The cold weather proved no obstacle to our intrepid 11OED adventurers, who had a great experience rafting on an artificial river at the Wero Whitewater Park last week. Students had fun whilst finishing off their final NCEA Outdoor Education assessment for the year.

Just one year ago, Grace Nweke was wearing the Avondale College black dress on the netball court. Next month, she will put on another black dress - this time with a silver fern on the front! The 18-year-old has been selected for our national team to play in the Cadbury Netball series next week. It is the latest highlight in Grace's meteoric rise through the netball ranks in recent months, with her performances in the goal of Auckland's Northern Mystics earning her much well-deserved recognition, despite her age. There was a lot of media coverage of her achievement this week, and if you missed the announcement, you can Read the Stuff.co.nz article here or listen to RNZ's interview here: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018769146/rise-of-teenage-netball-shooting-star-grace-nweke-continues Grace is the second Avondale College alumna to become a Silver Fern; she follows in the footsteps of Grace Kara (nee Rasmussen), sister of Avondale College's netball coach, Rachel Rasmussen, who was selected for the Silver Ferns in 2010 and who still plays at national franchise level today.

Congratulations to all students who were recognised at the Honours Awards Assembly on Monday! Click here to view list of student and awards.

Celebrated annually around the globe, Pink Shirt Day began in Canada in 2007 when two students took a stand against homophobic bullying, after a peer was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. In Aotearoa, Pink Shirt Day works to create schools, workplaces, communities and whānau where everyone feels safe, valued and respected. Avondale College joined the international celebrations on Friday 16 October, with a mufti day which raised funds for the Mental Health Foundation. Thanks to all who took part!

Avondale College's annual Dance Showcase is one of the highlights of our Performing Arts calendar - and given the unfortunate constraints on performance opportunities this year we are especially delighted to invite our school community to come and see our talented students in action next week! Titled 'Encore', the showcase runs over two nights, with Wednesday night featuring student choreography and pieces prepared by our Scholarship students. On Thursday the performance will feature co-curricular groups and a guest performance by the Saintz Dance Academy. The Dance Showcase evenings commence at 6pm, and entry is by a gold coin donation. Don't miss it!

A Mental Health Awareness Expo provided engaging activities and much food for thought for students at lunchtime on Thursday 15 October. The event was organised by a team of student leaders, led by Deputy Head Prefect, Emily O'Callaghan. “Aotearoa is currently navigating its way through a mental health epidemic and teenagers are some of the most at risk. Having loved ones and friends who have had struggles with their mental health, often alone, I felt that a promotion was needed that provided students with tools to nurture their mental health and well-being. A lot of people asked me why I would put myself under (ironically) quite a bit of stress in order to plan and run such a large scale promotion. Really, I wanted to let people know that they are not alone and to provide avenues for mental health support. The week did not go as originally planned, being cancelled due to rain and delayed because of both COVID-19 lockdowns. However, I felt the message was too important not to deliver to students. This promotion was a huge undertaking, and the first Mental Health Week the school has ever had. But I feel that all the time spent creating resources, proposing ideas and organisation will be worth it even if it only means that one person gains access to a helpline that they didn’t know existed or if they book an appointment with the guidance counsellor. I believe that connecting people with that help is what has made this a truly invaluable experience.” - Emily O'Callaghan, Deputy Head Girl

Congratulations to Myah Eketone, in Year 12, who has been elected by the student body to the Avondale College Board of Trustees. "Kia ora everyone! My name is Myah Eketone. I am a Year 12 Māori Cambridge student, and it is my absolute honour to be your next BOT Student Representative. After four years in Avondale College I’ve been all around the school. Sports, music, speech competitions, computer science and even chess for a while. In a school full of opportunities and rich in culture, as your Student Representative, I will be dedicated to making sure every group, commitment, department and club is heard in this school, as well as pushing for change that will benefit the student body as a whole. He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata."

Two Avondale College Olympic Weightlifters have won medals at the NZSS competition during the holidays! The all-girl team of Issys Tobia-Pita and Sophia Howsam won gold and silver to take out the overall third place in New Zealand for female teams at the national competition! Issys Tobia-Pita, in her first national competition, came first in the U15 76kg class. Sophia Howsam, in her third nationals, came second in the U55kg over 15 competition. This was an impressive effort from both girls! Olympic Weightlifting is now in its fourth year as a sport at Avondale College - and TIC Ms Nahi is keen to welcome any new students interested in the sport to the team for next year. We’d like to acknowledge the Find Your Field of Dreams trust for making it possible for our students to participate in Olympic Weightlifting.

