Kia ora, e te whānau,
We warmly welcome our new tamariki into the Koru team, and to Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto! Luca, Zoe and Ruby have all started school in the last fortnight and have settled beautifully into the team. We appreciate the wonderful help of our 'golden oldies' who are truly amazing at providing wrap around support, thereby demonstrating our school value, 'We Care'.
Life Education:
This week and next, the Life Education van, along with educator, Kirsty, and her support crew, in the form of Harold the Giraffe, are based at school with us. The Koru team have two lessons with Kirsty and Harold, the first of which was on Monday, and the second, today. Our broad focus is on Living Things, with questions relating to:
- Where does our food come from?
- Why do we need to eat a variety of food?
- What do all living things need to stay alive?
- What do living things need to survive (food, water, shelter, sunlight)?
- How do plants and animals grow and change?
- How can people care for plants, animals, and natural places?
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| Harold's 4 favourite letters! |
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| Harold, being a little bit mischievous |
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| Harold, singing his song about friendship |
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| Some living things work together as a group |
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| Working together as a group |
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| Enjoying time with one of our Friday big buddies |
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| Ordering numbers to 20 |
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| Sketching different types of plants around our school grounds |
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| Making giraffe shapes with our hands |
Student Council Heritage Day:
On Sept 18th, next Friday, the Student Council has organised a Heritage Day to celebrate our diverse cultures. Children are invited to come to school dressed in something to represent their family's heritage. This could be a costume, something special about the country or children could simply wear the colours from the country's flag. Please bring a gold coin for the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organisation.
Big Brothers Big Sisters is an organisation that helps children and young people build confidence, resilience and positive relationships, through mentoring.
The programme matches young people with caring adult or older-youth mentors who spend regular time together, talking, sharing activities and simply being there. These supportive relationships can make a real difference to a young person’s sense of belonging, self-confidence and ability to navigate life’s challenges.
A few items of note:
- Kiss and Drop 💛 - as our Koru Team grows, our hub can get pretty busy in the mornings, and this can feel a little overwhelming for some tamariki. To help everyone have a calm start to the day, we’d really appreciate it if you could “kiss and drop” your child at the door, rather than coming into the hub with them. This gives tamariki a chance to come in, find their friends, unpack and settle into their morning independently. Thanks so much for your support with this — it really helps us keep the mornings calm, happy and settled for everyone! Please note that if your child is new to school and may well need extra support with the drop off, that is absolutely fine :)
- Toys at school - we are trialling, with the tamariki, that if/when toys come into school, the toys then spend the day in the teachers' office, where they are able to sit up high enough to be able to see out through the window and each keep an eye on their child. We hope that this means that no toys end up out in the playground where they might inadvertently be lost or damaged, and also that they don't become a distraction during learning times. It would be really helpful if you could talk about this with your child, please. We do prefer that toys remain at home :)
- Late pick ups - if you find that you're going to be late to collect your child after school, please phone our school office to let them know, and your message will be sent through to us in the hub. Any child who hasn't been collected from outside Tāhaki, by 3:10 p.m. will be taken over to the office by their Home Group teacher, so that teachers are able to be ready for any after school meetings which might be taking place - meetings generally start at 3:15 p.m.
We hope that you all have a lovely weekend (perhaps including the chance to visit our PTA Clothing and Book Sale, which is taking place on Saturday and Sunday in our school hall).
We look forward to seeing those beautiful, wide smiles back at school on Monday!
Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,
Stacey, Nicola, Kendall and Elizabeth