Our full on term continues, with a focus on Cantamath and speech delivery this week. After that things settle down a bit, which we are looking forward to. It has been a hectic five weeks so far!

Cantamath:

Tomorrow morning, Wednesday, we head off to Horncastle Arena at 9am. We will be back by 10:30am. 33 children have individual entries in the display competition and all children have been involved in class projects. We are looking forward to seeing how everyone got on and to get inspiration for next year.

In the afternoon our teams compete in 30 minutes of action packed, noisy and exciting problem solving. Good luck to Kate, Freddie, Gemma, Daniel, Santi, Adam, Georgie and Gabriel. If you would like to come along and support the teams, you are most welcome. Parents and staff will be sitting in section H upstairs. Year 7s start at 4pm (meeting at 3:40) and Year 8s at 5pm (meeting at 4:40).

Speeches:

Tomorrow we start our speech deliveries in class. Hopefully your child has brought their speech notes home to rehearse. If not, these can be accessed via Google Classroom. Children who feel they cannot present to their home-group will be videoed delivering their speech. Our hub final will be on Monday afternoon next week, starting at 1:30. Parents are most welcome to attend. We will be announcing finalists this Friday.

GirlBoss workshops:

We have over 30 girls taking part in GirlBoss workshops tomorrow. We are excited to be able to offer this opportunity. The girls will be inspired to fulfil their  dreams in STEM (science, technology, the arts, engineering and maths).

Congratulations to our Beckenham ski team:

Winni, Boyd, Paolo, Ben, Freddie and Lena skied their hearts out on Sunday at Mt Cheeseman. They were competing in the Canterbury primary and intermediate ski champs. We were so proud of their third place intermediate team achievement. With the majority of the team being in Year 7, we have high hopes for next year when they will be a wee bit heavier and a wee bit faster!

Last winter sport:

This Friday is our final session of winter sport at Hagley Park. A huge thanks goes out to all of the parents who have committed to coach and manage teams on a weekly basis. The children would not have this opportunity without your involvement. Can you please wash and return sports uniforms early next week. There is a tub by the courtyard door for returns.

The children are doing a great job with their speech writing. Most are either finished, or nearly finished. Please ask your child to show you their speech so far. On Monday, we will be getting speech cards printed and will spend time practising presenting. The bottom line is that speeches need to be finished this weekend.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we will be reading through what the children have written and will give final feedback. Please encourage your child to complete their speech writing and to spend some time practising their presentation at home.

Well it is all go in the Intermediate Hub at the moment! A big thanks to those students who took part in our open evening for Year 6 families last Monday evening. We were very proud of how well the children spoke and the confidence they displayed. Our ski trip on Thursday was a real highlight for many. Watching the children's persistence and enthusiasm on the slopes was heart warming.

Cantamath

Yesterday, Cantamath projects arrived at school. The standard of the work was most impressive. I will include some pictures at the end of this post. Many thanks for the encouragement that you provided at home with this work.

Next Wednesday, the whole hub will head off to Horncastle Arena at 9am, returning at 10:30am, to view the Cantamath exhibits. This will help with ideas for the future and we can celebrate the successes that we think many of our students will achieve. A request for a donation of $2.50 towards this trip will be added to your school account.

Speeches

As you are no doubt aware, speech writing is a key focus in our hub at the moment. The children are writing stories that are either original, retold or retold with a twist. These speeches need to be finished by this Friday. Tomorrow would be the perfect opportunity for these to be worked on at home. Please, encourage your child to share their speech with you. The competition guidelines state the speech should be 3 minutes (no more than 4) long. On Thursday we will look at presentation tips. Next week on Monday and Tuesday there will be opportunity for practising the presentation of speeches. Interacting with the audience, making use of pauses, including gesture and speaking clearly at a steady pace, are all important things to practise. Previous feedback encouraged the children not to place emphasis on memorising their speech and to instead put more focus on delivering their speech in an engaging manner.  The more opportunities to practise at home the better. Speeches will be presented to home-groups on Wednesday and Thursday. Any child who feels they cannot present their speech to their home-group has the option of recording their speech as a video, which the home-group will view. Finalists will be selected from the home-groups to compete in our Year 7 & 8 Speech Final on Monday afternoon, August 27th. We have two teachers from the English Dept at Cashmere High School coming to judge this competition.

Hockey

Every Tuesday afternoon Will works with the children to develop their hockey skills. Here are some photos from today's session.

Just a reminder that Cantamath projects are due on Monday. This may mean a bit of work over the weekend! When projects arrive at school on Monday, they need to be put in section groups in the maker-space. All projects need name and home-group written on the back. We will mark the projects and select which ones will go through to the Cantamath competition at Horncastle Arena, on August 22nd.

Many thanks for your encouragement and guidance with these projects. We are excited to see what the children have created.

What a day! The sun shone, the wind didn't blow and the children made the most of this wonderful opportunity to enjoy a day in the mountains. We saw so many examples of children embracing challenge and absolutely glowing in their achievements. I don't think there will be much trouble falling asleep tonight. A big thanks to all of the parent helpers who helped make this such a special day.