Ōtaki College News » November 2014

3509

R_college_rightR_College-top-rightFrom the Principal

Congratulations to our 2014 Graduates

Our Sports and Senior Prizegivings highlighted the wealth of academic, sporting, cultural and community endeavours that our talented students have pursued during their time at College.

Our thanks to guest speakers: Gaye Campbell, retiring Curriculum Leader of Learning Support (ably supported by Josh McMillan) and to Damian Wiseman, ex ŌC student and Sports Psychologist.

 

Top honours in 2014 went to:

Phoebe McInerney-Heather – Dux

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Phoebe

Alice Yung – Runner-up Dux

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Alice

Alana Fraser

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Alana

Sander Scholar,

Chairperson’s Award

for All-Round Excellence

Joint Sportsperson of the year

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alana Fraser and Mitchell Rutter – Joint Recipients of Sportsperson of the Year.

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Mitchell

 

Sports Blues were awarded to:

Alana Fraser – Touch

Mitchell Rutter – Multisport

Kahurangi Sturmey – Basketball

Daisy Davis – Surf Lifesaving

Damien Doyle – Surf Lifesaving.

 

We wish all our 2014 graduates well as they commence the next stage of their journey. We are proud of you.

2015 Heads of School

In 2015 we have extended our student leadership team. They will have added responsibilities:- organising sub councils and house events, supporting and representing the College.

Congratulations to:

2015 Head Girl – Clare McInerney-Heather

2015 Head Boy – Tevita Kata

2015 Associate Heads:

Cultural and International Council

Kyuwon Kim and Toia Temperton-Royal

Health and Environment Council

Adele Finnie and Isla Gray

Arts Council

Isobel Cudby, Francesca Flaws, Grace Teu

2015 House Captains:

Kauri:

Sean Byers-Cook, Captain

Ines Depner, Vice-Captain

Matai:

Taara Rice, Captain

Lana Richardson, Vice-Captain

Rimu:

Hemaima Rikihana, Captain

Hayden Rings Vice-Captain

Totara:

Rhyna Tawhara-Clode, Captain

Ryan Walker, Vice-Captain

 

Award Winners

The College is proud to be part of Energise Ōtaki, winners of the Project category of the inaugural WWF Conservation Innovation Awards. (see p10)

 

UNIFORM 2015

I would like to remind all parents that as of next year the only items to be worn in college are “Ōtaki College” uniform items. To help us continue to build Ōtaki College Pride we would appreciate your support in this. If you have any queries please refer to the College website or ring me.

 

Andy Fraser

Principal

Gala

The 2014 Ōtaki College gala was another huge success! The weather was perfect and a fantastic day was had by all. It was wonderful to see great community support and everyone commented on how lovely the atmosphere was. The Home and School Association would like to thank all of the parents, families, teachers and volunteers who gave up their time on the day to help on stalls, set up and pack up, or just come along and participate. We would also like to say a huge THANK YOU to the local businesses who donated raffle items and who supported us in other ways.

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Would you buy a raffle ticket from this lot? Monica Fraser, Andy Fraser, Jess Wilson

 

By MARGARET ANDREWS

Otaki College may be a small rural college, but this year it has again shown pupils punch far above their weight in sport as well as academically.

At the recent Sports Awards night, athletes and coaches in a variety of sporting codes were acknowledged for the achievements and support to their teams.

Among the high sports achievers nine individuals and two teams were nominated for the College Sport Wellington (CSW) Sports Person and Team of the Year Awards: in surf lifesaving, cycling, tennis, basketball, football, touch rugby, multisport and running, netball and volleyball. All were top in their individual and team sports. Otaki athletes, Mitchell Rutter and Alana Fraser were named winners in their codes – Mitchell named CSW multisport and Alana in touch rugby. They were named top Male and Female All Rounder and nominated for Otaki College Sportsperson of the Year, an award they both shared jointly (although the final result was not announced until the following week). Both have performed to the highest degree. Alana was recently named in the NZ Under19 Women’s team to play in the Trans-Tasman test series.

Kahurangi Sturmey was selected for the New Zealand Basketball team playing in Los Angeles.

The two teams nominated for Team of the Year were the Year 9 and 10 boys’ football team and the girls’ Senior 1 netball team. The boy’s team has not lost a game in four years while the netball team was top college team in Horowhenua as well as winning the Lower North Island B Grade Netball tournament.

Former Otaki College student, Damian Wiseman, was the guest speaker for the evening. He spoke of his time at the college telling the students he “wasn’t sporty when at college but now it is a major part of what I do. My time here made me a lot of who I am. I got into competitive cycling in seventh form (year 13), was a NZ representative.”

He went to Otago University and gained a Masters in Physical Education, a Bachelor of Science and Post Graduate Diploma in Sports Medicine and is currently studying towards his PhD through Auckland University of Technology.

Mr Wiseman works with BikeNZ as a sprint power physiologist analysing the performance of New Zealand’s elite cyclists and was with the NZ cycling team at the recent Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

“Working with elite sports wasn’t a pathway I started down”, he said. “The most prestigious schools don’t produce the best students, the teachers do. If you want to improve your performance by five per cent – take 10 things you can improve by 0.5per cent – there’s your five percent! Work on marginal gains. Pearls of wisdom in sport – hard work, believe in the process surrounded and supported by people.”

His work with the Games team as a sports scientist was to capture and analyse their performance look at the information gathered to feed back to the cyclists.

“The Commonwealth Games is a good example of everything working as it should – we missed one gold medal (otherwise) we would have had a clean sweep,” he said later.

Among other awards presented were: Ashleigh Stevenson for Service to School Sport, Shavaughn Sharrem –Official of the Year, Rae Richardson – Volunteer of the Year, and Coach of the Year to Monica Fraser.

The remaining awards presented were for individual sports champions and team awards: in athletics, basketball, canoe polo, cross country, football, multi sport, netball, swimming, tennis, touch rugby and volleyball. A number of students were acknowledged for their contribution as team coaches. Others were acknowledged for selection to regional, national and international teams: in football, rugby, swimming, junior and senior netball, cross country, basketball, equestrian and touch.

Kapiti Mayor, Ross Church was among the guests for the evening and presented the Service to School Sport awards.

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Otaki College top sports students who received their awards at an evening ceremony. Dual Sportspersons of the Year Mitchell Rutter and Alana Fraser are seated centre front