Being a Year 9 Student!

Hello there today's post is going to be a reflection about my experience as a Year 9 student at Tamaki College.

At first in the beginning of the year I was so nervous and scared because I was afraid of getting lost and I had a lot of anxiety problems back then. I was scared that people will judge me and I was afraid of being in a college environment. I didn't know where to go since we weren't just staying in one room for the whole day like in intermediate and I had new people in my class, but I just followed them around when it came to class time. I had new teachers, well basically new everything! I was too scared to make new friends so I just hung out with my friends from intermediate who also chose to come to Tamaki College.

As time went by the older students especially the year 13's helped us find our way around the school and made us feel comfortable. The schedule was way different than Intermediate too, like back in intermediate interval and lunch was at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm but now in college its 10 minutes earlier because each period is 50 minutes. We even have Athletics at the start of the year rather then the end and its just amazing, we get into houses, learn our chants and then compete each other for the shield. Tests are called exams and its treated very seriously, to the fact where it take nearly 2 hours or even more, but the environment is still the same where we have to be quiet and not cheat, but the cool thing is we get to finish early after that. Also P.E classes aren't the same, instead of wearing our uniform we have to bring gear(spare clothes which you can play in), that way so that our uniform's don't get dirty and smelly, plus who would want to do P.E in skirts.

We also have assembly or what we like to call Our Family time, where awards are handed out to students and notices are told. My favourite part about assembly is the musical performances because I love hearing the students different talents.

I even joined all sorts of sports like Rugby and League, I'm joining Volleyball and even 7s. When joining sports in College, its not just a one day tournament where you go to a tournament for one day and verse different schools, you play a game each week for a season either after school or in the weekends. Training's are after school and they train you real hard, but I like it. I even got a opportunity to play for the Auckland Rugby Girls Under 18 Representative team for South/East, but I didn't want to play because I just only started playing rugby and under 18s were just a bit too much for me as a year 9 student.

It's now getting to the end of term 3 and there is just one more term of being the babies of the school, the year 13 students are leaving and the school will be adding a new bunch.
Overall my experience as a Year 9 student has been great and I love every bit of it!

Tamaki College YR8 Day

So hey guys today many year 8's from different schools in our area which is Panmure and Glen Innes went to Tamaki College where we got to have a day at experiencing what it would be like when we are in college.

Today was an awesome day because first when I got there everybody was already at class so I had to hurry up. Each and every one of us got a name tag with what group we'll be in. My group was K Mn. I have no idea for what the Mn stands for but I know that the K stands for Kowhai which is one of the house teams at their school. Next after I got my name tag I was escorted by the school's deputy Principal to my first class. My first class was Maori. In Maori class we were doing a Pepeha. I found it quite hard because I didn't know what my tribe was and plus I was late to class.

Next we had Social Studies. Social Studies was AWESOME because I learnt how to find different countries on the World map using Latitude and Longitude. It was quite challenging at first but once I knew how to do it I found it easy.

After Social Studies we had Interval. Each and every one of us got a chocolate calcium yoghurt to give us energy and a juice to keep us hydrated.

Later after everybody finished having Interval we went to our next class. My next class was Maths. It was really hard for me I mean like I was STRUGGLING. We were playing this game called "Kahoot'. It was a good game because it helped us with our place value and everyone of us got to participate because it was a game where everybody can access it online. I was so happy when that finished because I was STRUGGLING. Maybe one of my maths goals can be to practice what my Place values are.

Next we moved onto our next class which was English. I had a Tongan teacher which was cool. Then we did an activity where we had to find a buddy who has the same amount of letters in their name. I was lucky because I was with somebody that I already know. She was from Panmure Bridge school. Anywho once we knew their names we had to tell each other something interesting about ourselves. Something interesting about my partner was that she could turn her whole hand clockwise and when I saw her do it I was AMAZED! I had nothing to tell my partner so I just told her that I LOVE Michael Jackson. After that we had to tell the whole class. I wasn't nervous for the first time because the teacher told us that their was nothing to be afraid of, we are all human. Next we had a discussion about what discrimination and stereotypes are. Soon the bell rang for lunch so we didn't get to finish off English class.

For lunch we had a filled roll, water, an apple, a muesli bar and some fruity string. After lunch our next class was........ P.E!!!!! Yay I was waiting for this all day. For P.E we played two games which were Gold Rush and I forgot what the other game was but for that game their are two taggers and the taggers have to tag people but the people who were tagged had to stay connected with the tagger and once the taggers tag everybody it would look like a train. By the way when you're connected with each other you can't just let go and tag somebody you have to stay connected.

After P.E class everybody had to go to the auditorium because their was prizegiving. The prizes were either a printer or a netbook bag. The people who won the prizes were the people who were chosen by the students leaders for showing the Tamaki College values which were Respect, Integrity, Success and Responsibility. After prizegiving we went back to our schools. Apparently the last lot of our Year 8's who was still waiting to be picked up had Pizza. I didn't really care I mean like when I went back to school I had some MILK!!!!! Which isn't quite amazing but yeah....

My highlight was Social studies because I learnt a lot of new things and the other thing was that I met heaps of people from other schools. It was an AWESOME day today!