Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto PTA Beginning of the Year Bulletin 2020

Who is the PTA?

We are a group of caregivers and teachers who meet on the 4th Wednesday every month. Our main
purpose is to support the school. We try to do this not only by fundraising, so we can financially
support the school, but also by organising events that bring us together as a school community. We
have an extraordinary community at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto and because of this, the PTA can
do a great job at supporting the school.
We would love new people to come along & see how we work. Why not pop along to our first
meeting in 2020: Wednesday 26th February at 7:30 pm in the staffroom & check the PTA out? You do not have to be a PTA member to attend and there is no pressure to feel like you need to join just because you attend a meeting (There is often good food and always good chat!).
If you do want to help, rest assured you only have to do as little or as much as you have capacity for.
We are all busy parents with other commitments: jobs, preschoolers, our own sports (even partners
get a look in sometimes), and if we all do a little bit, it is amazing what can be achieved. Having a
broad range of skills and ideas is key to making the PTA work, so don’t be shy, come and say hi :).
Please click on the link Meet your PTA for a breakdown on who we are & what we do. We have a variety of roles, some that can even be done at home.

How does our PTA work?

Each event has a ‘coordinator’ who manages that event with the assistance from other PTA
members & volunteers from our school community. Volunteers are sourced either via the PTA
Survey (which gets sent out at least once a term via the newsletter) or from Google forms sent out
via social media. Please click on the link if you would like to complete the survey: PTA Survey.

How do we decide what to fundraise for?

We listen to your suggestions made via the PTA Survey. We also ask the staff to create a “Wish List”.
This year PTA is organising its largest fundraiser - The Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Twilight Fair,
which will be held on Fri 20th March 2020. Money raised from the Twilight Fair will be used to
replenish our school sports uniform collection (which is badly needed for the smaller students at
school!) and for funds the school can use to update our digital technology. A new digital curriculum
has been introduced nationwide: children need to learn coding concepts and how to program robots
so that they can become creators of digital technology, not just users. To do this requires expensive
equipment. As a PTA and a community, we are striving to assist the school with this expense.
Planning for the Fair is well underway and we would love new people to join the Fair Team and help us crack the $20k mark!!

What did we get up to last year?

Last year we enjoyed hosting the New Whānau Morning Tea each term, the Kids Masquerade Disco
& co-hosting, with the Student Council, the Shared Breakfast on the Shortest Day.
We ran the Clubbercise classes, which were a huge success – “whoop whoop”!

We organised a Cheese Roll-a-thon and sold some scrumptious Cheese Rolls!
On the last Sunday of each month, the PTA hosted a car boot sale in the school car park, the
Beckenham Booty. This was a great way to clear out cupboards and meet new members of the
community as people hawked their wares.


We co-ordinated our annual fundraisers the Read-a-thon, Calendar Art & the Back in 1969 Quiz.
Our last event of the year was the Annual Leavers lunch, a beautiful way to send off the year 8’s on
their next adventure!
With the money we raised last year, a new Beckenham Te Kura o Puroto Gazebo was purchased to
be used at community events where our tamariki are participating. Another exciting item bought
with fundraising money was the very flash Outdoor Portable Sound System, which was just fantastic
to see in use at athletic sports - goodbye squeaky bullhorn!
As well as this we funded each child to go on a class trip and contributed to the annual Kauri ski trip.
A real highlight has been seeing the new Outdoor Spaces take shape, as all the money generously
given by the community has enabled the Outdoor Spaces Committee to finalise the design stage and
begin to build some fabulous play spaces for our tamariki.

What is coming up in 2020?

As usual we have lots of things planned for the year ahead! There is no expectation for families to
participate in all the events we provide, anything contributed is always gratefully received. We aim
to offer our families a variety of events to participate in & hope you can enjoy some of them this
year.
Besides our main event the Twilight Fair, we will bring you back the Kids Disco, the Read-a-thon,
Calendar Art, the Quiz, a Top Team Family Fun Day and more!
One of our less known activities is mobilising pastoral care for families who need it. (We always keep
the family anonymous). A helping hand when a family is having a tough time is always so
appreciated. If you think you could cook a meal or bake a cake when we put a shout out, fill in the
PTA survey link.

