Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome to Week 4 of the third term! 

We would like to extend a very warm welcome to Poppy Wallace-Bell. Poppy is with us for the final 7 week placement of her teacher training at the University of Canterbury. Please introduce yourselves to Poppy and help to make her feel at home with us here at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto.

There is so much wonderful learning taking place within our hub, including a focus on Calendar Art, a Digitech topic starting next week, amazing learning in Maths (including 2D and 3D shapes, repeated addition leading on to multiplication, skip counting forwards and backwards in 2s, 5s and 10s and learning the doubles, e.g., 3+3, 7+7, etc., all the way up to 10+10) and of course, our Structured Literacy group learning. Your children are fantastic learners and we're all very proud of them!

Eight of our Koru team members are going to be moving through to the Kahikatea team on Monday next week. We wish them all the very best and will miss them enormously. We know that as long as they continue to be guided by our Beckenham Values they are going to prove to the new Kahikatea team members that they are wonderful learners and loyal friends.

Maths Week Next Week!

To celebrate Maths Week, we will be having a daily joke and maths problem on a whiteboard, outside Hangere, for you and your child to solve! Come to school each day with plenty of time to spend with your child mulling over the joke and solving the problem together.

Mathematics & Statistics: Understanding your child's learning

The Ministry of Education's Parent Portal is a collection of resources for parents, families and carers. Here, you will find information about the learning your child is engaging in at school, within their year level, and how you can support them at home with their learning. Feel free to have a look and explore what you can do at home to support your child's Maths learning, while, at the same time, keeping it fun!

KOS:

Keeping Ourselves Safe

The Koru team will be participating in the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme during Weeks 6 and 7 of this term. Your child's homegroup teacher will teach six sessions and Constable Meg will teach two sessions.

What will children learn?

They will learn:

- to work out when their safety is at risk

- how to keep safe when they meet and mix with other people

- who and how to ask for help if they, or someone they know, is being abused

- to go on asking for help until someone does something to stop the abuse

- that it is important to make and follow personal, family, and school safety rules

Children will have some short activities to work through at home with you. Thank you for your support with this. Please click on this link for more information about Keeping Ourselves Safe.

Beckenham's Got Talent:

The Student Council members are organising a Beckenham's Got Talent event this term. If your tamariki are keen to sing, dance, play an instrument, perform some magic, drama or poetry, please sign them up by emailing your child's teacher. The maximum group size is eight people and the maximum performance time is four minutes. Auditions for the final event are in Week 8.

If your child wishes to audition for our school talent show, whānau are welcome to organise this with their child and/or a group of children. Any practices will need to take place at home after school. 

Structured Literacy:

Here are a few little video links below (some of which have been shared before, and are now being reshared for new families):

• The Sounds of New Zealand English

One of our teachers has recorded some videos to support our whānau with understanding what our literacy stages look like and what you can do to support your learner at home:

• Stage 1 & How to Help at Home
• Stage 2 
• Stage 3
• Stage 4
• Stage 4+

We hope you find these videos both informative and helpful as you support your child's learning at home!

And now for this fortnight's photo gallery:

Showing 'We Care', by helping with some planting in the Pūkaki play space.

Preparing the roots of this little tree for planting.

Wow - awesome building skills on display here!

More care and kindness being shown towards the environment.

Caring for this newly planted tree.

'We Get There Together'.

Wonderful teamwork, tamariki.

Inquiring into why our shadows change at different times throughout the day.

Making the link between repeated addition and multiplication.

...and learning that the multiplication sign 'x' means 'groups of'.

Beautifully formed letters at handwriting time.

Making the link between knowing the doubles and therefore knowing the two times table.

We know that a sentence starts with a capital letter, has spaces between the words and (mostly) ends with a full stop.

Learning about 2D shapes and their properties.

A hexagon...

A trapezium...

A parallelogram...

A triangle...

A pentagon...

A rhombus...

Showing 'We Get There Together' and 'We Care'.

More lovely teamwork.

Good friends working together on their project in the sandpit.

What a wonderful thing to do together in the warm sunshine - don't you just love a good book!

The audience grows...

Happy times with our Koru team friends!

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Katie, Stacey, Niquita and Elizabeth

Kia ora, e te whānau,

A warm welcome to this week's Koru Team blog post. It's been a very busy fortnight, filled with lots of amazing learning, as well as the whole school Book Character Dress Up day last Friday and, of course, today's Cross Country event. The children did incredibly well during their Cross Country run today, showing 'We Love Challenge' (completing the course, and doing their best to show determination and stamina) and 'We Get There Together' (encouraging their classmates if anyone was finding the running challenging). We thank our Year 7 and 8 Kauri students who supported the Koru team tamariki as they ran today.

