Author Archives: Gayle McNaughton

Kōwhai News Term 3 Week 8

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Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome to Week 8! Time is flying in the Kōwhai hub, and our days remain packed with energy, learning, and discovery. As Term 3 draws to a close, our students continue to be fully engaged and working hard right up to the finish line. 


Life Education

Harold the giraffe continues to inform and entertain our tamariki in the Life Education bus. The Kōwhai team have all attended our first session, with the second session focusing on interpersonal relationships coming up in Week 9. This programme complements the friendship lessons that we are currently teaching in class. With the aid of some wonderful friendship books from our library, we have facilitated some great discussion and reflection on what it is to be a good friend.


















Hip Hop Dance Lessons

We continue to enjoy learning and practising our hip hop dances in our home group classes. We are improving each time and are having fun along the way. We had planned to perform our dance at the end of Term 3. This has now been moved to the beginning of Term 4; more information about this will be communicated soon.


Kapa Haka Performance

A reminder that in Week 10, the Kōwhai team will be performing at assembly. Our tamariki have been working hard to put in the final touches on our performance and have worked hard to learn waiata. You are welcome to attend the Celebration Assembly in the hall at 10:00 am. We look forward to seeing you there to support our tamariki.


Maths In Action

Maths is fun when we can apply it in the real world. At the moment, all children in Kōwhai are learning and practising our measurement skills. We are enjoying measuring the length, weight, and capacity of classroom items as well as learning to tell the time, with lots of hands-on activities involved. 




Privacy and Social Media

Actively managing your tamariki’s privacy settings on the social networks they use can go a long way towards keeping control of their personal information.

Any information that is easily available online, whether it’s an email address, date of birth, or pictures, could end up causing harm if it gets into the wrong hands.

To help you navigate privacy on social media, Netsafe has put together a guide on How to Use Privacy Settings on Social Networks. 



Learning Languages: New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL)

We have been working hard in Term 3 to learn the basics of New Zealand Sign Language, which has been a good challenge and lots of fun! We are very lucky to have two members of the deaf community visiting us in the Kōwhai hub next week to talk to us about NZSL, deaf culture and the importance of being inclusive and respectful of different ways of communicating. 


Beckenham’s Got Talent

The final of Beckenham’s Got Talent is fast approaching! 

The Kōwhai team have held the semi-final auditions and have narrowed performances down to five acts. Next week, they will put on a whole hub performance where we will choose the top three acts to go through to the whole school show in Week 10. We certainly have some talented tamariki in our midst! 


Heritage Day: A Message From The Student Council

On September 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 simply wearing the colours from the country's flag. Please bring a gold coin for Big Brothers and Big Sisters. 


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.



Have a great weekend!


From the Kōwhai team

Kōwhai News Term 2 Week 11

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We have made it to the end of Term 2, and what a term it has been! 

Learning Conferences

We would like to extend a big thank you to all the whānau who came along to our Learning Conferences last week. It was wonderful to sit down with so many families and celebrate the amazing achievements of our Kōwhai tamariki. We love working alongside you.

Term 2 In A Nutshell

Despite the changeable weather, our hub has been abuzz with a range of busy and fun learning activities. In writing, we have been working on completing our narratives, with tamariki producing some fantastic writing that may have been shared with you at Learning Conferences. We are now working on descriptive writing, expanding our sentences to make them more interesting for the reader. 

In reading, we continue to focus on the structured literacy programme as well as reading a variety of rich texts. In maths, we have finished a unit of work focusing on statistics and are currently learning about fractions and decimal numbers.    

Learning out of the classroom has included P.E. lessons focusing on small ball skills. Learning to catch, throw and field tennis balls with a partner and in small groups has been a great challenge! These skills involved a lot of teamwork as well as developing hand-eye coordination. We have now completed our pepeha learning and are currently working hard on completing our paper weaving project, which we will be displaying on the hub's walls very soon.




Cross Country Challenge


On Tuesday 30th June, a team of 24 eager athletes from the Kōwhai team took on the Cross Country Challenge at Hillview Christian School. Everyone gave it their all, making it a thoroughly enjoyable and successful day out for the whole team!

Legacy Studio Hip Hop performance

The Legacy Studio hip-hop crew have been working hard practising their routines during their lunch breaks to prepare for the much-anticipated performance last weekend. Every crew member showed incredible focus and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Mā tātou katoa te waka e hoe - We Love Challenge! Here is a photo of some of the hip-hop crew below.




