Category Archives: Pohutukawa

Pōhutukawa News Term 2 Week 2 2025

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 Ngā mihi e te whānau,

Warm greetings to you all. We have had a wonderful 2 weeks back in Pōhutukawa. The weather has been mostly welcoming, apart from the wet blast last week, and the students in great spirits! We've hit the ground running this term (literally) with some Cross Country practice. We all noticed how enthusiastic the students have taken to their practice. long may it last! Please read on for some news from the team, and some updates on the term. Have a great weekend everyone, kia pai ngā rā whakata.

Cross Curriculum Classes

We love alliteration in Pōhutukawa, and our "cool curriculum classes" continue with some changes for Term 2. Gayle is delving into Science and looking at The Human Brain this term, Rae is covering Digital Technology and continuing with Coding. Chris is taking a closer look into Art History with the A-Z of Visual Art, Megan is continuing with well being and Nick with his ever creative take on Digital Technology. There is a lot of learning happening over the term in CCC, so we encourage you to keep chatting about what we are covering in these courses with your tamariki. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning.

Winter Sports

Our winter sports programme kicks off in Week 4. Every student has elected to join, and will be involved, in either competitive or non-competitive hockey, netball, or football. We still need parent assistance both on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons (approx. 1:30 pm - 3 pm) to help support our tamariki in the winter sports programme. In particular this year we have a large number of students who have signed up for the football competition and require parent help to make sure every team is supported at their games. If you think you could help us at this time, please get in touch with your home group teacher. Your support is hugely appreciated. We get there together, mā tātou kātoa te waka e hoe!

Legacy Dance Group


We are really excited to announce the availability of some hip hop dance classes, run at school for once lunchtime per week during Term 2. These dance sessions are taken by Legacy Dance Studio dance teachers. There will be a Year 3 and 4 class and a Year 5 and 6 class.

All contact information for Legacy Dance Studio can be found on the flyer attached. Please contact Tash at Legacy Dance for more information.


Book Character Day


Time to get creative and dress up as your favourite Book Character! As part of our readathon, we are excited to have a book character dress up day on Friday 16th May. We are looking forward to seeing everyone having fun and getting creative with their characters! I wonder what Cade will be this time around? Remember it is a book character dress up, not a movie dress up. If your unable to dress up, then the school uniform is to be worn, as it is not just a mufti day. 

Have a restful weekend
Nga Mihi

The Pōhutukawa Teaching Team
Chris, Nick, Rae, Gayle, Megan and Georgie





Pōhutukawa News Term 1 Week 11 2025

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Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all

We have come to the end of the first term of 2025! What a jam packed term is has been with all the new routines, teachers, learning and CAMP! Surely camp was the highlight of the term! For those who missed the CAMP VIDEO you can see this on HERO. We are super pleased to have been able to take the entire hub, 146 students, 26 parents and 5 teachers, in total,178 people went on camp for this epic experience, thank you to all the parent helper for their hard work in making the three day experience a memorable one for our Tamariki. 





We look forward to both a restful and busy term break, getting ready for Term 2 with a lot to look forward to! Winter Sport will start up in week 5, if you are keen to coach or take a team, please let us know ASAP! We are always on the look out for more parents to take sports teams, without you many will miss out! 

Keep an eye on the HERO notifications for more information of whats happening including parent teacher interview information and more Winter Sport info coming out soon. 

REMINDERS

Cyber Safety

Netsafe has created an Online Safety Parent Toolkit so parents, families and whānau have all the information they need to talk about online safety.

If you or anyone in your whānau needs support, you can contact Netsafe.

Learning at Home and Google Classroom

All of the students have access to the Pōhutukawa 2025 Google Classroom and their Home Group Google Classroom. Students can also access the Pōhutukawa Learning Site via their Google Classroom. The site serves as an online hub of resources should you wish for your tamariki to continue doing some school work at home. We will continue to add material and build the students' knowledge around using Google Classroom and Google Sites in the coming weeks. As always, we encourage you to actively participate in this area of your tamariki's learning. Ask them to show you what is available to them online and what they can see and do. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning.


Have a lovely, well earned term break everybody, kia pai ngā rā whakatā! We look forward to seeing you all again soon for another jam packed term at 





 

The Pōhutukawa Team

Chris, Nick, Rae, Megan and Gayle

Pōhutukawa News Term 1 Week 9 2025

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Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all

Camp

On Wednesday next week, we are going to Living Springs Camp. Now is a good time to make sure your child has all the equipment needed for camp. Please check the previous camp notices for a list of what to bring.