Kiss and Drop:

We know that the children all enjoyed the Readathon's Stop, Drop, and Read, which helped to support some great reading habits. Thank you so much to those of you who were able to collect sponsors to help raise funds for our school.

  

If you still have sponsorship money to collect, this can be transferred directly to the PTA account 12-3148-0244558-00 using 'Readathon' as a reference.

The costumes on Book Character Dress Up day were absolutely adorable.

Check out the selection of photos below for some of the 'characters' who arrived at school last Friday!

We hope you have a very happy and relaxing weekend and we look forward to seeing the tamariki, bright-eyed and eager, next week.

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Katie, Stacey, Niquita and Elizabeth

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

niquita.dalley@beckenham.school.nz

stacey.mclachlan@beckenham.school.nz

elizabeth.drummond@beckenham.school.nz

 Kia ora, e te whānau,

Welcome to this fortnight's blog post! We are so impressed with the tamariki - they have been making amazing progress in their learning since starting school. This, of course, includes their academic learning, as well as their emotional learning and their social learning. 

Our blog post today contains information about:

• the Koru team's class contract
• a typical day in the Koru team
• Structured Literacy in the Koru team
• Online Safety information
• and finally, some beautiful photos of the tamariki during the past fortnight.

He Waka Eke Noa:

We are all in this waka together!

As a team, we have discussed the meaning of this whakataukī and also the meaning of the word 'contract'. The tamariki together came up with some guidelines which we've all agreed to follow:

• We show 'We Care'
• We are kind to each other
• We use gentle hands and gentle feet
• We speak kindly to each other
• We look after our things, like our hats and our drink bottles
• We take care of our spaces and help at tidy up time
• We take care of the games and toys
• We are helpful
• We use good manners, like 'please' and 'thank you'
• We look after each other.

Other routines, which the children have embraced, include: 

• unpacking their bags when they arrive at school in the morning, including putting their Literacy folder in the right container; 
• remembering their poetry books and library folders on Friday; 
• lining up after break times; 
• 'showing five' whenever they are sitting on the mat; 
• and following the expectations in their small Literacy group lessons (sitting up, chair pulled in, focusing on the learning, and 'whiteboards are for writing, not drawing').

We thank you all for your continued support with the start and end of day routines!

A typical Day in the Koru team:

We also fit into our days: interoception (short little activities with a focus on breathing and noticing how our bodies are feeling), music and movement, and of course aspects of both Literacy and Maths are incorporated into Learning Through Play. 

A fun focus during Learning Through Play at the moment is the theme of 'Shops and Shopping'. The original shop set up included a children's library beside the shop as well as roles such as the delivery person, two shopkeepers and visitors to the shop and the library. Elizabeth was included in the play (the Mum) as well as Katie (the Dad). Other children have been involved making signs, labels, money and purses/bags.

The children have been learning new songs and actions at our Music and Movement times, and they agreed that they would like two of these shared with you so that they can teach you at home. We know you'll love them! The expressions and actions that we see while the children are singing are absolutely adorable. See if your children will sing to you now (a great opportunity for 'the child to be the teacher').

• The Dot Song
• Pop See Ko

Wow, what a wonderfully creative model!

...and a bird's eye view.

Creating a 4 element pattern with the penguins.

Five friends working together with the Mobilo.

Showing 'We Care' to ensure that the Mobilo is fairly shared.

"Here you are. You're welcome to use these pieces of Mobilo in your construction."

Collaborating on a Lego construction.

Putting in best effort and focus to produce top quality work.

Counting large numbers using the abacus.

"How many beads have been pushed across and how many are left?"

Collaborating to solve a problem using the abacus.

Working with a big buddy to count the beads on the abacus.

Showing 'We Care' by sweeping up small bits of rubbish with the brush and shovel.

Also showing 'We Care' by looking after our learning spaces. Thank you!!

What a kind thing to do for everyone, including our cleaner.

How many different ways can we make the number 5?

Working together to play the 'Shops' game.

Ensuring that the Children's Library, situated beside the shop, has enough chairs and books for visitors.

"Here you are, Batty... a book for you."

"Is everyone who is visiting the library feeling happy and comfortable?"

"Yes, thank you. It's lovely here!"

Beautiful dance moves...

...getting some practice in before the next disco?

So much energy and so many fabulous moves!

Kia ora, e te whānau,

A very warm welcome back to our fourth and final term of the 2024 school year. We especially welcome the families of the new children to our Koru team: Atlas, Isabella, Oliver, Ruby, Remy and Johnny. They've all made a lovely, positive start to school. Well done, tamariki!

