Mandarin Speeches

On Thursday the fifth of August nine students from Totara House Tauranga Intermediate School participated in the Bay of Plenty Inter-schools Mandarin Speech competition. The speech competition was sponsored by the Chinese Friends Association and was held at the Rotorua Boys College. They were privileged to be judged by three teachers from a school in Shanghai. Students from the school in Shanghai also attended.

Each school was accompanied by their Mandarin teacher who was recognized for their contributions to the learning of Mandarin in the Bay Of Plenty area before the competition began. The competitors were split into 5 categories; Primary, Intermediate, Junior Native, Senior Native and Seniors. The Intermediate section was the second to last to speak. There was sixty students entered in the section. It was done in alphabetical order and when each competitors’ name was called they went to the front of the Auditorium and began their speech.

The Tauranga Intermediate School students have been working incredibly hard with their teacher, Yu Ching Hsu during class time for the past two weeks. They worked very hard and the results showed that. Aine Blackman from room 19 got first and Ellie Goff from room 20 got second. All the students were very pleased with how they spoke.

By: Hannah Park, Ellie Goff and Áine Blackman

Hannah Park, Madison Gartner, Bronte, Cronsberry, Elijah Taula, Tyla Gartner, Ellie Goff, Harrison Dunn, Anna O’Loughlin, A’ine Blackman
Teacher Yu Ching Hsu

Tauranga West Tai Mitchell
Congratulations to the winners of this years annual Tai Mitchell tournament held in Murupara.
Tauranga West were the only undefeated team at the conclusion of pool play qualifying in 1st place with 25 points after receiving four points for victory and a bonus point from every game. Their results from pool play were as follows: Friday 2nd of July Day 1: Won 26-14 v Whakatane, Won 27 - Nil v Rotorua Maroon Day 2, Won 82- Nil v Rotorua Gold & 51- Nil v Rangitaiki Day 3, Won 20 - 5 V Te Puke Day 4, Won 13- 8 V Galatea Day 5 semi finals and finally 13-8 V Tauranga East Final Wed 7 July. The final was a tightly contested game with West winning 13-8 after going to the half-time break leading 3 - 0 courtesy of a penalty kicked by number 10 Tyler Bidios. West then scored early in the 2nd half again through number 10 Tyler Bidios. Tauranga East fought back and scored through a well-executed move from a scrum and converted their try to make the score 8 - 7. Number 20 Jayde Malcolm-Heke then ran blindside from a scrum to score the final points of the game. Tauranga East once again fought hard crossing the line in the dying stages only for the referee to rule the ball lost forward and blow full-time. Tauranga West's' Number 8 Curtis Epapara was awarded player of the Tournament and was presented with his award by All Black and Bay of Plenty Steamers First Five Mike Delaney. In other results Te Puke defeated Galatea for third place. This is Tauranga West's' third consecutive victory,this year and 5th win from the last six years with victories in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 & 2010. The team were undefeated during all pre-tournament and tournament games, the team received 8 nominations from the Bay of Plenty Roller Mills selectors.

The team is made up of 16 students from Tauranga Intermediate, 4 from Aquinas College, 1 from Te Puna Primary and 1 from Oropi Primary. This years team was coached by Blake Carlin, Reuben Potaka and Daniel Fifita.

WAIMARINO KAYAK CHALLENGE _ WINNERS
On Friday 7 May I was part of a team of 8 Tauranga Intermediate students who competed in kayaking events at Waimarino against several other Intermediates. Ariana Moffatt Rm 19, Courtney Williams Rm 42, Anna O'Loughlin Rm 19, Payton Sylvester Rm 19, Luke Robinson Rm 19, Daniel Munro Rm 42 and Fergus Kirk Rm 7 and the reserve was Olivia Thomas Rm 41. Each of us had to do 4 different events – the long distance race, sprint race, slalom and rescue. It was an awesome day, especially when we took out the top school again. Ariana Moffat won the girls
long distance race and Daniel Munro won the boys long distance, and slalom races. We also won the girls and boys rescue event. Daniel won the golden paddle. It was a great experience and heaps of fun.
Courtney Williams
Rm 42

City of Tauranga Marching Team NZ Champions

On the 21st of March 2010, 12 girls from the City of Tauranga Marching Team did the Bay of Plenty proud at the New Zealand Marching championship. The previous day these girls performed their Display (dance routine) in the Plate division winning 1st place. But what they really wanted was a top three placing in the following days Technical march in the Championship division.

On championship day the team had the misfortune of marching first, which is always difficult because the judges are not warmed up and are very hard on the first team out. We knew we would have to be our absolute best to achieve our goal. With pounding hearts but total focus, blocking out the 1500 screaming spectators, we marched. When we got a standing applause we knew that we had done our best march ever.

Not only did we achieve a top three placing we were named NZ Technical Champions. It was the best feeling ever and after all our hard work we had reached the top. The Tauranga Intermediate girls are:
Keeley Grantham, Erika Phillips, Katra-leigh Schwass, Sheridan Walsh, Linda Taepa, Amy Gray and Amber Holdem.

By Keeley Grantham - Rm 4