We are looking forward to welcoming everyone back later this morning, when the children return from tech. We've spent part of our break planning another exciting term of learning in the  Intermediate Hub. Please read the messages below carefully.

J-Rock: 

Please click this link to indicate your child's costume situation.
Tickets for J-Rock and Stage Challenge can be purchased through Ticketech. They are rather expensive at $34.50 each for adults, plus booking fee. It is a very entertaining evening. We will be performing our J-Rock for the school community later in the term, venue to be announced. This date will be set shortly.

Sport:

Tomorrow we start training for cross country. Please make sure your child brings a t-shirt to change into for running. Roll-on deodorant would also be handy, no aerosol please. Our school cross country is next Friday afternoon, at Beckenham Park.

Trials are underway for winter sport teams this week. Many thanks to the parents who have offered to help; without you we cannot enter teams. Our winter sport programme gets underway in week three, the day after J-Rock!

Basketball starts for the Friday team, the Breakers, next Friday, May 12th, and the Monday team, the Bulls, on May 15th.

Learning Conferences:

Learning conferences will be happening next week on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at Champion St. Children will return to Beckenham by 2pm these days. If your child has their learning conference between 2 and 3pm, they can wait at Champion St for you to arrive. If you are yet to book an conference, please click www.schoolinterviews.co.nz and use the code: b5quc. Please note that you will need to allow 30 minutes for your child's learning conference.

Home Learning:

During the holidays we have been marking the children's inquiry learning on the '7 Habits'. Your child will share this with you at learning conferences. We noticed that a number of children did not really understand habit 7, 'Sharpen the Saw'. As a result we have designed the next two weeks home learning around this habit, in lieu of the usual maths home learning. Their assignment is on a google doc, which they will need to access at home. This is not one to leave to the last minute, as it is about 'little and often'. Please encourage your child to fill in the diary section of this assignment regularly.

Week Two:

Next week on Monday we have two events happening. First thing, the children meet by the ponds (usual bus meeting place) at 8:50am. From there they will walk to the Beckenham Methodist Church to spend an exciting hour playing drums with Rhythm Interactive. We will then bus to Champion St. Lunch will be early that day, at 12:15, so that we can be on the buses by 12:45, to travel to Hillview School. They have kindly allowed us to use their gym so we can rehearse for J-Rock. Children will be back at Beckenham by 3pm.  No drops offs or pick ups from Champion Street that day please.

Sharing Our Learning:

We have been blown away by the insightfulness shown by some of our students in their '7 Habits of Highly Successful People' inquiries. Below are just three examples...

Habit 1: Be Proactive:




Mark Inglis is brave and determined he strive to live life to its best.He is is not the kind of person who gets agitated easily. He is very dedicated to having the best attitude that he can have, “attitude determines your altitude”. He now travels around giving speeches about his journey to greatness. So everyone else can learn and aspire to seek out challenges and find ways to make life your adventure.

By Kaia Joergensen



This quote means that everyone does like their comfort zone and they feel embarrassed if they jump out of it, but your dream is unlikely to come true if you don’t take a step out of your comfort zone. Just belive in yourself. But if you take that leap out you will go further in life then if you just stay in your comfort zone feeling safe. You do feel really safe in there and you know nothing will happen to you, but if you stay in there you might become a much different person than you want to become.

By Joe Flynn


Habit 3: Put First Things First:




What Robert is telling us is that we must prioritize our goals in live. ‘A major part of success living lies in the ability to put first things first’ means that a major part of success is to be able to put first things first. ‘Indeed, the reason most major goals are not achieved is what we spend our time doing second things first’ what this means is when you set goals and they are not achieved this is mainly because you have delayed work on it to do a more fun thing first.

We had a great last day of term at Beckenham putting together our J-Rock performance and identifying what still needs work. A reminder that performance day is Thursday May 18th, from 9am until 9pm.

Many thanks to those of you who have offered to help with J-Rock fundraising, food preparation and costume sewing. If you haven't signed up for this yet, and would like to, please click here.  I will contact costume sewers in later this week, or in the first week of term two.

Below are the costume requirements for each part. Some children have several parts. They will let you know who they are.

All girls (except the 'old' school children): black footless tights / leggings and black singlet or camisole.

All boys (except Joel and Fynn): long black pants (no logos showing) and plain black t-shirt (this can be a patterned one turned inside out).

