In today’s ANI Guild we have the following:
Farewell Mrs Montesinos
This week, we bid farewell to our wonderful Mrs. Montesinos, our Spanish teacher. She has been an amazing teacher at ANI, and her legacy will undoubtedly continue.
From students singing “Buenos Dias” all day long to winning ANI Chess titles left and right, to uplifting ANI with Sustainability presence, Mrs. Montesinos has made a significant positive impact.
She taught Spanish excellently for all to understand, and had all of us engaged whenever we learned Spanish. She was a lovely teacher and it’s sad to see her go. The Year 8 students will now be learning Japanese as their new language.
As we all say goodbye to Mrs. Montesinos, who is moving to a different school, we wish her the best of luck and hope that she can continue to share her positive impact on students elsewhere.
We will all miss her and cherish her teachings in our heart as they could be useful in the near future.
Goodbye Mrs Montesinos we all love you and hope for you to come back soon and hope you have a lovely time teaching at your new school. Till then goodbye!
Written By: Aariz A
Edited By: Sohum K
Photos By: Auckland Normal Intermediate
Rockshop Bandquest
On Monday 19th of August, our school participated in Rockshop’s Greater Auckland Bandquest (Greater Auckland 1). Rockshop Bandquest is a competition for bands, mainly rock bands from intermediate and primary schools all over Auckland. Our school enrolled two bands into the competition, Your Neighbours and The Really Normal Band, consisting of five and six students respectively.
Taking place from 6:30pm to 9:30pm, it was a night full of music and excitement. We had the opportunity to listen to 13 other bands as well as a guest band who won Bandquest when they were our age and are still together. It was a very interactive night. There were many hats and t-shirts to be won. We had 2 wonderful judges as well as an amazing MC who went by the name Smashtton (aka Sam Ashton). Smashtton is a writer and broadcaster at 95bFM, and we were fortunate enough for him to MC the competition with his awesome humour.
Our students departed school at 1 pm and ran through a gruesome soundcheck, which was intended for the performers to become accustomed to the sounds of the instruments. Before the performances began, each of our team had the awesome opportunity to get an interview with Sienna and Ben, who were radio presenters on The Hits, giving us an interview which was subsequently published to the internet. In said interview, we answered several questions relating to the competition, some of our answers surprising the interviewers. We were then challenged to a game of bottle flipping, where landing a bottle flip grants you a point, moving your marker on the 1×5 grid one square closer towards your side. The interviewers were promptly destroyed in the game, giving us all a confidence boost.
The competition went overall great, with our band “Your Neighbours” achieving 2nd place in the competition. The band’s guitarist – Flynn Woolcott – achieved the Best Guitarist award.
Overall, the competition was an excellent success for our school, and everyone who participated in it had a great time, thoroughly enjoying this wonderful experience.
Content by:
William, Saisha and Kushaell
AIMS Supporters T-Shirts
Soon our fellow students are going to AIMS and we need to fundraise for the AIMS teams.
So come to support our sale of fantastic T-Shirts. Support your friends, classmates, and peers in New Zealand’s biggest Intermediate sporting tournament – AIMS!
Raise funds for the PTA!
One T-Shirt is $37 and there are raffles to buy for five dollars with which you will go into the draw for a custom-made travel pack (Includes a t-shirt, track pants, hoodie, 2 bags and a cap). The more tickets you buy the more of a chance you get at winning!
Support those competing, on the sidelines, and everyone going to the much-anticipated event!
1 tickets $5 NZD
T-Shirts are $37 NZD
3 tickets $10 NZD
1 ticket and T-Shirts $40 NZD
How to make your head hurt - FIDE approved
Chess is the world’s most popular board game. It’s so popular that intense tournaments are held for it! Our school was given the chance to participate in Chess Power’s tournaments – an opportunity lapped up by our own Chess Club!
First of all, a little introduction to our Chess Club. Run by Señora Montesinos, the Chess Club meets up and practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the former including a New Zealand Grandmaster chess coach! Once tournaments are scheduled, the cream of the crop chess players are selected to play in the tournament! Teachers, you will be pleased – the tournaments are absolutely silent! But playing such intense games of chess doesn’t come without any minor problems. A small outbreak of “chess headaches” made itself known during the tournament!
There were a few things to keep you distracted when you finished your game. Games involving chess… only in a unique way! The most popular by far was the Chess Tower – you guessed it – stacking chess pieces as high as possible! Also to keep you occupied were other brain-teasing activities, including Knight Walk, Frog Pawn Jump, Fastest Draw in the West, and many more!
Now for the bit you’ve been waiting for – the results! Just so you know, one point is the same as winning a game, and half is a draw. Ratings are different – basically the higher the number, the better you are.
Chess Ratings are based on your past performance – for more information, click here.
ANI placed third in the Chess Power Auckland Regionals, half a point behind ACG Sunderland, and six points behind Northcross Intermediate.
Our school standings are as follows:
1 Grayson P-T (Rating 1601)
2 Ethan T (Rating 1320)
3 Harrison M (Rating 1275)
4 Wilson L (Rating 1124)
5 William F(Rating 1062)
6 Leo S (Rating 1031)
Grayson was also the second best player in the whole tournament of 7 schools! The top five players from these standings will go forward into the Nationals – a very tense tournament indeed!
Chess Power is the main organisation for chess tournaments, coaching, and training in New Zealand. As before, the top five players from each school go into the Nationals, and the top eight have gone into the Interschool tournament. Chess Power and the NZCF (New Zealand Chess Federation) don’t only run tournaments and awards, but they also supply anything related to chess! Some things, for example, could be their best selling Zombie Chess, Chess Champs Card Edition, and so much more! Chess Power also runs the Sarapu Cup and the Sarapu Cup Championships – named after Ortvin Sarapu – the second New Zealander to win the International Master title.
