Kia ora whānau,

We are now nicely settled back into our routines in the Kōwhai hub. This week we have been enjoying creating our Miro inspired sculptures, reflecting on them and getting ready to show them to you at our learning snapshots.

During Discovery this week, we have seen many children start to learn some new skills with Pip as they learn how to make vegetable soup. This included cutting vegetables up, learning how to prepare for cooking and cleaning up after we have completed our cooking. These are great self-management skills for the children to learn and bring home!




The children have also been taking the opportunity to take part in a variety of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) activities. These have included using Lego to create their own rainbows and using paper folding skills to create boats and see how long/far the boat will float for.


There have been many other creative activities being completed during Discovery as usual as well.



Cross Country Update
Now that we are at Level, 1 we are happy to announce that some children will be taking part in the school Cross Country event next Tuesday, the 16th of June. This year for Kōwhai is an optional event. The children chose whether they wanted to sign up and have been training throughout the week. The details of when the Cross Country are as follows:

When: Tuesday 16th June
Time: 2:30 for Kōwhai kids
Course: Two laps around the field and by the ponds. 

Please ask your child if they have signed up. If they have, please help with their training by reminding them to wear their sneakers/trainers, rather than school shoes or boots to school.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Headphones in the Hub
We have a limited number of headphones in the hub. Theses are in high demand, especially during our reading rotations when many devices are used. If your child would like to bring their own set of headphones in to use with our devices, then please do. They will be kept in their tray and will need to be named. We recommend that they have a case or named bag to keep these in. It will be the children's responsibility to look after their headphones and take care of them.

Parents Volunteers for Reading
We are looking for some parents to volunteer to help with reading with students during the day and putting reading books away. Putting reading books away can be done before school, during school or after school. If you would like to help out, please email Laura: laura.williamson@beckenham.school.nz

We look forward to catching up with you over the few weeks.

Ngā mihi,
The Kōwhai Team
Nick, Rowe, Tracey and Laura

Kia ora whānau,

What a lovely few weeks we have had settling back into our routines in the Kōwhai hub. Both the teachers and the students were very excited to be back.

We have seen lots of examples of "We Love Learning"  and "We Love Challenge" during Discovery time this week.





Some of the students also showed our "We Get There Together" value by helping to protect the plants in the new playground with Pip, Rowe and Paulette.









Just before lock down your child would have brought home their small booklet with login details for websites etc. Please make sure that this is sent back into school, as the students will be continuing to use these to log in during our learning times.

An update to the community calendar: at this stage we are not having a whole school cross country event happening this term. We will keep you updated with whether a smaller event may happen at a later date.

Next week we will be starting to create some sculptures in the style of Joan Miró. We have all sorts of things for the children to use to create their sculpture already in the hub. Your child may choose to bring some other bits in to help their plan and ideas come to life. The children will need to have a shoe box or something of a similar size to keep the parts of their sculptures safe. Please help remind your child to bring this in.

Your child will have started to bring home their reading books again this week. They may not have a reader every day, and on those days they can choose to read a book of their own choice. If your child is reading chapter books, they can continue reading these at home for reading every night. Each student has a list of essential words that are stuck in the front of their home learning book. These are to help them practise their spelling. The children can also use Studyladder and Nick's basic facts website to help practise their math skills at home. Please ensure your children bring their reading folder back into school daily. If the children do not have a reading folder, a reading book will not be able to be sent home.

This week our Kete Certificates have been awarded for:

Congratulations to Matthew Welch, Lukas O'Connor, Georgia Shaw and Aloise Armstrong-Gallot. Keep up the good work!

We hope you have a lovely long weekend!

The Kōwhai Team
Rowe, Nick, Tracey and Laura

Kia ora whānau,

We are very excited to see you on Monday. The teachers have been busy at work for the last two days preparing our hub for you to come in, making sure it is nice and clean for us all.

If you haven't had a chance to look at the video with some information about coming back, watch it now - it has lots of important things for you to remember. You may want to make it full screen to see it best.

Hi Everyone,
Here is the latest news from the Kōwhai team.

Learning at Home
We have loved engaging with you via Seesaw and our Home Learning page and seeing all the amazing things you are doing at home. Below is a picture of the engagement of students at Beckenham from Year 1-4 on Seesaw over the last week.