We Care Range
We love our ‘We Care’ range, products that help us care for our environment & provide practical
assistance in our daily lives. We have Jute Bags, String Veggie Bags & Beeswax Wraps to assist you with your war on plastic. We also have a few Beckenham Tea Towels & Aprons left along with the Beckenham Grid A2 Canvas.


We are excited to be working in conjunction with our local Eatery, The Birdwood, to offer the
following Deal – purchase a $17 Reusable Takeaway Cup from The Birdwood & your first coffee is free. Every time you refill that cup you will receive an 80c discount. Let’s help keep those disposable cups out of the Landfill. These ‘Ideal Cups’ are NZ Made, BPA Free, Leak-Proof, Robust & Barista- friendly.
Contact us to order from our We Care Range at pta@beckenham.school.nz.


Thank you!
Thank you for your ongoing support
Remember to always check the PTA Facebook Page & the PTA Website for up to date information.
Regards
Jody Smith and Liz May (Co Chairs) and the PTA team
https://www.facebook.com/ptabeckenhamschool/
https://sites.google.com/view/beckenham-school-pta-nz/home

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

What a great week it has been, seeing everyone back at school. What's hard to believe is that we are into the second month of the year already!
Our thoughts have been with our friends and the communities of Southland over the past few days. One of our past staff, Rebekah Stoop is now teaching in Tapanui and when I spoke to her on Wednesday they were on their second day of being closed due to the flooding. Not the way that you want to start the school year!

Staff update:

It is with great regret that I have to advise that Paulette Newton will be finishing her tenure at Beckenham at the end of Term 1. Paulette has been a member of the staff at Beckenham for many years, in both full-time and part-time capacities, and currently is the Team Leader of the Kōwhai Team.


Paulette has been successful in winning a position with the RTLB (Resource Teachers of Behaviour and Learning) Service where she will be able to both utilise and continue to grow her expertise in supporting diverse learners, not just in one school but in many schools.
Whilst we are extremely sad to be losing Paulette to our staff, we are very excited for her and the new challenges and growth that she has ahead of her. As a member of the Beckenham Community, and a parent of a child in the school, we know that she won't be a stranger to us.
The position of Team Leader is currently advertised, and we will keep you updated when we have new information about this.

Health Curriculum Review - meeting Mon 17th Feb, 2:30pm

At the end of 2019 we circulated information about our current Health Curriculum review. Thank you to those people who have already engaged with this. We promised to recirculate this at the start of the year, and to also provide a time that you could come and talk with us about it.
We will be holding a meeting on Monday 17th February from 2:30-3pm in the staffroom and invite you to attend.

The review material can be accessed via this link, and we will be going over this and discussing it at the meeting.

Annual Donations 

Earlier this week you should have received a special newsletter from the Board of Trustees about the new annual donation request. You can find a copy of that information on our website if you need it. Please note that we will NOT be requesting further donations from you this year (except for Camps) and plan to budget and work with the single, annual donation requested for each child. We appreciate whatever contribution you feel that your whānau can make towards supporting the rich educational experiences that we aim to provide for our children's learning.

School Website 

Our server is being upgraded this weekend, so the school website will be offline from 4pm today until 9am Monday morning.

Ngā mihi nui
Sandy Hastings
Principal - Tumuaki

Important Dates 

Citizen of the Week

Elsie O'Beirne - Year 4

Elsie, what a stunning role model you are! You strive to do your very best in all situations and show our school values in all you do. You willingly help those around you to achieve their best and we love the focussed and persistent way you approach any challenge or learning task. You regularly take on extra responsibilities and can be relied upon to fulfil these a high standard. You are a star, Elsie, and we are so proud of you. Tino pai!

School Notices

Allergies

Across our school, we have several children with different food allergies. To support the wellbeing of these students, we have the following guidelines in place which we ask you to follow:

For 2020, we have no specifically excluded foods. As always, we ask that no child shares their food with another, due to the anaphylactic risk for some our students. Whenever children bring food to school for shared kai occasions, please follow the guidelines provided by the teachers for that event.

We will inform you during the year if specific guidelines for your child’s hub change.  If you have any questions or concerns, please discuss them in the first instance with your child’s homeroom teacher.

