It was definitely hard to think what to make, we have to

think of something unique to make. But most of our ideas have been taken by the others, so we came

up with homemade scrunchies, homemade bracelets and a homemade slime. We had about 3-4 weeks

to make our products and organise everything. The day came up when we had to sell, most people

bought the slime, then the scrunchies.

Dance after school: 

There were also athletics events but unfortunately I wasn’t part of it. Term 4 was the term when I had

the guts to join one activity, I picked dancing, I love dancing even in my free time. Every Tuesday after

school, I went to dance class with my friend, which is Rheanne. We made a geography, we mixed the

songs together and practiced dancing it. There were videos taken by our dance teacher of us dancing.

We practiced the dance for 6 week every Tuesday. 

Fun run:

 Currently, there was a fun run that happened 2 weeks ago. I think it was the most enjoyable moment

during term 4. We have to run around the field, and have to wear a white t-shirt if we wanna get thrown

paint all over our body while running. Running around the field for 2 times and doing some sort of

obstacle course at the end. 

Last week, we had EOTC week. EOTC stands for “Education Outside The Classroom. It was on

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday, we went to Jellie park, on Thursday we went to

Adrenalin forest and on Friday we went to the City. 

Jellie Park:

We had to be at school early because the bus leaves at 8:25 am. I was early, I waited in the playground

for my friends for about 10 minutes. I saw my friends as I walked towards them. Minutes later it rang.

We went to our classes then in our Kahui (Riroriro). We talked about some of the rules in Jelly Park,

then we went to the bus that is waiting for us outside the school. I was sitting with Jaren on the bus.

About 15 minutes later we arrived in Jellie park. The first thing we did is that we talked about the rules

again, and then headed towards the changing room. After changing, we jumped into the pool. The water

is pretty warm to be honest. I also went to the hydroslide, I was definitely nervous because I have never

been in the hydroslide but I overcame my fear, I went to the hydroslide with Shontai. We spent about 4

hours on Jelly Park. After spending many hours under the water, I then changed and had a bit of rest

(Eating and sitting). An hour later, we went back to our school. 

Adrenalin forest:

We were meant to be at school early, but even more earlier. By 8:00am the bus leaves. It’s the usual

routine in the morning. We were in the bus for a minute. We left early from school because Adrenaline

forest is a bit far from our school. When we arrived, we were split into 2 groups, the first group had to

know and learn what to do. While the second group had free time, I was in the second group, me and

my friends were just playing and eating our food. One staff member came to us and said that the second

group has to go and do what the first group did. While we were being taught, group one has already

started and they are up above the trees. Then we started the first level which is level 1. I then managed

to finish level 1 and moved into level 2. But unfortunately level 2 seems hard for me, so then I quit. I

watched those other students who climb up extremely high. Heights are one of my fears and I am proud

that I have overcome 1 level at least. We finished for an hour, and we walked to a playground near the

adrenalin forest. There were little kids playing in there. Minutes later the bus arrived and we had to go

back to school. 

City: 

As usual, we were riding in a bus. We stopped at Margaret Mahy playground. We had some time to play

around. Then we walked towards the library. We were able to look at their amazing books. Then we

walked towards the Museum. I had fun there even though I’ve been there many times. But it feels good

being in there remembering your memories when you were there the last time. We definitely spent many

hours in the museum. And then we wander around, looking for new things. Then we went back to school. 

My high school life is a great experience :’>

Thank you for reading my blog, bye.