Here are some pictures of some of the activities students from Kōwhai have completed during their Learning at Home and shared with their teachers.








Welcome Assembly 
Here is our Welcome Assembly for Term 2. You may want to watch this in full screen so you can see it more clearly. 



This week Kōwhai celebrated 'We love Learning' for our Kete awards because of all the amazing work you have been doing at home. Well Done to Elijah Hakeagaiki, Alex Mackintosh, Mina Lazic and Flynn Mitchell!

Cyber Safety (when using school Google Logins)
As you may be aware from the school cyber safety agreement, Beckenham te Kura o Pūroto has various cyber safety systems in place in order to keep students safe. We have one system called "Highlights" that we would like you to be particularly mindful of during lockdown.

This system allows teachers to see Chromebook screens and/or Chrome browser tabs whenever that device or browser is signed into a school Google account during school hours. This is an important tool that teachers use to keep students safe and to offer support while students are learning. It also has privacy implications and is one of the main reasons we always ask and remind students to only use their school account for learning purposes. If you want you child to use their personal device/browser for others purposes or without the school cyber safety systems in place, then it is important that students sign out of their school account and sign into their personal account created by you. If your child has borrowed a school Chromebook, they should only be using this with their school login and for learning purposes.

We also utilise a specialised web filtering system to help keep our students safe online. This filter automatically alerts staff whenever a student account is potentially being used to access unsafe content on the internet. Like Highlights, this filter system is active whenever a student is signed into their school account, even if they are at home. If we receive a concerning filter alert during lockdown, we will contact you via email.
It is important to note that teachers never rely on just the filtering system. We work hard to actively monitor students' screens and always ask students to work in a place where their screens are visible. We strongly encourage you to adopt a similar approach at home by making sure children only use devices in a family area where they can be easily seen. We also encourage you to actively check that your child/children are using the device in a safe and positive manner.

Kia ora Kōwhai kids!
We hope you are settling into your second week of lockdown and school holidays!

Hi everyone!
Ben and I have been busy making a jump for him to practice his mountain biking skills. It's really awesome and he was even jumping over his toys to increase the distance he could go. I tried the jump, but was a bit too scared to go up and over as the jump is really big!
I've been busy in my garden too planting new vegetables, picking apples, figs and feijoas. Feijoas are my FAVOURITE so I'm pretty excited to have heaps to eat! I've been walking every day and it has been so cool to see lots of familiar faces when I have been out and about!



I am going to miss you all when I start my new job next week. It has been awesome to have been able to teach such a wonderfully kind, caring and creative bunch of children and know you will just love Tracey! Have a great Easter and I will pop in and see you all when the lockdown is lifted. Take Care xx




 Our cat DC has loved having us at home and spending time curled up on the couch. He loves it when I’m cooking as this means he has a chance to beg for scraps, he can be pretty persistent (very naughty)!


I have also started re-reading the Harry Potter series of books and am enjoying reading them while sitting out in the sun in my backyard!
Take care and I can't wait to hear about what you have been doing during this time.

Jeanette has been busy too. 
I have been making the most of the mild Autumn weather we've been having and enjoying a walk round the neighborhood every day (making sure I keep my distance from the other walkers out there!) I've also busy in the garden planting veggies such as broad beans, snow peas and bok choy which I need to protect from the many rabbits we have hopping around our place - I'm hoping one is the Easter Bunny and will leave us some eggs!


A  message from Rowe  :
Hi Kōwhai! You know how much I love painting and art. I suddenly felt inspired to start painting at home. As you can see I have also been making the most of sunny days and enjoying the vibrant colours of the Autumn leaves. Biking and walking around our local area have been part of my weekly routine too. I even tried a Les Mills fitness class on TV. I didn't know my legs were capable of bending so much. No photo included thank goodness! As you can see  I have been knitting my teddy a scarf to wear on those cold windy days. Missing you all!
Take care everyone. Bear hugs xxxx




A message from Nick:
Hi everyone! I miss you all and hope you are finding lots of fun things to do at home over the holidays.
This week, I caught up with family and friends via video conferencing, went for walks, did some art, constructed a pedestal, watched some movies and did some coding.


Here are some Kōwhai kids who have also sent through pictures of what they have been doing in the holidays.