Year 8 News

Kia Ora Parents and Caregivers

Wow! Where has the time gone? Another action packed 10 weeks has flown by.

All year 8 staff would like to thank our Year 8 families and community for your support in the running of all our programmes this term. Whether it was assisting with our Kaitiakitanga activities or helping with your child’s learning we appreciate your support in helping us to provide engaging programmes.

Here is a summary of one of the PBL projects.

Our PBL (Project Based Learning) is based on Deforestation. So we decided to organise a tree planting morning for the class. We first emailed the Dunedin City Council. We were planning on taking our class out with the DCC but when we got the email back it wasn’t what we wanted. They were asking for payment and for the school to do most of the work. We decided to switch to Tomahawk Beach care. We found this nice woman named Nicole that maintains Smails Beach. We exchanged emails multiple times and we organised a date, this was Thursday 7th of September from 9:30 to 11:45. When we got there Nicole introduced herself to us. She showed us around her spot and what the plan was. We started with potting the trees and then we planted 150 trees overall. The goal was to create shelter for sea lions. We ended the day by sliding down sand dunes and having fun. 

Hadi Al-Sallami and Ava Couling

Congratulations to all students for their creativity and innovation around this topic. There were a multitude of projects addressing a variety of environmental concerns.

Looking forward to next term, our integrated unit of study is called “Challenge.”

The major units of work for next term include…

• Contributing towards making a Class Challenge Magazine. This will be a resource that the students can refer to about the challenges of the emerging adolescent.

• Learning a variety of formal dances for our Year 8 Social.

• Completing the drug health unit (vaping) with the Life Education Bus. 

• Creating and performing a class lip sync.

For many students Term 4 is the highlight of their time at Balmacewen Intermediate.

The year 8 staff wish our school community all the best for the end of the term and hope you enjoy spending quality time with your children during the school break.

Nga Mihi

Year 8 Teachers