On Wednesday morning, please remember to bring the following into the hub:
  • a backpack that will be worn during the 1 hour+ walk in which contains their lunch, a drink, a coat and any medication they need for the walk in (e.g., an inhaler).
  • a clearly name zip-lock bag/container containing your any other medication your child may have. Please make sure it has clear instructions on how and when to administer it. We will have a lot of medication to give out so please make the instructions really clear and simple to follow. Please hand the medication to your child's teacher on Wednesday morning. 
  • a suitcase/large bag containing their clothing and other items that will be delivered directly to the camp.

AI Art

During CCC (Cool Curriculum Classes), the children have been creating some AI-enhanced artwork. Here are some of their creations:





We are all very excited about camp next week. Thank you for all your support and aroha. 

Warm regards

The Pōhutukawa Teaching Team

Chris, Rae, Gayle, Megan, Nick, Georgie, Stacy and Laura

Pōhutukawa News Term 1 Week 7 2025

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 Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all


As the term races on it's time to catch up on what we've been up to in Pōhutukawa, and also let you know some information about a couple of upcoming events. Please read on!

CCC: "Cool Curriculum Areas" have been running all term and we are string to see some fantastic outcomes from these classes! The students skills in coding and technology are super impressive and it is awesome to see how enthusiastic they are to be heading to these classes, not that we thought they wouldn't be popular! Mindfulness, PE and visual art in full swim and the routines have been flawless. We are really impressed with how well things have been ticking over. Kai pai all! 

Mathematics and Literacy is taking off and the real mahi is beginning to show as well. We encourage your child to show you around our learning sites and all the awesome support activities they have at the fingertips for you to be able to engage in your child's learning. Ask for a tour today! 

Living Springs Camp 2025 planning is well underway, keep an eye out on HERO for the upcoming parent evening. Only three weeks to go! Very exciting! 

STOMP Percussion has been a hit! Literally. There has been some very noisy afternoons in the Pōhutukawa hub, so much we have had to move most lessons outside in order to cope! Students have been very inventive with their instruments and their sounds. The toughest challenge is to try to record them! Multiple sessions have been required but we are slowly getting there and they sound amazing! An update on this will be coming up!

We look forward to yet another great fortnight ahead and hoping for some settled warm weather of course. Thank you for all your support and aroha. 

Warm regards
The Pōhutukawa Teaching Team
Chris, Rae, Gayle, Megan, Nick, Georgie, Stacy and Laura

Pōhutukawa News Term 1 Week 5 2025

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Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all.

Week 5 was another busy week in the Pōhutukawa Team, here are some of the highlights!

Groups and Adjustment/Program
After having had two full weeks of our learning rotations, it has been fantastic and all students have picked this up very quickly and settled well. We will face a different problem when the wet weather sets in later in Term 2. We have really appreciated the flexibility of students while implementing these routines. Ka Pai! 

Inquiry Learning
For our inquiry in week 4, we have looked at STEAM. This integrates Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. 

Classes looked at Rube Goldberg for inspiration for one of the tasks. A Rube Goldberg machine, named after American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is a chain reaction–type machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and (impractically) overly complicated way. Usually, these machines consist of a series of simple unrelated devices; the action of each triggers the initiation of the next, eventually resulting in achieving a stated goal.

This involved creating our own machines and tracks to run marbles through. We had a blast, chewing through biscuit boxes and sellotape making some marvelous contraptions. Watching students experiment with these materials was very rewarding and made for some very funny moments! Attached are some photos of some of the groups and their creations.

Other stations involved matchstick towers with Blu-Tac, newspaper bridge building, paper plane designs and popsicle stick catapults. 





Music/STOMP
This week we have been looking into music for our inquiry. This has involved creating our own rhythms by using everyday items, forming a beat and focusing on timing. Your child may ask to bring items to school to assist with this. This unit is based on STOMP. We look forward to sharing the finished product with you very soon! 

Swimming Sports
Our annual school swimming sports is on Wednesday 5th March at the Wharenui Swimming Complex. We Love Challenge at Beckenham, and look forward to a fantastic event and seeing the tamariki literally leap out of their comfort zones with a splash. Nau mai te wero! 

Camp
The first notice went out on HERO this week with information about the Pōhutukawa team camp to Living Springs. Please check HERO for details. A reminder that the medical Google form and if applicable, the parent help Google form are past due. These are needed for our planning. If you have not done this could you please log into HERO and complete this as soon as possible. More information regarding parent help will come out next week. 


Have a great weekend everybody, kia pai ngā rā whakatā!

The Pōhutukawa Team

Chris, Gayle, Nick, Megan, Rae, Georgie and Laura.