Finally, we would like to thank Señora Montesinos for organising our school’s participation in these tournaments and Mr Wheeler for coaching the Chess Club! Also a big shoutout to those who encouraged, supported us, and got us there throughout the tournaments – parents, students, and teachers!
Before you play a quick game of chess, just a tip – try the Tennison/ICBM Gambit!
Written by Leo and Amarah
Edited by William
Images by Leo
Unbelievable Umpires
On Thursday 22nd August, ANI was lucky enough to send 15 rising year 7 and 8 netball umpires from our school to Windmill Park for the annual primary school Central Zones Tournament.
Umpires were carefully selected by Miss Hughes, the netball coordinator for ANI. These students each had an assigned year 5 or 6 team to umpire for the duration of the day. Only 2 or 3 years younger than us!
Our umpires met in the library in the morning, and then they set off and walked to Windmill Park. After they arrived they were assigned their teams. Our umpires were going to stick to and umpire the team for the rest of the day. You could easily spot our umpires because they were wearing vests and had whistles. Must have been fun!
Then there was a quick debrief with the Central Zones coordinator about how the day was going to run. They had a few important responsibilities like grabbing the scorecard before and after the games and checking if the scores were the same from both sides.
“I’m nervous and excited at the same time, but I’ll make the day worth it!”
The first games were at 10 am, with each game being around 20 minutes with a 1-minute break between the halves. And also about 3 minutes in between games. It was hard calling people out and explaining the rules and what they did wrong. Finding the right place to position yourself at the right time proved to be difficult for most of the umpires. Making split-second decisions about whether or not you should blow the whistle was demanding, and of course, there were the parents and the coaches on the sidelines telling you what to do and getting in your faces about the tiniest mistakes. But we’re still human, of course we make mistakes!
Near the end of the exhausting day, we went down to the courts and watched the prize giving, and lastly, we took a group photo together as ANI’s group of umpires.
We left the courts feeling satisfied, exhausted and definitely seriously sunburnt!
All credit to Miss Hughes for organising everything and everyone. Holding meetings at morning tea and lunch and picking our final umpires…that’s a lot of work! This couldn’t have happened without you!
Thanks for the great opportunity for a bit of experience and fun out there in the sun!
Written by Selene
Edited by Avni
Photos by Miss Hughes
The Marvelous Matai Assembly
It was Monday the 19th of August when the marvelous Matai hosted an assembly. There was a student from each class from RM 2-7. As the cold mist of fresh air surrounded the MPS, as the classes began to sit down awaiting for this assembly to commence. The hosts were Chantellle M. from RM 2, Alan N. from RM 3, Arha J. from RM 4, Renee S. from RM 5, Gemma B. from RM 6 & Lucas C. from Rm 7.
We kicked it off with the Karakia led by Aariz then followed by the national anthem. Once we finished with that, we had the wonderful dance for Cook Island Week. Just after that, we had another lovely cultural performance to celebrate Tongan Language Week!
Then we had a whole lot of sports certificates. ANI has participated and placed in a lot of different sports this term (and there are many more to come!). Many of our team sports here at ANI won an award like Chess, Hockey, Squash and much much more! Great job and congratulations!
Then we had an announcement of the science fair winners! In third place, we had Zoe Z. from RM 28. In second place we had Lucas C. and Seth C. and in first place, we had one of our guild members Leo S! Then we had a wonderful compilation of photos from the Mud Run as their certificates and medals were handed out. This looked absolutely amazing – plus, it was created by one of our very own ANI Guild members, Sohum. Even so – the show wasn’t quite over yet!
Gemma B. then came up to start up a quick Kahoot that she had made for the staff to participate in while the whole school cheered their teachers on while she narrated the question. Although it may have been loud, it sure was exciting! It was an Olympic theme of course since we just had the Olympics. The first fun fact mentioned was a pretty interesting one – so here it is! – Did you know that the first woman to swim across the English channel beat the men’s record by around 2 hours? She also participated in the 1924 Olympics!
The most ridiculous randomized names were up on the screen – and of course, in the end, Mr Houston of room 6 won! Not a surprise to his class, not at all – though of course, his name was Aquatic Camel.
Then came the moment we had been waiting for. ANI’S own Rubix Cube OLYMPICS!
We had each student from each ILE/Hub to represent them.
It was Kevin from ILE 2&3, Arham from ILE 4&5, Justin from ILE 6&7, Aditya from ILE 9/10, Harry from ILE 13/14, MJ from ILE 15&16, Rain from ILE 19/20, Zachary from ILE 21/22, Alex from ILE 23/24, Jordan from hub Tahi (25/26/27) and Adhyansh from Hub Rua (28/29/30).
Ultimately though, we had Kevin win the entire competition. He was so quick even under pressure that when he had finished, the other competitor only had finished half.
Then, it was time for the assembly to come to a close, seeing as it had partially cut into lunchtime. With a few announcements and the trophy of Riti-A-Thon being handed off to Ms Chowdhury and Mr Ng, since their ILE won the last one, we will see if they are able to defend their title or is there any ILE/HUB willing to take the trophy home! Everyone was dismissed back to their classes to enjoy a slightly shorter lunchtime.
Amazing job to Chantelle, Alan, Arham, Renee, Gemma & Lucas for hosting this rapturous assembly! Another great job to Sohum for the Mud Run video, and to Gemma for the Kahoot of cool facts.
Written By – Avni B. & Sohum K.
Edited By – Sohum K. & Avni B.
HappANIngs Week 7 Term 3