During the holidays, Avondale College's four female head prefects had the opportunity to attend the Dreaming Big Year 13 event organised by On Being Bold, an online collective created to support women in business. The students heard from a number of successful women from different business sectors who presented sessions on entrepreneurship, getting an interview, and leading a diverse team. Key speakers included the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and Dame Therese Walsh. "Dreaming Big was an incredible experience which has definitely changed my outlook on life outside of school and reminded me that the best thing to do when given an opportunity is take it! It was a privilege to hear from the Prime Minister as well as all the other incredibly influential speakers. This day is one which I am immensely grateful for and will truly never forget." -        Olivia Mallon "The Dreaming Big event was an eye-opening experience, and it was a privilege to hear from women across many successful careers. I felt I really took away the impression that there are many paths to success and that the next step in your life or career does not have to define your end goal." -        Sophie Francis "It was interesting to learn about the challenges and nuances of being a woman in a leadership role, especially holding executive positions such as CEO of ANZ or Prime Minister of New Zealand!" -        Emily O’Callaghan "It was really inspiring to see a group of such amazing women who have accomplished so much. It opened myself up to what I can achieve on a global scale and most importantly, that I am capable of so much more than I realise and that self-belief is the most important thing." -        Fiona Wang

Entrance tests for students enrolled for next year will take place on the following dates: Avondale Intermediate students - completed BBI students – at BBI 9am Tuesday 22 Sep GEIS students – at Avondale College 9am-11am Tuesday 13 Oct Rangeview Intermediate students – at Rangeview 9am Friday 16 October Other Intermediate schools – at Avondale College 9am-11am Thursday 15 Oct Bring a blue or black pen.