Routines:

All children have embraced our routines and have fallen back into the swing of things with impressive ease. Earlier in the year, the children helped to develop our Learning Through Play guidelines, as follows:

• Use gentle hands and gentle feet
• Treat everyone with kindness and care
• Use quiet inside voices
• Tidy as you go
• Follow instructions quickly and quietly
• Be part of the team at tidy up time
• Don't tip everything out of a container, just take what you need (unless it's a jigsaw puzzle!).

These guidelines were the children's ideas and we revisited them at the start of this term, just as a reminder, and also so that our new children would be familiar with them. 

Other routines, which the children have embraced once again, include: unpacking their bags when they arrive at school in the morning, including putting their Literacy folder in the right container; remembering their poetry books and library folders on Friday; lining up after break times; 'showing five' whenever they are sitting on the mat; and following the expectations in their small Literacy group lessons (sitting up, chair pulled in, focusing on the learning and 'whiteboards are for writing, not drawing').

Friendship list:

Georgia will, once again, be sending out an invitation to those of you who would like to have your details added to our Friendship List, so please keep an eye out for an email about this.

Term Overview:

We have a very busy term ahead of us. Some of the topics that we'll be focusing on include:

• our school-wide focus areas (including How We Play, Moving Inside, Speaking and Listening and Tidying)
• our Word of the Week continues (including Being an Upstander, Honesty, Inclusion, Showing Respect, Friendship and Determination, along with several other key values)
• Life Education (with a focus on friendship - further details in the next Blog post)
• Cyber Safety (and again with further details to come)

Kia ora, e te whānau,

A very warm welcome to Fin and Greyson who have both joined our team recently. You've made a wonderful start to school, tamariki - well done!

It's been a very busy time for Koru team members, as we spread out to include our new learning space, Kōmanawa. Elizabeth's Home Group is starting and finishing the day there, and some Literacy groups are also being taught in Kōmanawa. The tamariki have fully embraced our new space, and are treating it with great care and respect. Welcome to Finlay and Greyson, who have started school and joined our Koru team.

• Boxes, please - a request from us to, please, save any boxes you might normally put out in your recycling bin and send them into school instead - the children are loving creating and decorating in the Maker Space in Hangere and we find that we're always in need of boxes, generally small to medium in size, although shoe boxes and even those slightly bigger can also be turned into homes for fairies, dioramas and so on. We'd also love any little bits and bobs such as ribbon, lace, buttons, small pieces of fabric, feathers, etc., for decorative purposes. Many thanks if you're able to help out with any of these items.
• Beckenham's Got Talent - your children may have been talking with you about the Beckenham Talent Show which is traditionally held at the end of Term 3. A member of our School Council will be coming to the Koru team soon to explain what is involved. There will be more information coming out shortly however, in the meantime, if your child has a particular 'talent' (for example, it might involve singing, dancing, gymnastics, hula hooping, telling jokes, performing magic tricks, etc.) they could be practising at home, in readiness for the Koru team show which will take place prior to the whole school Talent Show. One 'performance' from the Koru team will be selected to be performed at the whole school show. Children are welcome to join up with some friends and enter the Talent Show as a team. Please note, there will be more information to come very soon.

Staying Safe Online: Bullying

One in five young people in New Zealand have been the target of online bullying – it can happen to anyone, and it can be hard for parents and whānau to deal with. Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto takes online bullying seriously and would encourage you to chat to your tamariki’s teacher if you have any concerns about online bullying.

Visit Netsafe’s Online Bullying Advice for Parents to read more.

Maths Whānau Evening:

What a fabulous and enlightening evening this was. Rob Profitt-White has been working with kaiako (teachers) here at Beckenham Te Kura over several years now and how fortunate we were to have been able to have him presenting to whānau last night! It was great to see so many of our Koru team families present and we do hope that you found the evening enormously valuable.

An update on Maths in the Koru Team:

In the Koru team, as you know, we just LOVE Maths! Here is a reminder about aspects of Maths and the different forms Maths takes in our programme:

• a weekly problem-solving session
• Hot Spot warm ups, with a focus throughout each week on developing number knowledge, Move and Prove and Notice, Think, Wonder (see below for descriptions of these activities)
• small group lessons, during which the children are taught to use their number knowledge in order to strategise to solve number problems
• at times throughout each term, a focus on other Maths strands (aspects of Algebra, Geometry and Measurement and Statistics)
• a Maths game lesson
• and once a week on Fridays our handwriting lesson is devoted to specifically learning and practising the correct numeral formation.