Angus Jemmett eyes up a delivery during his side’s loss to the North West Youth 1st XI on Saturday. Photo Robyn HoodIt’s been a tough old start to the season for the Ashburton College 1st XI cricket team.

They’re three games into this season’s Canterbury Youth 1st XI grade competition and yet to record a win, although their latest loss couldn’t have been much closer.

They took on the North West Youth Cricket 1st XI at the Ashburton Domain on Saturday and lost by just the one wicket.

Ashburton College won the toss and elected to send North West – a combination side made up of players predominantly from Burnside High School and Papanui High School in Christchurch – out into the field.

For the third week in a row, Ashburton College fell just short of the 100 run mark, all out for 95 in 39.5 overs, with Liam Sullivan the best of the batsmen at eight, finishing 28 not out, while Angus Jemmett scored 16 opening, and Isaac Bazley and Tom Middleton both chimed in with 13.

For North West, David Neal took 3/24 off 10 overs.

In reply, Ashburton College’s bowlers claimed regular wickets and had North West well and truly in trouble, nine down for 81.

Fourteen runs shy of the target and just one wicket in hand, a nail-biting finish ensued and eventually it went the way of the North West side, with Neal the one to guide them home, finishing 20 not out.

For Ashburton College, all bowlers took at least one wicket, with three bowlers taking two wickets each.

Will Copland took 2/10 off 6.4 overs, Sullivan took 2/23 off five overs, and Angus Jemmett took 2/8 from his 10 overs, which also featured six maidens.

Next week Ashburton College are on the road back up to Christchurch, to play St Andrew’s College’s 2nd XI.

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 29 October 2019

Ross Preece.Relationships between schools and education agencies in Japan and Ashburton College were cemented recently when college principal Ross Preece spent time in Japan.

While he did not intend to widen the catchment for students from Japan, Preece said it was important to nurture the relationships the college had as part of its drive to create a broad international student base at the school.

“I’d like to grow our international student numbers but we don’t want to have a mass of students from one country; our intention is to grow our numbers across a range of countries,” he said.

The college had hosted international students for a number of years but this had been the first year where significant effort had gone into broadening that base, but that was unlikely to show in additional students until 2021, Preece said.

While some schools focused on large numbers of students from one country, the college believed that did not encourage those students to integrate in their new school as they’d always gravitate towards their own cultural group.

His preference is to have five students from each of 10 different nationalities represented in the student body rather than 10 each from five countries.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 29 October 2019

An innovative new curriculum introduced At Ashburton College this year for Year 9 students has been hailed a success by parents, students and college staff.

And that has given the school the confidence to make the same learning option available to Year 10 students next year, said college principal Ross Preece.

The pilot curriculum is based around developing students’ resilience, creative problem solving and communication skills. This year it was optional for Year 9 students and next year it will become an option for both Year 9 and Year 10.

About 60 per cent of Year 9 students are currently involved in the pilot that involves a project based learning model, integrating some subjects rather than working on the traditional standalone subject model, Preece said.

Uptake of the pilot for Year 9 and 10 had been good, with students in about half of next year’s Year 9 and 10 classes working with the new learning model.

At the end of this year outcomes would be measured across all Year 9 classes using the innovation and traditional curricula, but there were already some positive results, he said.

“We do know the stack of negative pastoral entries are far fewer for the innovation students than for those on the traditional curriculum. And we know in terms of student engagement it works.”

The college was making a gentle move into the new curriculum to allow parents and students to choose the system they believed best suited them.

While the learning approach might be different, parents would still know how their child was achieving in standard subject, but they would also receive a report on the things that were engaging their child, Preece said.

Project based learning was already being piloted in a number of other schools around New Zealand and the new model is similar to the learning environment students were accustomed to at intermediate and primary level.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 28 October 2019