School News

The 17th to the 19th of August heralded the start of our squash Nationals campaign over in Tauranga, using the brand new Susan Devoy Squash and Fitness Centre and several other venues. Taking a relatively young squad of six players gave us an opportunity to help build the experience levels of the team for future years, but also meant that we struggled to improve upon our initial seeding.

The team ended up placing 16th overall in the country and there were some very evenly placed teams in the top ten and within the next ten teams also. Ben Calvert from Year 13 went through undefeated in the number 1 spot, played some outstanding matches and ended up beating the number one-ranked schoolboy in the country, going through the tournament.

For the past four weeks around 20 HBHS staff members have learning the fundamentals of conversation in Maori.   The two hour sessions run at school on Wednesday nights as part of a course offered by the PD committee.  They are facilitated by a tutor from Te Ataarangi.

We have created our own whakawhanaunatanga and mihimihi and are learning colours, numbers and basic sentence structure. A highlight so far has been the sense of camaraderie and support of the group.  It is wonderful to be able to learn about someone’s background by hearing them say their whakapapa. These sessions are also a good opportunity for us to be students again, and to realise just what it takes to learn a new language or concept. It is my personal goal to be able to converse in Te Reo Maori.  I am looking forward to our continued lessons.

Daniel Peters

The ancient Roman amphitheatre  in Plovdiv, Bulgaria was the scene of another kiwi victory this weekend. Two New Zealanders have proudly taken the stage to receive bronze medals at the world’s  foremost and most prestigious programming contest for high school students. Jamie Mc Closkey from Akaroa and Boris Pfahringer from HBHS are thrilled with their success in the  2009 International Olympiad in Informatics.

“To be one of the medal winners is fantastic.” said Pfahringer who is a Year 13 student at our school.  The competition took place over two five-hour days and the students were given four programming problems each day. “We had to find and implement efficient algorithms to solve the problems, with run-time and memory limitations on the resulting program. The contest was very difficult and it was a nerve-wracking wait for the medal ceremony.” We congratulate Boris on his success in this highly competitive field.

Something completely unique is landing in Hamilton this year for the annual Hamilton Fringe Festival. ‘Paradox,’ to be performed on the 25^th and 26^th of September is a show which sees psychological illusionist (and HBHS student) Hamish Annan combine magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship to perform mind-bending feats of mentalism. Through the use of subtle physical and psychological signs he can manipulate your decision-making process and control human behaviour. The audience is invited to suspend disbelief and enter a paradox, where the only way to see the impossible, is to believe it’s possible.

 Paradox “is set to be a breathtaking piece of theatre, where miracles are made,” says show co-writer Tim Snedden. After a recent performance at Agora Cafe, Director of Agora Community Trust and Event Centre, Campbell Forlong commented that the audience “found themselves totally sucked into thinking they had [the act] all worked out. His end twist caught us all out and left us wanting the show to go on.” The show has also had support on Twitter from former One News correspondent Tim Wilson, Close Up’s Matty McLean and Irish mentalist Keith Barry.

Ex-student Vazin Shareef has been selected for inclusion in the NZQA Top Art Exhibition , for his 2012 exam folio in painting.

His work can be viewed at

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=436848219730483&set=a.433703093378329.1073741831.433677073380931&type=1&theater

This is the second time that HBHS has been chosen as a national exemplar of good practice, with ex student Mark Parton featuring in 2002.

Adam Gage-Brown has been selected for the New Zealand Junior Davis Cup team competing in Malaysia, in April. The team will participate in Asia/Oceania Final Qualifying rounds in Kuching in Malaysia between the 16th and 25th of April,
and will be coached / captained by Alistair Hunt.

The International Team Competition for players aged 16 & Under was launched by the ITF in 1985 as the "World Youth Cup" with NEC as the title sponsor between 1988 and 2001.