Term 3 is usually a busy time for sport at Avondale College; however, 2020 has provided us with a fair amount of uncertainty and many challenges along the way due to COVID-19 lockdowns and the restrictions that followed. In the end, all the sports codes for our winter season were abandoned or cancelled with no winners or losers, or promotion or relegation games. Winter Tournament Week was also cancelled this year. Despite this, there were still a number of highlights of the winter season, including Badminton Champs, Netball Combined Tournament, Squash Champs and Lawn Bowls Champs. As we move into Term 4, we have been able to hold trials for the summer sports. Cricket, waterpolo, volleyball and rugby 7’s will be in full swing next term and we wish the very best of luck to all of our athletes competing. Be committed, train hard, play fair, and the results will go your way. Badminton At the Auckland Badminton Secondary Schools Championships our Senior Girls Doubles, Lina Imai and Alyssa Chis, won Silver medals. Our Junior Singles player, Yee Xuan Ng, won a Silver medal. The Premier Boys team competed in the Auckland A Grade, which was very competitive, placing 9th overall. The Girls Premier team competed in the Auckland Reserve A Grade competition and placed 6th. The Mixed A team competed in the Auckland Secondary Schools Western Zone competition and placed 2nd; the Mixed B team also competed in the Auckland Secondary Schools Western Zone competition and placed 5th. Well done to our badminton players. Basketball The Senior A Boys were placed 6th on the points table but were looking forward to producing a stronger second half of the season on the court as they certainly did train with passion and commitment. Our Senior A Girls were placed at the top of the table with 12 points, and both teams were in the Premier Senior A Grades. The U19 Boys placed 6th out of 8 in the Central West AKSS Grade. The U17A Boys placed 2nd out of 7 in the Boys Open B Grade. Junior A Boys placed 4th out of 9 and the Junior A girls placed 3rd out of 6. Both teams played in the Junior A Western Zone. All of our teams did very well considering the circumstances. Football Our 1st XI Girls team played in the Senior A Grade competition this year, sitting 5th out of 7 on the points table. Our 1st XI Boys team with their new coaches, Old Boys Jack Smith and Daniel Semp, played in the Senior A1 competition this year and were off to a strong start. When the season was cancelled they were sitting in 6th place. The 2nd XI Girls team played in the Waitakere Senior B Grade this year and had a great season. They were sitting top of the table with a total of 13 points! Well done, girls! Our 2nd XI Boys team placed 4th out of 11 in the Senior B West Grade. The Junior A Boys team placed 1st on the table for the 14 A2 Grade. Well done, boys! Our Junior B Boys team placed 6th out of 11 on the table for the 14B Central Grade. The Junior C Boys team placed 9th in the 13 B North West Grade. Well done to all of our football teams, your dedication, spirit and hard work paid off. Hockey The 1st XI Boys had a good season, qualifying for the Super City A1 Competition and were sitting in 8th position overall when the season stopped. Our 1st XI Girls had a challenging season competing in the Open A/B competition, where they were placed at 15th overall. Our 2nd XI Boys competed in the C Grade 9 aside and placed 3rd out of 8 and our Junior U15 Girls competed in the U15B Grade, placing 9th overall. Well done to all of our hockey teams. Lacrosse It was a tough season for our lacrosse teams this year. Marina Samountry, an old girl who played for Avondale College, came back once again to coach our girls' teams. Both our Girls A and B teams competed in the Division 2 Grade. We are looking forward to a full season in 2021 to keep on growing and developing this exciting and very tactical game at the College. Lawn Bowls Ryan Banks and Nihar Trivedi Represented Auckland for Indoor Bowls Championships. Netball It was an outstanding year for netball at Avondale College this year. We had 12 teams across all year levels competing in the Netball Waitakere Secondary School grade competitions. Our Premier 1 Netball team have performed extremely well this year. Competing in the Waitakere Senior Premier 1 competition, they were top of the table in the Championship round but lost to Saint Dominic’s College just before the second lockdown. The Premier 2 Netball team competed in the Waitakere Senior Premier 2 competition and were unbeaten in all games played. The Senior A Black Netball team competed in the Waitakere Senior Premier 2 competition and were also unbeaten. They also were promoted to the Premier 2 Grade, which was a wonderful achievement. Final placings for our other senior and junior netball teams are still being finalised. Well done to all of our netball teams. Rugby After being placed into the Auckland 1B competition for 2020, the 1st XV had an interesting season. The boys played Mangere College for their promotion/relegation game and won 19-14. It was a tough game and the boys played well. Overall they only were able to play five games and were sitting in 12th place when the season stopped with still half the teams to play! The season was therefore abandoned with no official placings or results given. The 2nd XV boys competed in the Auckland 2C Grade and finished 7th out of 17 overall. Our restricted under 60kg team competed in the Auckland 6th Grade and placed 11th. Our under 15’s, coming into this year with many new faces, competed in the Auckland U15B Grade and placed 11th out of 21 teams. The Girls 1st X’s played in the Auckland Secondary Schools 10’s competition. They are currently placed 4th out of 12 teams. They played very well this season against some fierce competition. Rugby League The Rugby League Boys team competed in the Senior A Boys Grade and were sitting top of the table with a total of 9 points for the season. Well done to all the boys in the team for placing 1st on the points table. Squash Our Premier Boys were placed 7th in the Premier Boys competition, and also competed in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships in Tauranga where they placed 19th. The Boys B team placed 6th in their grade, which was the Open B Boys competition. The Girls A team competed in the Girls A Open and placed 5th out of 8 teams. The Junior Boys competed in the Open B Boys North West competition and placed 2nd out of 8 teams. This is a wonderful achievement. Well done to all of our squash teams. Table Tennis Avondale College has had over 20 students competing on Friday nights in Term 3 in the Waitemata Table Tennis competition. With the Level 3 Lockdown taking over Term 3 sports, the table tennis teams sadly were only able to play two games for their Term 3 season. Swimming We had two swimmers participate in the Auckland Secondary Schools Swimming Individuals Championships held in Auckland. These were Olivia Stairmand and Jacob Laurence. Jacob placed in the (boys 14-15 years) events as follows: 2nd in the 200m Freestyle, 3rd in the 200m Backstroke, 4th in the 100m Backstroke and 6th in the 100m Individual Medley. Olivia Stairmand placed in the (girls’ 14-15years) events as follows: 6th in the 400m Freestyle, 9th in the 200m Breaststroke, 13th in the 100m Breaststroke and 13th in the 200m Freestyle. Well done to our swimmers. Weightlifting We would like to wish the following students with good luck as they compete in the New Zealand Secondary Schools weightlifting competition on Sunday 27th September 2020. Attending are: Issys Tobia-Pita, Sophia Howsam and Sian Hancy. Best of luck for the competition. In conclusion Overall, it has been a hugely disrupted winter sports season as a result of COVID with some teams only playing between one and five games of their season. However the teams have put a lot of hard work, team work and enjoyed participating in winter sport this year despite the challenged that were faced. This shows students, coaches, staff and other helpers that their determination and Heart was considerably strong. There also were some wonderful individual achievements within sport as well as team success: Netball, Squash and Badminton Tournaments and Champs were luckily enough to take place during this season’s challenges, providing the teams and school with some medals and awards. We would like to thank all staff and helpers who have enabled Avondale College's sporting programme to run this year, and also wish the very best of luck to all students competing in summer codes for Term 4 2020. - Ms D Dorrington, Director of Sport

Avcol will be cheering on Year 12 student Leo Spykerman on Thursday night as his band Ragaire takes part in the Smokefree Rockquest final for 2020! It's a fantastic achievement for the group to have made it through to the top eleven bands in New Zealand and we wish them all the best as they enter the final round! This year the finals are being streamed live: check it out at 7pm Thursday 24 September: SmokefreeRockquest