Year 8 News

Over the last few weeks the Year 8 classes have been very busy finishing off our Science and Technology Inquiries, preparing for our Paper Planes championships and completing our science theme investigations. It was yet again another successful Balmacewen Science Fair with the standard and range of ideas and inventions on display a credit to the students who have worked very hard over this term to prepare for this. This week students will find out if they will go on to represent Balmacewen at the Otago Science Fair in August. 

This week we had our large ball skills tournament at the Edgar centre. Each class organised three teams to compete in Volleyball, Netball and Futsal as a culmination of our large ball skills Physical Education Programme over the term. We encouraged students to have a go at a sport they do not usually play. Check out the photos and results in this newsletter.

One of our major investigations in our integrated theme this term was the Paper Planes unit looking at the science of flight, writing explanations and in our classes researching, making and creating different paper planes to test and gather data to support our theories. On Friday we will have our first ever Paper Planes Year 8 Championships where six students will represent their class in three categories - distance, flight time and aerobatics. This will become an annual event for the Year 8 students and classes have ha a lot of fun in making and testing these planes, as well as linking their ideas to the science of flight. 

This week your child will receive a lot of information regarding High School Visits and Open Nights. It will be a very busy start to next term as you make the most of opportunities to view our local High Schools. School reports will also be coming home and we look forward to catching up with parents at our school Interviews in Week One of Term Three. 

Next term our theme is IMPACT where we look at our we Impact on our environment and how we can make a difference.  Classes will visit the local Orokonui Eco-sanctuary as part of our unit early in Term Three. We also have planned a tour of the local Dunedin Street Art as an example of positive impact to use as inspiration for our writing and art work in class. We also have our last three camps heading out to Berwick Lodge early in the term.

We hope you all have a safe and relaxing break and look forward to next term. 

Lisa Dixon

On behalf of the Year 8 team.