Week 9/10 Term 3 Koru Team (Hub 1-4)

Posted on 22 September, 201822 September, 2018 by Amber Donovan

Kia Ora Koutou
We are all enjoying the warm spring weather now, so do collect your child/children's' slippers and socks from the shoe racks and take them home. As the weather improves our children are taking off their jackets and leaving them around the hub. It is much easier to return a jumper or jacket when it is named. Thank you for ensuring everything is clearly labeled.
Hub Home Base
Next week hub teachers will move into new home bases. This is where the morning roll will be done and where your child/children will be farewell from at the end of the day.
Reading
Please return all reading books this week. During Week 10 students will stay with their hub teacher for poetry and shared reading. Your child/-ren will bring their poetry home to read at night. Please return the poetry book each day.
Supporting Your Child's Independence
We are encouraged to see many of you supporting your child/children to be independent as they complete daily routines such as unpacking their school bags and taking care to keep track of their clothing and personal items. It's also great to see families giving each other happy goodbyes at the hub door or fare- welling children from the library steps and allowing them to walk into the hub independently.
The morning routine is an important time for teachers to help settle children connect and communicate about the day ahead. Our hubs are increasingly busy in the mornings and we appreciate that some of you may wish to share important information and/or private information with teachers. Making a time to talk after school or sending an email is always a good way to keep in touch too.

NZEI Meeting

Posted on 25 June, 20183 August, 2018 by Amber Donovan

Tuesday 26 June 2018 – no afternoon classes

This is the date that NZEI have confirmed that there will be a paid union meeting at Horncastle Arena from 2pm, for all primary teachers in Christchurch. Because we don’t have a range of dates available to send our staff to, we do need to ask you to collect your children from school this day at 12:40pm.

If you are not able to organise any alternatives for this afternoon, please contact Jacky in the office as soon as possible and we will arrange for supervision of that small group of students.

Team Koru, Term 2 Week 4- 5

Posted on 25 May, 20183 August, 2018 by Amber Donovan

Kia ora whanau,
We are moving quickly into cooler mornings and muddy grounds. It is greatly appreciated when your child has gumboots for these wet rainy days and warm jackets. Everyone is welcome to bring a pair of slippers for inside if they wish even though we do have lovely warm floors.

Bringing Toys/PE Gear to School
We have started to notice an increasing number of children bringing toys and sports equipment with them to school each day. Please be assured we have plenty of sports equipment for your children to play with. When a child's ball or toy goes missing it can be very upsetting. To avoid this happening we are asking that all toys and sports gear stay at home. If your child forgets this rule we will store the item in our "think tank" and it can be retrieved at the end of the day. Thank you for your support on this issue.

Swimming
We are starting the first of our 9 swimming sessions on Monday 28th of May. If you are a parent helper for this please come about 5-10 minutes before hand so we can share pertinent information with you. Our reading and writing programs will continue as usual so do expect your child to be bringing home their reading folders each day.

Lunch Containers
Thank you for checking that your child has brought home their plastic lunch containers. We have quite a collection so do pop in and have a look in the "Maker Space".

Koru Year 1/2 Swimming Term 2

Posted on 10 April, 20183 August, 2018 by Amber Donovan

Kia ora whanau,

In Term 2 the
Year 1/2 
Koru students
in
will be attending 2 weeks of lessons at Aqua Gym starting on 28th of May to
Friday
1st June and then again from the 5th to the 8th of June.

We
do 
expect all our tamariki to participate in swimming lessons and if your child already attends lessons outside of school our school based lessons will enhance the learning and skills they
are getting.

The cost of providing this instruction is
$105
per child
. This
will
cover
both
the lessons and the transport cost. We are applying for
grant
funding
to try and
bring this cost down
.

A request for your contribution to this will be in the Term 2 accounts.

We do appreciate that this is not a cheap exercise. We also know that learning to swim is a fundamental skill for our young children. 

Koru Teachers: Amber, Dorinda, Caitlyn, Charlotte, Kristika

Koru 2018 Welcome Newsletter

Posted on 1 February, 20181 February, 2018 by Amber Donovan

Koru Team Newsletter

Term 1 Week 1 2018

Kia ora koutou,

Greetings to you all and a very warm welcome to this new year. It is a pleasure to be able to meet with you and your child/children during these two days of learning conferences. We are looking forward to a full and flourishing year ahead!

Our team from left to right Kristika, Caitlyn, Elizabeth, Dorinda, Sue, Charlotte, Amber and Rowe.

The First Weeks of School

Our focus in the first weeks of school will be about building relationships and getting to know each other. This will include supporting students to become familiar with daily routines including how to use the inside and outside spaces, how to move around safely and sensibly, how we use resources and materials and learning how to work together. Becoming familiar with the sequence of and expectations within a day of learning at school is important for all our tamariki. If you have any questions or concerns please let your child’s home group teacher know.

School Routines:

The first bell rings at 8.30am. At our West Hub there will be a teacher to meet and greet children and families as they arrive. If your child/children arrive before 8.30am they will need to wait outside as this allows time for teachers to prepare for their teaching day.
We encourage you to support your child’s independence by allowing them to carry and unpack their school bag and place it into one of the green or blue cubbies (at the back of the West Hub).
Lunch boxes, drink bottles and reading folders will be stored inside the hub.
Discovery Stations will be set up in hubs at 8.30 each morning. Once your child has put away their things, he/she is welcome to choose a discovery activity or to go outside to play.
All children are to come to their home space at 8.55. If you arrive after this time it is very important that you report to the office to sign in. If you need to collect your child from school during the day you will need to sign them out at the office.

Karakia to start the day

This karakia is used across our kura to start the day and for formal gatherings, celebrations and meetings.

“This is an ancient karakia that was used when you were out at sea and a storm was approaching. However, the storm is a metaphor for any life threatening force. It is now widely used at the start of the day or at the start of a meeting”.

Whakataka te hau ki te uru,

Whakataka te hau ki te tonga.

Kia mākinakina ki uta,

Kia mātaratara ki tai.

E hī ake ana te atākura he tio,

he huka, he hauhunga.

Haumi e! Hui e! Tāiki e!

Translation

Cease the winds from the west,

Cease the winds from the south,

Let the breeze blow over the land,

Let the breeze blow over the ocean,

Let the red tipped dawn come with a sharpened air,

A touch of frost, a promise of a glorious day.

Topic

Through a range of learning experiences and across a range of different curriculum areas we will be learning about the concept of Sustainability. We look forward to sharing our learning goals for this with you soon.

Home Learning

We are currently engaged in a review of our Home Learning protocols. We expect to have completed this by week 3 so we can inform whanau about the Home Learning expectations.

Parent Help

To help us settle into our learning routines and general day to day programme we would appreciate if offers of parent/whanau help are delayed until March. If you are happy to work ‘behind the scenes’ to put away reading books etc we would very appreciate that. Please make contact with one of us and we’ll let you know how you can help.

Our Values Kete & Student Wellbeing

The Beckenham School values are captured by this Māori whakataukī:

Ka whakakī ngā kete mo ngā haerenga o tātou katoa

Filling the kete for the journey of us all.

During the year we will keep returning to our school values, integrating and weaving them into our programmes.