Buller High School Newsletter

Senior School Closes on Thursday, 31 October: As Term 4 progresses, our senior students (Years 11-14) are counting the days until they leave before the upcoming NCEA exams in November. Many of our leavers are already mapping out their plans for 2025, with concrete steps underway. The remaining days of school are important for these students as they finish their qualifications.

Celebration Of the 2024 Graduating Class: We invite whanau and friends to join us for a special assembly celebrating the 2024 Graduating Class (Years 13-14). The Graduation Assembly will be held in the school hall on Thursday, 31 October. This will be followed by the Senior Prize Giving in the evening, starting at 7 PM at the NBS Theatre.

Please RSVP to the school office by Tuesday, 29 October, if you will be attending the Graduation Assembly. You may contact us at 03 789 7299 or via email at office@buller.ac.nz.

Junior Dance: Our junior students enjoyed the dance held last Friday, 18 October. This is an annual event planned and hosted by our prefects. It was great to see the students in their finery and they danced the night away. Our prefects and some staff also joined them on the dance floor for what was a very successful evening. I want to thank the 2024 prefect team who organised the evening and made sure that they were involved throughout the night.

Attendance: Attendance remains a high priority nationally and for our school. The data for Term 3 indicated that only 38% of our students attended the school ‘at least’ 9 days out of every 10. This of course means that 62% didn’t. Also 18% of our students attended less than 70% over the term. This is considered chronic absence, and the government has announced much stronger measurements and consequences for those students who continually miss school. We have an attendance officer who can support families if needed and we will always endeavour to find a solution if there is an identified reason for the non-attendance. There is clear evidence that student achievement is impacted by a lack of attendance. We as a school will continue to monitor, track and communicate with homes to ensure that our students get the best out of their time at school and in class.

NCEA Level 1: The new revised curriculum at NCEA Level 1 and the assessment that sit alongside these have been continually reviewed this year. We as a staff have been working hard to make the changes necessary for our programmes. The last of the Government allocated Accord Teacher Only Day will be on Friday, 15 November as we incorporate the recent changes announced for 2025. I apologise in advance for any inconvenience this may cause but know that our teachers need this time before school closes.

Now is a great time for senior students to be reviewing NCEA achievement to date and set goals for the remainder of the year. Achievement, however, is not just measured in credits or their quality, it is measured in the learning that has taken place and this is not complete until Thursday, 31 October this year. Some students will also still be working on internal assessments beyond this date as they complete qualifications. Completing the year well is a great platform more success in 2025 and beyond.

Tama tu tama ora, tama noho tama mate

An active person will remain healthy while a lazy one will become sick

The Buller High School Junior Dance, was held on Friday 18 October 2024.

Everyone that attended (staff and students) had a wonderful time.

Thanks to the Prefects for hosting a great event!

14 Year 11 Horticulture students successfully passed their Tree Planting assessment, worth 5 credits at Level 2, during September & October on the Kukuwai Reserve along the Kawatiri Coastal Trail to Carters Beach.

Each student had to plant at least 10 trees and for 3 of the trees they had to explain to the teacher how and why they were doing certain tasks in the process. A win for the students and the environment.

Thanks to all the adult helpers involved!!

Harakeke House we did it! Congratulations on taking the win for 2024!

Big shout out to all the committed students for their hard work and participation in the various House activities, and for receiving those hard earned merit and kupu cards – we wouldn’t have done it without you!

Thanks to our dedicated Harakeke teachers, Christine Ward, Martin Minnaar, Steve Dorey and Ashmita Darshani, for their support and encouragement and our two House leaders Elyse Johnson and Eoin Pratt, for their leadership and guidance throughout the year.

It’s been a privilege to be the Dean of such a great group of students over the past 2 years. I look forward to seeing more of the same in 2025.

Hamish Wohlers

Harakeke House leaders Eoin Pratt and Elyse Johnson accepted the House Shield on behalf of Harakeke Hosue

Pikopiko House leaders Callum Warrin and Keana Anderson accepted with 'Wooden Spoon' on behalf of Pikopiko House.

