Avondale College welcomed the judges for the Prime Minister's Award for Education Excellence to our school on Thursday. The day began with a pōwhiri, which was also attended by the Hon. Carmel Sepuloni and representatives from the Ministry of Education. Then the two judges, Auckland University's Professor Graeme Aitken and Principal of Tamaki College, Soana Pamaka, and the Ministry of Education's representative Roshyn Lyons spent the day talking with students, staff and Board members in various locations around the school. The day was focused around the College's case study on Pasifika achievement, and concluded with a beautiful farewell sung by our Gospel Choir on the steps of the Atrium. The winners of the awards will be announced at a special dinner in Parliament Buildings on Tuesday 7 September.

The TV series K-Pop Academy 2.0 is back and this time features four Avondale College students! Rachel Kim and Juna Hall, who both also featured in K-Pop Academy Season 1 are joined this season by Jasmine Torora and Caitlin Carpenter and together as Team West, the show follows their journey from auditioning through to learning choreography, singing, rapping and recording in preparing for the grand final at the Pumphouse Theatre! The teams take part in a 7-day boot camp where their dances, songs and raps are fine tuned to be performance ready and they undergo styling to create superstar costumes that match the vibe of each of their songs. They’re taught how to create a K-pop makeup look, get to take part in photo shoot and shoot music videos that will be released on Instagram (@kpop.academy.nz) in sync with the music tracks being released on TikTok, Spotify and iTunes – so watch out for them! K-Pop Academy is funded by NZ On Air and will be released on HeiHei on TVNZ OnDemand in August 2021. Photo credits: K-Pop Academy / HeiHei /NZ on Air

Do you have a student intending on enrolling at Avondale College next year? If you live in our zone, please submit their enrolment form and all the attachments by Thursday 5 August 2021. Enrolment packs can be downloaded from our website: Enrolment | Avondale College (avcol.school.nz) Out of Zone applications close 1 September. This deadline is for all out-of-zone students - even those with siblings already attending Avondale College.

Early in July, our Spanish class had three students, Tia Deb, Villiamu Yandall, and Zara Fraser, participate in the interschool Spanish debating competition, hosted at Rangitoto College. We entered into the open division, which consisted mainly of Year 13’s, with our team having just one Year 12 and two Year 11’s. Despite the difference in age and experience, the Avondale “Arañas” did not back down from the challenge, causing us to work harder and push ourselves beyond our limits. We stayed after school for a couple Mondays prior to the day, and spent a lot of time practicing tenses and grammar, and learning how to debate in Spanish. We went up against Rangitoto College, which was a full team of Year 13’s, but it was a very close round and we only lost by two points! We were able to participate in one more round and then watch the rest of the teams compete in the finals. We’re really grateful to our Spanish teacher - Señora Huerta - for giving us this opportunity to expand our Spanish language skills and participate in something the school has never done before. It was a really awesome experience, and even though we didn’t come away with a win, our team learnt a lot from it and I’m hopeful that we can do even more next year! - Tia Deb and Viliamu Yandall

Avondale College's junior debaters argued their way to the very top of 46 secondary school teams the Auckland Schools' Debating Junior Championships over the weekend! The team of Year 10 students (Jamie Pett, Lubaina Bohra, Mannat Kaur, and Jalana Jayawardena in Year 9) qualified for the finals after coming 7th out of 46 teams in the first day of competition, before going on to beat Mt Roskill and ACG on the second day to make it through to the final of the Junior Champs! The final debate was against another ACG team, with the moot: This House would legalise tagging/graffiti. Avondale successfully negated the argument to win the competition! When the final marks were tallied, Mannat also placed 2nd-equal for the Best Speaker of the tournament, and Jamie won 5th-equal Best Speaker. Congratulations to the team!

Having been selected as one of just four national finalists in the 'Excellence in Engaging' category for the Prime Minister's Award for Education Excellence, a film crew arrived on site on Monday to capture footage that will be used to create a five minute documentary about Avondale College's award submission. Avondale College's case study focused on the achievement of our Pasifika students over the past ten years, which has seen year-level achievement rates increase from 51% in 2011, to 90% in 2020. The film crew interviewed key students, staff and Board of Trustees members, and captured footage of our award-winning Samoan Group performing, as well as filming some classrooms in action, and our Aspiring Pasifika Leaders Group. A 30-second edited clip will shown at the awards dinner which is to be held at Parliament Buildings in Wellington on 7 September, and the five minute full story will later be published to the Prime Minister's Awards website.