Cyber Safety: Hector's World


Hector's World is an entertaining animated series used to support the education of online safety for primary school-aged tamariki. Over the course of Term 2, we have completed seven cyber safety lessons. The most recent lessons focused on: 

  • Why it is important to be kind and respectful online and how to get help if it’s needed.

  • The concept of ‘Digital Citizenship’ - learning the skills, values and behaviours that lead us to engage in online experiences positively, confidently and kindly.

We hope that this learning has encouraged conversations at home with your child/ren about safety online.






Scooter-athlon


Next term, our Kōwhai team will take part in the exciting Scooter-athlon again, on Friday 7th August from 11:30pm – 12:30pm. Parents are invited to come along and cheer on the tamariki.

The Scooter-athlon will follow a run → scooter → run format, giving students the chance to experience a fun, active, multi-stage race. Students are encouraged to wear their House T-Shirts, bring their own scooter and helmet, wear closed-toe shoes, and follow safety rules. Year 7/8 students will act as marshals to help run the event safely. Please note that if it is raining, the Scooter-athlon will be postponed. Any changes will be shared with parents via Hero.

Please let your classroom teacher know if your child does not have a scooter or if you have a spare one you are happy to lend. Your child will need to provide their own helmet. We can’t wait to see the tamariki scoot, run, and have fun – nau mai te wero! We love challenge!


We thank you for your continued support of our tamariki and wish you a happy and safe school holiday. We look forward to seeing you back in Term 3.


From the Kōwhai team


Pōhutukawa Team Update – Term 4, Week 9, 2017

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It's almost the end of Term 4

The children in Pohutukawa hub have had a fabulous term in our new learning space. At some point this week the children will be bringing home their stationery and pencil cases etc.  Please remind your child/ren to have a look at home for any school journals or library books that will need to be returned to school.

Canterbury Athletics competition

Congratulations to Nadia Russell, Nina Callaghan, Jesse Ferguson and Hebe Butland. These talented children from the Pohutukawa hub represented Beckenham School and travelled to Ashburton on Wednesday 6th December, to compete in the Canterbury Athletics competition.  What an amazing effort, performing to such a high level in athletics! Ka pai.

Annual Summer Reading Challenge - Wild About Reading Challenge

The Christchurch City Libraries annual Summertime Reading Club programme is for kids between 0 and 13 years old inclusive. The competition starts on Friday 1 December 2017 and finishes on Friday 19 January 2018 at 5pm.  Try an eBook, read an eMagazine or read to someone – tell us your reading experiences and be in to WIN great prizes.

https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/11/Page-2.pdf

Pick up a challenge sheet from any Christchurch City Libraries or download a copy from the library website: https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/summertime-reading-club/

The emphasis is on encouraging shared family experiences – have fun together as you celebrate the joy of reading!  Children will be asked to get a teacher, librarian, or parent to ‘stamp, sticker, or tick’ the five experiences they have had.

South Zone Athletics day (Monday 13th November). Parent help needed.

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Kia ora koutou,

The South Zone Athletics day will be held on Monday 13th November, at Hansen Park. 
We have 70 year 5-8 children attending zones this year, which is fantastic.
We will be taking the bus to Hansen Park and Gayle, Jenny and Amy will be accompanying the children on the day.  

We are in need of some parent helpers.  If you are available to help out for all or part of the day, we would love to hear from you.  We will need some parents to take charge of transporting and putting up our gazebo and school flags in the morning.  We would also like to hear from anyone who has a spare gazebo, as we have a lot of children attending zones and want to make sure we can provide enough shade for all of them.

Please email Gayle on gayle.mcnaughton@beckenham.school.nz or Jenny on jenny.diggle@beckenham.school.nz if you are able to help.

If you have any questions about this event, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Ka kite,

Gayle & Jenny


Year 5-8 Athletics – Distance races are being held tomorrow (Wednesday 1st November)

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Kia ora Whanau,

As you will be aware, tomorrow afternoon we will be holding the 1000m and 1200m distance races for year 5-8 students. This is an optional event. Your child will have already expressed their interest in competing in these events.

If your child is involved, please ensure that tomorrow they bring to school tomorrow the following:
  • Comfortable P.E / athletics gear or their house t-shirts if they have one
  • Comfortable running shoes or sneakers (the children may run in bare feet or wear socks that are taped to their feet)
  • Sunhat
  • Waterbottle
  • Sunscreen - It would be a good idea to apply sunscreen before school and we will have sunscreen available to apply throughout the day
  • Warm jacket or jersey (school jacket is great)
We will begin running at 1:15pm with the year 13 students.

Warm regards,
Gayle McNaughton and the Pohutukawa team.