• Chinese calligraphy
  • Westlaker, Jack Salt, wins US college basketball title with University of Virginia.
  • They Are Us Art evolving art installation.
  • Oktoberfest Waiter Race.
  • Working with a smile!
  • Members of Westlake Interact Club after a local community clean-up.
  • Hospice garden clean up group wet but undeterred!
  • Westlake Boys become National 3x3 Basketball Champions.
  • Basketball coaches Mark Jackson and Karl Jorgensen with TV1 reporter Andrew Saville and Sam Mannenga.
  • Korean masks and fans.
  • Big Band – winners of gold at National Jazz Champs.

Celebrating Our Cultural Diversity

Westlake Boys has students from almost 70 different ethnicities and every year, in April, we celebrate our cultural diversity during Culture Week, giving our students the opportunity to share the richness of their culture and cuisine with the whole school. This year’s festivities included performances in assembly and traditional games, music and activities, with delicious food on sale at lunchtime.

Korean day featured a Mask Dance, a fan display, Korean hackey sac and popular games gonggi (similar to knucklebones), and ddakji (played with origami squares).  Chinese and Japanese activities included calligraphy, mah-jong, chess, a chopsticks challenge, paper cutting and – rather less sedate – sumo wrestling and kung fu!  A traditional German Oktoberfest game, the Waiter Race, proved highly entertaining as was the Pasifika coconut grating competition, held to the beat of Pasifika drums.

Culture Week always features an evolving art installation in which everyone can take part.  As an expression of solidarity with those affected by the Christchurch attacks, this year’s installation was a mural of brightly coloured hand-prints, entitled “They Are Us”.  Every student and staff member was encouraged to add his or her hand-print and name to the growing project. 

From foreign language movies to Indian mandalas, French crepes to Indian curries, dances to dominoes, there was something for everyone to see, hear, taste and enjoy.

Westlake Big Band Wins Gold

Westlake Big Band has enjoyed great success for many years at the annual KBB Music Festival music festival in Auckland but 2019 is the first year they have participated in the National Youth Jazz Competition.  On April 5th the band travelled to Tauranga to take part in this prestigious festival and their Director, Ms Hayley Barker, said “We were really keen to see how we would fare, competing at such an early stage of the year.”

After giving a great performance the band was able to enjoy listening to the other big bands and combos.  Legendary jazz trombonist, educator and big band leader, Dr. Rodger Fox, held a workshop after each performance, often giving brutally honest feedback!  Westlake Big Band received a gold award – one of only four schools to achieve this – and learned a great deal, which they hope will enhance their performances as the year progresses.

 

Lending a Helping Hand

As part of our emphasis on Character Education, Westlake Boys encourages all our students to develop an awareness of the needs of others and to volunteer their time, giving back to their local community.  A new group has recently formed at the school to support Harbour Hospice, with 115 students volunteering to help those in hospice care and their families, through pet care, gardening, baking, retail work and fundraising.  

The boys agreed to set to work immediately, with a group of 15 students and three teachers spending a day restoring a once immaculate garden that had become an overgrown jungle due to the owner’s ailment.  Atrocious weather did not quell the group’s spirits and they spent hours of hard graft, chopping and cutting back foliage, pulling weeds and removing general detritus. The work was tiring but very satisfying, and the looks on the faces of the owner and her family at the end of the day were all the reward the volunteers needed. 

Another volunteering initiative is the Westlake Interact Club. Interact is a junior branch of Rotary, giving young people the opportunity to develop leadership skills and serve their local community. Sponsored by Milford Rotary Club, which provides support and guidance, the group is entirely student-run. Rotary’s guidelines are that Interact groups must hold at least two service projects each year – one that helps the school or community and one that promotes international understanding. 

One of Westlake Interact’s annual projects is a community clean-up and this year a group of 38 students gathered at school at 6.45am on a crisp morning in April to clean up the local area.  Using reusable coffee sacks and wearing gardening gloves borrowed from home, small groups fanned out around the community to pick up rubbish. Members worked enthusiastically and industriously, covering a large area in a short period of time.

 

National 3x3 Basketball Champions

Westlake Boys basketballers dominated the courts at the recent National Secondary Schools Championships. Our Premier team took 11 consecutive wins to become New Zealand champions, knocking out last year’s winners, St Kentigern College, in the group stage and beating Rosmini College in the final.  The second team matched this feat, beating Te Kura Kokiri Tane in their final to take the Open Grade title.

Sam Mennenga’s range of talent, his height and his strength were key factors in many of Westlake’s games and a week after the championships he was named in the Junior Tall Blacks squad for the second year running.  He will join friend and Westlake old boy, James Moors, in the team.  Sam was the only boy from New Zealand selected recently to attend the NBA’s ‘Basketball Without Borders Camp’ in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Many players from these camps have gone on to play in the NBA and Sam hopes to follow suit.  

Westlake Boys has a long history of producing great basketball players who have achieved national and international success, including Kirk Penney, Tom Abercrombie and, most recently, Jack Salt.  Jack, who was Sports Captain in 2013, made history on April 9th as the first Kiwi to win a US college basketball championship, when his team, the University of Virginia Cavaliers, beat Texas Tech in a thrilling NCAA final.   

After news broke of Jack Salt’s historic win, TVNZ 1 Sports reporter, Andrew Saville, came to school and interviewed Sam Mennenga and teacher and basketball coach, Mark Jackson, about the sport’s continuing rise in popularity.  Basketball is the fastest growing sport in New Zealand and likely soon to become the most popular secondary school sport in the country. Westlake’s social basketball league has already signed up hundreds of boys for its forthcoming season, run by teacher and coach, Karl Jorgensen.

 

 


Issue 98 May 2019