We’re absolutely thrilled with the participation from our students – you all made this week unforgettable! From beautiful window designs to calming yoga, creative chatterbox making, refreshing ice baths, and even some mindful colouring – we truly had it all

In September our ORS students enjoyed being a part of the special Olympics, representing the West Coast!

by Lyra Barlow-Waters

On the first weekend of the school holidays the Stitch Sisters sewing group travelled to Wellington for the World of Wearable Arts. Over the past year we have be fundraising for this trip through bake sales and truffle sales to attend this event.

On the Saturday we travelled out to Miramar to visit Weta Workshop, where movie props and costumes are made for movies like Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit and Avatar. We went on a tour through how the props and costumes are made and learnt all about the different departments.

On Saturday night we attended the World of Wearable Arts, this is an international design competition that has been running since 1987. Every year there are 6 difference themes for designers: Aotearoa, Avant-garde and open section, this year the additional themes were crazy curiosities of the creature carnival, natural world, and geometric abstraction.

On the Sunday morning, we visited the Wellington chocolate factory where we got to experience the chocolate making process and make three chocolate bars each.

Last term we had the last breakfast club for the year, I would like to say thank you to all the volunteers for all their hard work and effort that they put in over the year. Breakfast club is closed for the remainder of the year, re-opening again next year.

Each Tuesday and Thursday morning 8-10 volunteers shows up at 7:30 to help prepare hot breakfasts, the breakfast club team is made up of prefects, peer support leaders and senior students. Anyone who is keen on being part of the breakfast club team next year please contact Miss Hollis, this is a fantastic opportunity to get volunteer hours for SVA and looks good on your CV when applying for scholarships, further education, and jobs.

I would also like to thank the sponsors and community for their support and donations throughout the year, including KidsCan and kickstart breakfast club for the food donations.

Warmest congratulations and heartfelt thanks to Mrs Marcia Murphy who celebrated 25 years of dedicated service to Buller High School last week!

The Year 13 and 14 leaving celebrations kicked off this week with a 'baby photos' dress up day.

(how amazing do they look)

Thursday was 'future career' dress up - look at all those varied professions! 👷👮🕵🏻‍♂️👩🏻‍🎓

During lunch hour a very contentious sports competition started - Staff vs Leavers, running over 3 days with 3 different sports.

Tuesday saw the staff win Volleyball.

Wednesday the leavers came away with the Netball win by 1 point!

Thursday's Basketball game was a dominant display from the leavers with a 24-11 win.

(check out the photos)

Congratulations to the Year 13 leavers for taking away the overall win!! 🏆

Here are photos of the BHS Disc Golf Team participating in the Secondary School Competition.

While Waimea College took out the big trophy for top school, we had a student win second (Bobby Thompson) and third (Rico Warren) and fourth (John Hill) in the Junior Boys division.

Our students had a great time and represented our school extremely well. If you are interested in finding out more about this very accessible sport, contact Mr Dorey. 😊

Left to Right: Jaxon Jefferies, Kai Hart, James Shierny, John Hill, Bobby Thompson, Aidyn Reid, Rico Warren, Spencer Keoghan, Ollie Johnstone

Coach: Mr Dorey

By Ciara Pugh

On Wednesday 25th of September 3 other students and I were lucky to get the opportunity to polish up our barista skills with Katie from Underground coffee, who supply our coffee club with beans.

We covered basic skills and techniques on running a coffee shot, steaming milk and the display of latte art. We also discussed how the density of the coffee grind can affect the coffee shot and how to correct the setting on the coffee grinder to produce good coffee grain.

I got some helpful tips and tricks to improve my skills and have been practicing them since.

Recently Brooke Allen and Sakura Minato both went to Christchurch to officially receive their Grand Prior award.

This takes numerous years to complete and is the highest award a cadet in St John youth can achieve. After many years of hard work, they both gained this award in June this year through doing community service, learning first aid, and gaining communication and leaderships skills through gaining badges in the St John youth program.

Working towards this award has been a great opportunity to challenge themselves and grow as people and they have gained many skills they can use in the future.

Caanan Johnstone working hard on his outstanding artistic static image poster on Cultural diversity.

Last week a group of 6 Buller High School students got to go explore the outdoors with experienced instructors from Whenua Iti Outdoors, to build confidence and self-esteem while learning new outdoor skills.

The activities in the Rangatahi Explorers program includes caving, rock climbing, stand-up paddleboarding (SUP), kayaking, bush survival skills, and navigation. The students will attend another block course at the end of November.

Participants come away from the program feeling stronger for having overcome a few challenges.