Pond / Flames / Fire: Costumes will be sewn for these parts.

Builders: Overalls / dungarees or checked button-up shirts

Maori welcome: Sherrilee is helping us to source costumes for these parts.

'Old' school children: A white button up shirt (blouse) and black culottes for the girls and trousers for Joel.

Soldiers: Jarred is trying to source jackets and hats. If anyone has access to these, please let us know.

Modern school children: Black base and red school polo shirt.

Earthquake dancers: Black base and a fluorescent vest, either yellow, orange, pink or green.

If you are able to source your child's costume, that would be great. If you are able to help with items such as dungarees, checked button shirts, white button shirts and fluorescent vests, for other children, please let one of us know. If you need help sourcing any items for your child, please let us know by week one of term two.

Many thanks for your support with our J-Rock performance.

Thank you:

As term one draws to a close, we would like to thank all of the parents who have helped to make some of the more exciting aspects of our programme possible. To those who cooked, encouraged and supervised on camp, to those who joined us to run activities or sleep over night at leadership camp, and then there are more who have helped out with the running of, and transportation to, sporting events. A big thanks to Ivo who runs our Friday code club. We love teaching your children, and with your partnership we are able to offer so much more than we could on our own.

Thursday April 13th: 

On the last day of term, we will be spending the day at Beckenham, so we can use the hall for J-Rock rehearsals. Children need to meet at the hall at 8:50. Please do not order lunch-on-line for this Thursday. Do bring $2 for a hot cross bun.

J-Rock is on Thursday May 18th. This is a full day and evening commitment for all children in our hub. A bus will take the children to Horncastle Arena in the morning. Parents or caregivers will need to arrange for the collection of children at 9pm from Horncastle Arena. 

Inquiry Learning:

Inquiry learning has been a big focus at school over the past two weeks and will continue to be this week. We are aware that some children are requiring more support to stay on track. The children are showing a positive attitude to the challenge this learning requires, and to keep the experience positive, we are going to give them a 'do less better' message on Tuesday. Over the weekend we have read each child's work and given them feedback and next steps. We would rather they revise and improve what they have done so far and get maybe at least one more slide done, than rush to have something written on each slide. Many children will need to be spending some time on this at home as well as at school this week. Thank you in advance for encouraging this to happen.

Seeking more parent help:

Leading up to and on the day of J-Rock we need parent support for the following:

• In order to take part in J-Rock there is a substantial participation fee. We will be holding two fundraising events next term to meet this cost. The first is selling jelly and ice-cream. We will do this in week 2, on the Wednesday for Beckenham and Thursday for Champion St. We are looking for one parent to help supervise some students to run this fundraiser. 
• On the day of J-Rock we are at Horncastle Arena from 9:30am until 9pm. Children will bring their lunch. For dinner we would like some parents to help prepare a finger food meal. In the past this has been an american hotdog, muffin and piece of fruit. 
• We are currently thinking about costumes for our performance. Some of these will need to be sewn. Prototypes will be made and we will need parents (grandparents etc) to do the sewing.

Looking ahead to ski day in term 3:

Winter sports help required:

Congratulations:

After an action packed leadership week, we are now settling back into routine in the Kauri Whanau. Hopefully your child has shared with you some of their highlights from last week. Listening to Mark Inglis speak was inspiring. The children were extremely focused and asked great questions. We have often referred back to the wisdom he shared, as it speaks so strongly to the children. The Year 8s impressed us with the way they applied the 7 habits in a wide range of practical activities, during their two day camp. We were also thrilled to hear feedback from the Year 1-4 staff at Beckenham, about how the Year 7 leaders interacted and guided the younger children so positively on Friday.

• 'Very impressed with the organisation and maturity of all our leaders!'
• 'The three boys took a group of children outside to play a range of games. The children came back full of enthusiasm and happiness. Gail, from Room 20 had been out there with them and commented on how well they had organised and managed the children.'
• 'The Year 7 girls were confident and well prepared. They brought positive energy and demonstrated competence and initiative in carrying out their activities. The sensitivity, warmth and understanding that they showed towards these young juniors ignited the connection and respect needed for a productive working relationship. '

Home learning:

The children currently have their final maths home learning for the term. This is due next Friday. We are underway with a leadership inquiry that involves leader research, story retelling and quote interpretation, all with links to the 7 habits, as well as personal reflection. The children will need to spend time on this inquiry at home as well as at school. It is all on google classroom, and can be accessed wherever there is an internet connection. Please ask your child to show you this work and encourage them to spend time continuing their inquiry research and recording at home.
Winter Sports starts in Term 2. We are seeking parent helpers to manage/coach teams alongside our teaching staff and are particularly looking for volunteers to support with hockey, football and netball teams.  If you are keen to support us in this we would love to hear from you. Please email expressions of interest to Jenny at jenny.diggle@beckenham.school.nz. We look forward to hearing from you!

