Firstly, it was so nice to see you all over the past couple of days at Learning Conferences. We were highly impressed with the way the children all spoke about their learning and discussed their next steps. As a team, we feel so fortunate to have such a dedicated parent community and know that this results in the children being supported by us all to achieve their best.
We hope you were able to also take the time to look at the building designs and have a talk with Michelle or Sandy about our future learning spaces. If you didn't get a chance to go into the hall, the display will be put up in the school office foyer for you to view. We highly recommend you doing so.
STOP PRESS! Olympic Performance (Celebration of Learning)Over the next two weeks the children are creating dances to share their learning about the Olympics with you. Each hub has discussed what aspect of Olympic learning they want to share and will be using dance as their method of communication. We are really excited about this performance and know that it will be a true visual extravaganza. At this stage, we anticipate the performance to be around 40 minutes long.
We will be putting on a matinee performance for the school and for any parents, grandparents of whanau that can't make it to the evening performance as well as an evening show:
'Matinee' - Tuesday 13th September- 11.30am- 12.30pmEvening Show - Wednesday 14th September- 6pm - 7pm
The children will need to be at school by 5.40pm to get organised for the performance. We need to take a roll of the children at school for safety reasons. Please drop your child at their hub room before heading to the school hall to get a great seat. A gold coin donation will be warmly appreciated.
On Monday, we will let you know what your child will need to wear for their performance. Don't panic - no sewing will be needed!
Home LearningAs we prepare for our Celebration of Learning, we will not be sending home spelling words for the next two weeks. Mad Maths Minute and reading will continue as normal. The focus in reading will be on reading for enjoyment so we would like the children to choose books from home or the library that they wish to share. This is an important part of reading and a great way to help introduce your child to different types of books.
School of GymnasticsThis week and last week, we went to the Christchurch School of Gymnastics. The children had a fantastic time exploring new gymnastic equipment and it was wonderful to see many of the children demonstrate our key school value of 'We Love Challenge' by going on apparatus that they had never been on before. Many of these items were high and required courage to complete the task given by the instructors. Here we are in action...
Football - Beckenham vs ThorringtonAs part of our P.E. programme, the children have been playing a variety of winter sports. This afternoon, a group of children from our team played against Thorrington School.
Forget 'Match of the Day'... Beckenham produced 19 keen football players to take to the field for two 8-a-side games against year three and four teams from Thorrington School, on home turf.
The friendly games were hard fought, and both schools showed a lot of heart and determination. Congratulations to all the Beckenham players, you definitely showed our school values, ‘We get there together’ and ‘We love Challenge’!
Thank you so much to our two senior school students, Henry McMeking and William Hanlon for the time you spent with the Kowhai students helping to referee the games and showing excellent leadership skills. Also, a big thank you to the Kowhai team for coming out to support your team mates and cheering your friends on with pride.
CSO visit
Yesterday we were fortunate enough to have four musicians from the Christchurch symphony Orchestra perform for us and teach us about the instruments they play. We learnt about the different sections in the orchestra as well as how some instruments are played and how they can be used to tell a story or portray characters.
That's all for now.
Have a wonderful weekend ahead
Kowhai Teaching Team
We would really love the assistance of more parents to help us in Term 4. Your continued support with our class programmes is highly appreciated. We understand that many of you are busy, however, any time would be greatly accepted. Please contact your Hub teacher(s) to let them know if you are able to help. We would love any interested parents who would like to take a small group of children to Thorrington Resthome each week and another parent who would be keen on baking pizzas with a group of children each week. 
We were thrilled to see such an incredible turn out at our Kowhai Team Dance Extravaganza last week. The children loved sharing and performing for you and we were inundated with many positive comments from you all. Don Ferguson has kindly offered to put a performance video together. We will send out a link when it is ready.
Neighbourhood Support