We will be cheering on our former student Kanah Andrews-Nahu as she takes on the world's best weightlifters at the Olympic Games on Monday at 2:50pm! Go Kanah!!!! #AvcolAlumni #weightliftingnz #earnthefern #Tokyo2020 #thenzteam #weightliftingnz#earnthefern#Tokyo2020#thenzteam

Students and parents/caregivers - come along to our Pathways Planning event and find out more about subject choices for next year, or career options ahead. Talk to subject Directors, tertiary provers, training institute representatives, employment experts and more! This will be an informative and valuable event. Wed 28 July 3:30pm-6:30pm Avondale College PAC

The Board of Trustees advises that we will have a number of vacancies for out-of-zone students to start in Term 1, 2022. The Board operates an enrolment scheme; therefore it is required to fill any vacant out-of-zone places by ballot. The Board has determined that in 2022 there may be up to the following number of places for out-of-zone students: Up to 300 Year 9 places 10 Year 10 places 30 Year 11 places 10 Year 12 places 10 Year 13 places Applications for places at any level must be received by 4pm on 1 September to be eligible for the ballots, which will be held, if required, on 8 September. Parents will be notified of the outcome within three days of the ballots. For more information, email: enrol@avcol.school.nz

A bunch of Avcol's junior rugby players will be quite literally stepping into the shoes of their hometown rugby heroes, thanks to the generous donation of a huge box of second-hand rugby boots from the Auckland Blues this week! Avondale College's Director of Sport Mrs Judy Revell made contact with the Blues after becoming aware that an upgrade in footwear would be a boost for a number of our students, and happily, the Blues were delighted to assist! "The boots are in a range of sizes - from 10.5 to 18 (!) - and were complete with boot bags. It was a wonderful example of community aroha from our Blues Family," she said. Mrs Revell says she is looking forward to seeing the boots distributed to our talented up-and-coming junior players this week. The College would like to thank the Auckland Blues for their atawhai towards our students.

Our Director of Learning Support, Mr Grant Burden, is retiring at the end of Term 2. Mr Burden has been a teacher for around 46 years, and he has worked at Avondale College for 28 of those years. Over that time Mr Burden has made a significant difference to the learning, achievements and life opportunities for hundreds of our students. He has been committed not only to the success of students whilst at school, but also to their lives beyond school, through supporting students in getting certifications, NCEA qualifications, setting up work experience placements, and building relationships with providers such as Unitec for courses. Mr Burden has also been committed to our football programme and has taken many students to camp at Taurewa. The students and staff who have worked closely with Mr Burden, know that he lives by our HEART values, in particular Atawhai. We wish him all the very best for his retirement.

Meet New Zealand's top three Microsoft secondary school champions! Vivek Doddi in Year 11, Zara Colaco in Year 12 and Te Ruia Seymour in Year 10 have gained the top three spots in the national Microsoft Office Specialist Championships after sitting online tests that challenged their knowledge and use of Microsoft applications. The nationwide competition attracts students from all round the country, and once again, Avondale College students showed their proficiency in the specialist IT exam, gaining top results for the eighth year running! Vivek came first overall, Zara in second place and Te Ruia in third, after gaining points for correctly answering the most questions answers in the time allowed. All three gain cash prizes for coming first in their individual applications, and as the overall national champion, Vivek also won a prize of $500. The students had prepared for the championship by doing training and practice tests in the Innovation Academy sessions which run before school each day. Their achievements are significant, says Jonathan Jansen, Managing Director of NZIQ who hosts the New Zealand championship. "The average Microsoft Office user can perform on average of about one advanced task every four minuteso become Microsoft Office Certified you need to be able to double that efficiency to one task every two minutes, Our top performers this year were competing at a speed of about one advanced task every 15 seconds, completing hundreds of business-focused tasks across 45 minutes. To put it in perspective, that's around 16 times the speed of the average user. It's a level of mastery you only see at a world-class level."