J-Rock:

We are now underway with the whole team working on our collaborative dance performance for J-Rock. J-rock is the junior section of Stage Challenge, a worldwide dance competition and celebration for schools. Each school puts together an 8 minute performance based on a theme of their choice. To fit in with our learning around identity, our performance will tell the story of our school's history. On either Thursday the 18th or Friday the 19th of May, we will be spending the entire day at Horncastle Arena. The day will involve rehearsals, watching other school's performances, whole group meetings and free time activities. We stay right through to the evening performances. It is a huge and very memorable day. We have done this twice before in 2013 and 2015 and the children have loved the experience. At the moment a number are coming to grips with stepping out of their comfort zones, but in just five days we have seen enthusiasm blossom. Please make sure that the two dates above are marked in your diary; we will have confirmation of which is our performance day very soon.

Some Leadership Week Photos:

Seek first to understand and then be understood.

Synergise

We learnt so much from Mark Inglis about being proactive.

We thought about the way geese support each other when completing challenges on the climbing frame.

Leadership week started well yesterday. This afternoon we are very excited to have Mark Inglis coming to talk with our team about leadership. There are a number of changes to the usual programme this week, so please take note of the important messages below.

This Wednesday:

• School photos at Beckenham. All children report to the Beckenham hall at 8:30. We should be off to Champion Street soon after 9am.
• Those who signed up for HPV injections at school, will receive their first dose on Wednesday.
• Year 8s bring food donations for leadership camp: Coast, baking; Mountains, breakfast cereal and Forest, a bag of fruit.
• Year 7s, we need old newspapers and funnels for leadership activities with Tracy on Thursday. Please bring these in if you have them. 

This Thursday:

• Year 8s come with gear for overnight camp. Jarred's black jeep and covered trailer will be on Sandwich Road. On arrival, please take overnight gear directly to his trailer and then all Year 8s, and their day packs, go to the school hall. Due to a damp start to the day, we will be using the school hall until 10:15am.
• Please make sure Year 8s have plenty of warm clothing, including a waterproof coat and beanie. A lot of our activities will be based outside and the weather is not looking that warm.
• Year 7 bring food for a shared lunch. No chips please. It would be great to see some savoury offerings. Year 7s will be working with Tracy on Thursday.

This Friday:

• Year 7 report to the school hall at 8:50. They will be spending the day at Beckenham.
• Year 8s will arrive back at Beckenham by 3pm.

Home learning is due this Thursday, due to leadership week disruptions.

University of Canterbury Kiwi Competitions (Years 5-8) will be replacing ICAS tests this year.

The tests, in maths, english and science, are a good challenge for our more able students. Entry forms are available in the reception foyer of Champion Street. Please get these filled out and sent back to the Beckenham office.

Basketball:

We are holding basketball trials this week. Our plan is to enter two teams in the Monday and Friday after school competition at Pioneer, that runs through term 2 and 3. We have a huge bunch of hopefuls; unfortunately only half of them will get into a school team. Those who miss out and are still keen to play, can contact Pioneer Basketball, a club who enter teams in this competition, with children coming from a variety of schools.

Choir:

Jarred has met with the children who are keen to be part of our Kauri choir. They will be getting underway with a couple of lunchtime practices this term. Next term practices will take part during school time, while the rest of the hub will be engaged in other music learning. If your child hasn't let Jarred know they are keen to be part of the choir yet, it is not too late.

The Huxter Mountain Bike Relay:

This event is being held at Mcleans Island on Friday the 7th of April. While this event takes place during school hours, the children will remain the responsibility of their parents for the duration of the event. We know of a few children already entered for this event by their parents and a few more children seeking a racing partner. If your child is interested in this event, please email Jenny to be put in touch with another family who are looking to enter. Please also let Jenny know when you have made an entry so that we can provide a Beckenham sports top and mark the child appropriately on the school roll.  

Winter sport coaches required: