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Weekly Wrap Up

The Wrap Up (Term 2, Week 8 & 9, 2025)

There’s so much to celebrate in this bumper Wrap Up! From Guys and Dolls to Kapa Haka, from Top Scholar to World Scholars’ Cup, not to mention a Year 9 Tramp, Year 10 Science, and the Toi Māori rāranga wananga at Ōtari Wilton’s Bush.

Important Dates

Term 3

  • Monday 14 July – Start of Term 3
  • Wednesday 16 July – Junior Parents Evening 2.00-5.30pm
  • Monday 21 July – Board Meeting 6.00pm
  • Monday 4 August – Careers Expo (parents welcome from 3.20pm) and Future Focus      Evening
  • Monday 11 August – Senior Parents Evening 2.00-5.30pm
  • Monday 18 August – Board Meeting 6.00pm
  • Friday 22 August – Mid-Term Break
  • Monday 25 –  Friday 29 August – Winter Tournament
  • Tuesday 2 September – Sports Awards
  • Thursday 5 – Friday 5 September – Writing CAA exam
  • Monday 8 – Friday 12 September – Derived grade exam week. Numeracy and Literacy    Reading CAAs and DCAT exams
  • Monday 15 September – Board Meeting 6.00pm
  • Thursday 18 September – Music Evening
  • Friday 19 September – Term 3 ends

Important Information

Principal’s Message

Dominic’s Principal’s message for the end of term 2 is now online here.

Junior Parents Evening

Junior Parents’ Evening on Wednesday 16 July from 2pm to 5.30pm. Note that school will finish at 1.20pm on that day for all students.

Friday 27 June: Junior reports will be available on the parent portal and bookings will open. At this stage we request that only parents and caregivers of students with whom teachers have requested a meeting book appointments.

Monday 30 June: All parents and caregivers who would like to attend, even where a meeting has not been requested, are invited to make appointments.

HOW TO MAKE A BOOKING:

  1. Go to: https://www.schoolinterviews.co.nz/code/6saxg
  2. Choose the SUBJECT then the TEACHER.
  3. Please leave a five minute gap between bookings.
  4. Note that we are only able to run one conversation with each teacher per student

What’s Happening?

Science enrichment

The Year 10 enrichment group were visited at school by conservation ecologist Kari Beaven, who is based at Zealandia (and is also a parent and junior A boys basketball coach!). Kari has worked on many projects that have helped save endangered species by creating new populations in protected habitats. The group were even shown a titipounamu egg so tiny that you can’t imagine a baby bird hatching from it. On Thursday the group spent the day dodging rain and spotting tuatara at Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne.

 

 

 

 

 

Rāranga Wananga at Ōtari Wilton’s Bush

For the second year in a row, Toi Māori students had the privilege of spending the day at Ōtari Wilton’s bush Education Hub for a rāranga wananga supervised by three incredible experts. Tauia learned and practiced harvesting harakeke following specific tikanga before spending the whole afternoon weaving. Year 11 and 12 made some beautiful whetu honouring Matariki as well as some amazing rourou. Year 13 focused on extracting and using muka creating ropes for their personnel mahi toi. 

The end of the day concluded with an amazing haka performed by our MPA students, moving our experts to tears.

 

 

 

 

Achievements

Wellington Regional Japanese Trivia 

Omedetougozaimasu (congratulations) to Year 10 Japanese students Brennan Hudson, Emerson Mooij, Annabelle Denton & Carlo Scott-Windelov for placing 3rd in the Wellington Regional Japanese Trivia Champs!

National Shakespeare Festival

A talented group of students from diverse ethnic backgrounds performed a moving piece of Shakespeare, The Stranger’s Case from Sir Thomas More, at the National Shakespeare Festival. The group were joined by a student from both Wellington East Girls College and Wellington Girls College, along with three former refugee students from Levin. The group performed at Mamaku Community Works with the support of the NZ Refugee Youth Council.

The performance earned them a standing ovation and many tears from the audience and organisers.

They were awarded the Extraordinary Performance Award, Most Thought Provoking Performance Award, Most Original Choice of Play Award and the Most Imaginative and Innovative Production Award.

Great to see five international students getting involved. Much mahi was provided by WHS Arts Coordinator Tama Smith.