Playground Update

Our playspace is beginning to take shape thanks to The Greenscape team. The double slide is sitting in the Library ready to be installed on the mound. The concrete river is flowing nicely with some natural rocks to be placed throughout. The digger has been in for the past couple of days getting ready to extend the sandpit, and extra drainage will be in place before our sensory play area is finished. Later in the term, we will need a little help from our children and community with the planting of a few hundred trees and shrubs before our official opening day.

We are all looking forward to having a play (including all the teachers!)

Smart Watches

CSM Outreach Band Programme

... starts this coming Wednesday, 12th February!
8am Training Band - in the hall, with your instrument and book.
3pm - Concert Band - in the hall, with your instrument and book(s).
Our new CSM Outreach Band co-ordinator is Jody Keehan, and she will be making contact with all enrolled students over the next couple of days. If you have any queries, or haven't heard from her and you think you should have, please email her at outreachband@csm.org.nz

School Policies - Concerns and Complaints 

It is always our goal to work with you to resolve any concerns before they reach the 'complaint' stage, and it is also important that our processes are transparent for you to follow.
You can access all of our School Policy documents through the 'SchoolDocs' website by entering the username: 'beckenham' and password: 'pride' (all lower case) and searching for either 'Concerns' or 'Complaints'.
You can also see a simple flowchart of the process below (also available on the SchoolDocs site:

Uniform and belongings

Some uniform reminders:

Please do ensure that children come to school in full uniform each day. This means black on the bottom (other than the checked skorts) and red on the top, or the dress. On Fridays, children have the option of wearing the House shirts (available from the office for $25).
If you don't have enough uniform for children to have 'one on and one in the wash', please remember that our second-hand uniform shop, run by our PTA has very cheap and good quality uniform items available.
Hats are compulsory in Terms 1 & 4 when children go outside. Please ensure that they have a hat at school each day.

Please name all uniform and belongings

It's barely the end of week 1 and the lost property is beginning to accumulate! PLEASE make sure that all of your child's belongings (uniform items, hat, lunchbox, drink bottle) are ALL clearly named so that they can be returned to your child rather than ending up in the lost property.

Student Health & Wellbeing

Our review of Health and Wellbeing teaching is underway. If you have not yet contributed your feedback and would like to do so, please go to this link before the 12/02/2020. -
We also welcome interested whānau to attend a Community Consultation session on our Health and Wellbeing teaching, to be held in the Staffroom on Monday 17/2/2020 at 2.30pm.
Click here to view the new Health and Wellbeing section of our website for parents. It is packed with useful links, information and YouTube clips you can watch with your child.

Parenting resources from the Canterbury Mental Health Group Alright? : Handy tipsheets on sleep, helping children manage worry, helping children keep calm and lots more.

PTA News

Let the Countdown to the Fair Begin!!  6 weeks today!

Mark your calendars - Friday 20th March 2020 will be our Twilight Fair. Let's showcase our new playground & celebrate with our community!

Calling all Artists, Musicians, business owners & generous souls…..We are on the hunt for donations of prizes, vouchers, cash, food, services & acts to help us to create an amazing Twilight Fair.

If you are a business/person that can help, please click on the link for more detailed information: Beckenham Te Kura o Puroto Fair Donation Form


All funds raised from the Twilight Fair will go towards much needed new school sports uniforms and for purchasing digital technology equipment such as beebots and spheros for our children to learn coding concepts and how to program robots so that they can become creators of digital technology - not just users.

Thanks to wonderful Gail Harris from Platform Design Ltd for our fabulous poster design.

Mindfulness for Children

Does your child struggle with anxiety or stress? Would you like to support them to learn skills to enhance their wellbeing?

The Psychology Centre is offering Pause Breathe Smile (PBS) a group for children (age 8-11 years) who struggle with stress and anxiety and their parents to develop skills of mindfulness.  PBS is an evidence-based program, developed by the Mental Health Foundation, found to improved focus and attention, enhance self-awareness and reduced stress. Our recent pilot group at the Psychology Centre also found that PBS is effective at reducing anxiety and improving coping in children.

