Arts

Drama

Senior Drama has a circus of a time. Students were having a blast learning some basic circus skills thanks to the amazing Jenny, who came in to run a workshop.

Year 11 students during an incredible Shakespaere workshop

Our Year 11 students were lucky enough to have the opportunity to have Creatives in Schools helping them with their devising unit this year. We worked closely with Marian from the Free Theatre to create shadow and Punch and Judy style puppets. This was based on telling stories of the land and past of our school. Students were extremely engaged in this unit and produced some great storylines and performances.

Revenge Of The Amazons

Senior students on stage showing their stuff during the production of Revenge of the Amazons in Term 2. Students worked incredibly hard on this show and turned out fantastic performances, overcoming grief and change. They should all be proud of themselves.

Art

The Art Department has had a very exciting year with a new art teacher joining the team, Miss Nightingale, and seeing an exponential growth of students in both junior Visual Art and Senior Painting and Photography. We are very proud of all our ākonga and everything they have accomplished this year.

Tāhuhu

Each Year 7 and 8 class had Art for a term. They were introduced to the basics of drawing and painting through practising their practical knowledge of tone and painting techniques like colour theory and the colour wheel. They have shown tūrangawaewae and rangatiratanga in the art room by demonstrating belonging and self-management. They then created a final artwork looking at New Zealand artist model Ruben Patterson and how he uses traditional kōwhaiwhai patterns and combines the traditional with contemporary bright colours and glitter!

Junior Art

Our junior ākonga developed their practical knowledge in a range of media from drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking. Developing their ideas by learning to use artist models, their conventions and using their own critical thinking to weave their ideas and themes together. They have shown manaakitanga and whanaungatanga by looking at themes of identity and culture, working collaboratively in groups, and discussing their ideas and themes together. As a final work, students have either created a portrait painting of themselves, a scratch sculpture or completed a woodblock print.

Junior Art Show

At the end of term 2, the juniors had their annual end-of-option junior exhibition at the Linwood Library at Eastgate where they exhibited their drawings, portraiture paintings and books they made. This exhibition was a time to celebrate all our ākonga’s hard mahi throughout the two terms, and a chance to showcase our art to the community.

A second exhibition of the year was held on Thursday 5 December.

Senior Art

This year senior art was humming with work and productivity with our growing numbers in Visual Art, Painting and Photography. Senior Visual Art is a year-long subject that relies on continuity and consistency over a long period of time with each year level producing a portfolio worth of work for their external assessment. Year 11s do visual art where over the year they get to do a range of different art disciplines like drawing, painting and photography. Once they come to Year 12 and 13 they can specialise in either painting or photography.

Over the year our ākonga worked extremely hard to accomplish their portfolios. Well done to all ākonga for taking advantage of all the extra time during class, interval, lunchtime and many many after school hours and even coming to the art room in the school holidays. They have shown resilience, perseverance, determination and have demonstrated all of our nga uara: manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, rangatiratanga and tūrangawaewae.

We are proud to have

Level 1 Visual Art: 14 portfolio submissions

Level 2 Painting: 18 submissions

Level 3 Painting: 5 submissions

Level 2 Photography: 10 submissions

Level 3 Photography: 4 submissions

Senior NZQA Exhibition: Eastside Gallery

In August, we had seniors take part in the "Inner City to East School Seniors 2024" art exhibition. This exhibition involved NCEA students from seven local schools from the inner city to the east of Christchurch presenting recent works, most of which will go into NCEA portfolios. This is an incredible opportunity for up-and-coming artists to display their art and be part of the wider art community.

Mural Project

Te Pou Toetoe pool was built to replace the Woolston Park Pool, and to provide access to a local pool for the local Linwood community. The Woolston Community Board have funded the project, and they requested that similar imagery be incorporated into the new mural. There was a notice put out earlier this year calling for students who might be interested in working on this project. Ssix students turned up with great enthusiasm to the first meeting and a site visit was planned. Verna Nery, Isabel Marshall-Ma, Jesse Inoc, Ellie Skala, Eve Chapman and Annabella Carey made up the team of students ready to work on the project along with artist Nick Lowry. The mural is now complete and can be seen outside Te Pou Toetoe as you enter. Check it out next time you are there!

Music

Autumn Vibes - Music Extravaganza

In April we had the privilege to hear the cool music sounds through our first school music event - 'Autumn Vibes'. A huge mihi to Mr Cameron Love for his commitment and support for bringing this event to life. Well done to all the musicians who took part and also to the parents, family and friends who attended this evening.