Kapa Haka

Te Kāhui Kapa Haka o Te Whanganui a Tara ki Ōtaki.

Te Whānau a Taraika performed in the regional Kapa Haka competition with 14 other secondary schools. It was such a beautiful day to be with our rangatahi who worked so hard. 1st place for kākahu. Ngā mihi nu nui ki a koutou katoa.

The World Scholar’s Cup

A group of 27 students participated in The World Scholar’s Cup, held at Scots College. Our students did incredibly well and had a great time debating, writing and completing the general knowledge quiz. Each year the scholars put on a Talent Show and the WHS students impressed with a range from dancing, classical piano playing to a musical number performed on the Otamatone (Google it, if you don’t know the instrument)!  Special mention to Jove Ireson, Raffa Salisbury and Joe Williams, their team received two trophies as the top team in the debating competition and the quiz. Raffa also received a trophy as the 2nd place Overall Scholar.

Guys and Dolls

And that’s a wrap! This week our production of Guys and Dolls ran for five nights, restarting a tradition of school productions after a long absence from our Performing Arts Programme.  This show saw a cast, orchestra and crew of 82 students from years 9 to 13, directed by staff, but with senior students taking major production responsibilities. We’d like to acknowledge Felix McDougall, Rayne Kelly, and Violet Hamilton-Cole who worked as production manager, rehearsal stage manager, and assistant stage managers. Thanks to everyone who supported this production and helped to make it such a success! Our next challenge is what to choose for next year? Happy holidays everyone!

Captured by Jo Hawes

Past Student Successes

Top Scholar Award and Otago University Scholarships – Lucian Petherick

Earlier this term Lucian was presented with his Top Scholar award at Parliament. This award is recognition of the exemplary quality of his mahi for his Food Technology Scholarship. In collaboration with Kate Necklen, from Wonderland Chocolates, he developed a hokey pokey vegan chocolate bar, and wrote a 60 page scholarship report about this process.

As a result of his academic excellence, work ethic and service to the community, through volunteering at Everybody Eats for two years while at Wellington High School, Otago University has also awarded Lucian with two further Scholarships.

The Kraft Heinz Food Science Scholarship and their Leaders of Tomorrow Entrance Scholarship.

You can read more about Lucian’s achievements here: https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroom/sweet-taste-of-success-for-top-scholar

Ka rawe!!

Mrinali Kumar

We are super proud of ex-student Mrinali Kumar. The Eat Kinda cofounder and CEO  has been named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list for 2025. Milli has been recognised by Forbes for developing a plant base ice cream using cosmetically imperfect cauliflower. Eat Kinda was formed when Milli was a Food Technology student at Massey University and met Jenni Mattheson at a StartUp Weekend in Taranaki. Since then their product has been sold at Hell’s Pizza and Countdown supermarkets and they’re now focusing on upscaling their products for the American market. 

To read more about her Forbes recognition: https://www.forbes.com/profile/mrinali-kumar/

Sports

Year 9 Tramp

This tramp was a great experience for the whole group and was the right balance of challenge and chill! It was a wholesome way of bonding with our students and colleagues. Our students were really enthused about the adventure and accepted the challenge of the river crossing with ease. Bharat taught us river safety and the interlocking arm-pack river crossing technique which I had never done before. I was very impressed with how well it worked and how each group communicated to make it across successfully. The hut was enjoyed by all of us and the kids enjoyed socialising and the independence of preparing their food. We all took time along the way to check in with each other and make sure everyone was faring well – we all felt triumphant upon our return!

 

Careers

Pathway Newsletter

Please read this week’s Pathways Newsletter! 

Contact Chuni Bhikha: bac@whs.school.nz or drop into S502 if you require further information on the above events.

New Careers Website

Check out our new Careers website here

What’s on offer?:

  • Information on Pathways, Gateway, STAR Courses, and Trades Academy
  • NZ Universities and Polytechnics
  • Industry Training OrganisationsN
  • Scholarships, Grants, and Studylink Information
  • Gap Year and Student Exchanges
  • Tuatahū – Career Navigator
  • Getting a Job – CVs, Cover Letters, Etc
  • News and Upcoming Events
  • And Much More!

For any questions or further information, please contact Angela Pelham, Pathways Administrator, at pma@whs.school.nz.

Mt Cook School 150th Anniversary