Category Archives: Kowhai

Demonstrating Agency

Posted on by
We have had a great start to the week with the children demonstrating strong self management during our Discovery Learning.
We have been impressed with the how the children have lived most of our school values especially, We love learning, We love challenge and We get there together during this time. Here are some examples...










Welcome to Kowhai Whanau 2018

Posted on by


Kowhai Information 2018



A Warm Welcome!


Welcome to 2018 with the Kowhai Team. We have a fun and action-packed year ahead, and we are looking
forward to working with you and your child. Our first few weeks will be focused on our school values:
We Care and We Get There Together. This newsletter will provide you with the information you need to know
about the Kowhai Team.

This will include supporting students to become familiar with daily routines including how to use the inside and
outside spaces, how to move around safely and sensibly, how we use resources and materials and learning how
to work together. Becoming familiar with the sequence of and expectations within a day of learning at school
is important for all our tamariki.  We will be developing and growing the children’s skills of working together,
active listening and learning how we learn.
If you have any questions or concerns please let your child’s home group teacher know.


Home Learning
We are currently engaged in a review of our Home Learning protocols. We expect to have completed this soon
and will inform whanau about the Home Learning expectactions.


Parent Help
In the Kowhai team, we LOVE parent help! We usually give the children a month or so to settle into
school routines. There are many ways to assist us at school, such as parent help either in the hub or
‘behind the scenes’. Please don't hesitate to make contact with one of us and we’ll let you know how
you can help.


Communication
We send home newsletters fortnightly (email) to inform you of our class programme. Essential dates and events
can be found on the school calendar and on our team blog: http://teamkowhaibeckenham.blogspot.co.nz/
in hard copy. Teachers will communicate with you via:  newsletters, phone calls, text or email but, of course,
we will always meet with you as and whenever necessary. We love to catch up before and after school whenever
there is time too!


We look forward to the year ahead with you all!
Kowhai Teaching Team

Kowhai News Week 6, term 4, 2017

Posted on by
Christmas Trip to the City

On Thursday 14 December Kowhai Whanau will be visiting the Transitional Cathedral to sing Christmas Carols under the big Christmas tree. We will follow this up by walking to the Botanic Gardens for a picnic and a play. We will be leaving school at 9.30 to travel to the Transitional Cathedral, arriving at 10am. We will leave the Botanic Gardens at 2.30 to be back at school by 3pm.

The trip will cost $4.00 per child to cover the buses. This donation will be added to your school account. Children will also be able to place a present under the Christmas tree for less fortunate children.

We will need parent help for this trip. If you can support us in this please email your child's home group teacher. Thank you so much. This will be an awesome trip!

Pizza Making

Each Monday, the children who received a certificate at our team hui are be able to make pizzas for their lunch. If you are able to help us with the pizza making, please add your name onto this document. We still need helpers for the last couple of weeks.

Marae Trip

On Thursday 16 November we had a wonderful visit to Rehua Marae. We were welcomed onto the marae with a formal powhiri. This was followed by morning tea and an opportunity to explore the wharenui and sketch the beautiful carvings and kowhaiwhai.

We were so impressed with the wonderful behaviour of the children. They showed immense respect at all times. Thank you to Sherrilee who taught us about the marae and supported us during the powhiri. Thank you also to the lovely parents who supported us on the trip. We hope you enjoyed the trip as much as we did.

Athletics Day

This Wednesday was our annual athletics day. It was wonderful to see all the parents at school supporting their children. The Kowhai children competed in five events:

  • High jump
  • Long jump
  • Shot Putt
  • Discus
  • Sprints


We finished off the afternoon by joining up with Koru to run house relays. Congratulations to Heathcote for their win. It was great hearing your enthusiastic house chant.

Library Visits

We are continuing to visit South Library on Mondays during our literacy time. Each literacy group has one more visit each:

Monday 27 November - Anna and Mike's literacy group.
Monday 4 December - Susan's literacy group.
Monday 11 December - Paulette and Rebekah's literacy group.

If you can help with walking down to the library with us please let us know.

Mandarin

A big congratulations to our star Lauren Maule, who was awarded a certificate of excellence for learning Mandarin. This was awarded at a special prize giving at St Margaret's college. Well done Lauren, you can be so proud of your achievement!

Kowhai News Term 4 Week 2

Posted on by
Stationery
Some children are still short on school stationery for this term. Can you please ask your child if they require any more pens, pencils, rubbers, rulers or highlighters and make sure they bring anything they need to school as soon as possible. If they are not sure, they can check in their home group stationery drawer to see what is left in their named stationery bag or feel free to e-mail your point of contact teacher. Thank you!



Drink Bottles
There are still a number of children without drink bottles and as the days are getting warmer, the children are needing them even more. We are encouraging the children to keep hydrated on these warm days and they especially need their water bottles for our run up to Athletics Day when they will be doing lots of practice. Could you please ensure that your child has a drink bottle for school and that they bring it to school every day. We really appreciate your support in this.



We Care Day
We had a wonderful day on Wednesday celebrating We Care Day. We started the day by picking the name of a buddy in the hub from a box and then we secretly gave them compliments throughout the day and left notes on their tote trays or by their bags saying what we appreciated about them. It was great fun and everyone enjoyed giving and receiving positive affirmations of who they are. We spoke to the children about that for some this might even be just a smile or a greeting. Some of us were great at keeping it a secret and it kept us guessing until the very end of the day!



Athletics
Next week we are starting our athletics sessions in our lead up to Athletics Day on Wednesday 22nd November. There will be more details to follow on this. The children will be out on the field learning how to sprint, run relays, do long jump, high jump and shot put and they will also be throwing the discus. Our practices will be on every Thursday so could you please make sure that your child has sensible footwear on these days so they can take part successfully. Thank you so much.



KOS
Over the past 2 weeks the children have been learning about how to Keep Ourselves Safe at school, at home and when we are out and about. Next week we have Constable Ross visiting and he will be talking to the Year 3 children about Physical Me and Touch and also Secrets and Tricks. With the Year 4 children he will be talking about the Real World and Abuse. If you want to know more about this then please feel free to come and talk to your home group teacher.