Let's Dance!

Its that time of year - getting ready for the Year 8 leavers Dinner - all students learn the dances. The teachers were amazed at the way the team got stuck in and learnt the first dance last week.

One Heart Day Fundraising Success!

Last Friday some students from Team Awesome held a bake sale, sausage sizzle and a teacher vs student dodgeball match to raise money for Aberdare Ranges Primary School in Kenya. There were many students involved, including the awareness raising group who promoted the event during school assembly the week before. Other students exchanged videos with the kids to learn about the similarities and differences between one another.

It was a hectic lunchtime with lots of Raroa students turning out to support the cause. We raised over $800 for the school which was an amazing effort! Every $5 raised is enough to provide 2 meals a day for a month for one student at the school!!

Term 4 - Lets be engineers!

Welcome back to Term 4. This term our team are becoming engineers. We started by answering questions like: what does an engineer do? What types of engineers are there? What skills does an engineer need to have?

We discovered that there are heaps of different kinds of engineer and that they design, create explore, and innovate.


On Tuesday we had our immersion day in the learning street. We experienced a variety of different topics related to engineering. Here are some pictures of the day.


Learning about the importance of sustainable engineering and making model windmills.

Visiting Author - Andy Griffiths

Raroa was very fortunate to have author Andy Griffiths come and visit us this afternoon. He talked to us about his tree-house books and how he comes up with his wacky ideas. Some of us were even lucky enough to get books signed!

Inquiry Time

It's crazy to think that we are only 2 weeks away from end of term, because things are still pumping in Team Awesome. We are launching into the production phase of our inquiry, which has students asking questions and looking for solutions to "the biggest problems facing young people today".

We've had some expert advise from our school counsellor, Viv, who gave us some of the information and statistics of issues like depression, anxiety and sleeping disorders amongst teens. 

In small groups, students have been developing questions to dig a little deeper into things like Self-Talk, Poverty and Social Media. Our goal is to go past the symptoms and aim to treat the problem itself. 

One of our groups have linked in with the "So They Can" Foundation, to celebrate One Heart Day. Our students are connecting with a partner school in Kenya and are finding ways to teach each other. Through this students are exploring the ideas of inequality and the things that we universally value. 

"Whilst dreams are spread equally across the globe, Opportunities are not" 

You can find out more by watching the launch video below or sponsoring us on our givealittle page. 

Team Awesome Maths

Our Maths Projects in Term 3 have seen our students looking into national statistics, financial literacy and building projects like the Block Raroa.

In Mr Johnston's Maths, we have been working with real statistic information that we sourced from previous Censuses and our own Team-wide Google Form. You can see the results of our findings by clicking here.

Ms Morris & Ms Hart's group have been brushing up on their problem solving skills and using the most effective strategies for solving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems.



Our latest project is designing a one bedroom house for our very own "The Block Raroa" challenge! Students are working in teams of two to outfit a room with furniture and appliances, as we as create a blueprint for what their room will look like, all whilst staying within budget!

Year 6 visits

On Tuesday, we had students from Cashmere Ave and Khandallah come and spend the morning in our block and also spend some time in the Learning Street too. In our block, students took part in three different workshops- literacy, maths number wheels and an idea generation activity. The teachers of Team Awesome were all really proud of the way in which our Year 7 and 8 students showed maturity, initiative and were extremely welcoming to the Year 6 students. We had a great day!

Week 6- Why am I?

In Team Awesome, we are continuing on with our "Why am I?" Inquiry. On Monday we took a deeper look into some of the problems which kiwi kids our age may face. The problems that we have identified as a team are: inequality, friendships/relationships, physical and mental health, and use of technology/social media.

Throughout the day, we went through four different workshops, each one focused on a different problem. The aim of the inquiry is that we will all design a product, programme or toolkit to support someone dealing with one of these problems. We want to help other young people, as well as ourselves.

We have now chosen a problem to look deeper into and we will be starting to design our end products over the coming weeks.

Watch this space for our end results!

Great excitement today - Team Awesome get to work in the upgraded DPE spaces

Most of the Team Awesome students got their first opportunity today to work in the upgraded DPE rooms this morning.

Testing to see if we can run the school lighting on lemons?

Morning tea time signalled that the kitchen is up and running as some of the students had peach turnovers they had made to eat. They smelt inviting though no one was prepared to share!

More room to dance!

Art and Construction

The Block Assembly today

Team Awesome students did an awesome job today at their 'The Block' themed assembly.

It began with Onslow College's band Retrospect playing - they are ex Raroa students and are looking to qualify by public vote for the national finals of Smokefree Rockquest (text Retrospect to 8466)

Next came The Block style building challenges - round 1 was teachers representing their houses - our own Mr Johnston was a super builder - scoring the gold medal. Mrs Collins came in a close second for silver!

I was so excited for Mr Johnston that I blurred the only picture!

The second building challenge involved a student from each house.

Assembly also featured the singing of the National Anthem, recognition of the 100 plus students who went to Sportsfest and the students involved in Mathswell, NIWA Science Fair and Tournament of the Minds which are all coming up in the next few weeks.
Congratulations to the assembly organising group - you did a fantastic job of representing Team Awesome today.

Gymnastics!

Students in team awesome have been enjoying our gymnastics sessions. It has  been great to see students develop their ability to land in a controlled way, develop floor skills, build strength and develop confidence!