The group will run from 4 - 5pm, starting Wednesday 19 February for 8 weeks at the Psychology Centre, University of Canterbury and requires both child and parent/ caregiver to attend and learn together. The cost of the program is $125.

If you would like more information or to register, contact Justine Brougham justine.brougham@canterbury.ac.nz

To hear kids talking about PBS watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awo8jUxIm0c



For more information about the research and benefits of PBS look at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1707/S00094/pause-breathe-smile-mindfulness-training-will-help.htm

This year, the Board of Trustees have decided to try a different approach.  We are going to ask you for a flat donation of $150 per child, for all trips and activities. This approach is based on the new government scheme (2019) for Decile 1 to 7 schools which, as a Decile 8 school, we are not eligible to receive because the government believes that Decile 8-10 communities will receive this funding and more from their whānau and community.

The only other separate request we’ll be asking you (Y5-8 whānau) for, will be for overnight camps (Y5/6 every second year, and Y7/8 annually) which are impossible to fund from the $150 request and still offer all of the other rich curriculum options.

For most families, the amount we ask per year will be close to the same, or less than it was last year. The big difference will be that we will not be asking you contributions frequently during the year, activity by activity, and you will be able to budget your family’s school costs from the start of the year. It will also make it simpler for our staff to budget and account for funds coming in as well, and our administrative costs will also be significantly reduced, resulting in more savings.

You can pay in full, in instalments, or set up a regular automatic payment which would need to be:

• weekly $3 per child = $156 /yr ($6 per Y5-8 child if you want to pay for most of camp across the year
• fortnightly $5.75 per child = $149.50 /yr ($10-$12 per Y5-8 child if you want to pay for most of camp across the year)
• monthly $12.50 per child = $150 /yr ($25 per Y5-8 child if you want to pay for most of camp across the year)

To set up an automatic payment, please copy the school’s bank account number:
12-3148-0131641-00 into your internet banking and use your child’s name as the reference.
Please set up a separate payment for each child.

As the costs of camps are not known until closer to the time, budgeting for $150 per camp is a good guide. More detailed cost information will be sent out closer to the time.

Please note that uniform, stationery, the take-home component of Technology (South intermediate charge), and optional activities such as mini ball, music lessons, etc have always been, and will still be, chargeable (goods and services) and need to be paid in full before the activity takes place.

You can claim your school donation from IRD as part of the 33.3% tax credit each financial year, making the real cost of the donation only $100 per child if you claim this back. These donations can be claimed for up to 3 years previous years, so please contact Sandra Rauch by emailing accounts@beckenham.school.nz if you would like a tax receipt for previous years.

Thank you all for continuing to support the education of our tamariki.

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Board of Trustees

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

How lovely it has been to see everyone back at school today!

There are a couple of important events happening this week that we needed to let you know about, hence the brief newsletter today.

There will also be a fuller newsletter coming out this Friday.

Please remember to contact your child's home group teacher, in the first instance, if you have any questions or wonderings about anything that is happening with your child's learning.

Our staff had a very full and exciting week last week with three days of Professional learning and then the two days of learning conferences. All of which was part of our preparation for the start of the school year, and for the children to arrive today.

Remember all children need a named school hat at school every day, please

Ngā mihi nui
Sandy and the team

There will be a separate information sheet coming out later today from the Board about our new requests for school donations process.

Community Notices

Play Football throughout 2020 at Halswell United AFC.

The registrations for the Winter Season 2020 are OPEN
Club Trials are underway. Make sure you don’t miss out being selected for a team!
Just head to our website for more information and to register: http://www.hawkfootball.org.nz/Register

SUMMER FOOTBALL

Skills Centre+ Registrations (for kids aged 8-12) & First Kicks/Fun Football Registrations (for kids aged 4-8) are open for Summer Term 1
http://www.hawkfootball.org.nz/Programmes/Summer-Programmes

Governors Bay Annual Fete

Sunday 29th March 2020 12-4pm

Allandale Domain

Gold Coin Entry

"Focus on kids" - heaps of activities including a mobile farm where children can get "hands on experience". A special demonstration by GB volunteer Fire Brigade as well as music, food, cream teas and a variety of stalls and exhibitions.

Proceeds to Governors Bay Jetty Restoration Trust