As is always the case, your child(ren) will require a hat for all outside activities during Term 4 (and Term 1). You can purchase black or red bucket hats from the school office for $10. Alternatively (as they are plain and without our logo on) you can purchase a bucket or wide-brimmed style hat in plain red or black from another source.

Staff Carpark

Please do not enter the staff carpark either by vehicle, bicycle or on foot. The only vehicles in the staff carpark should be staff cars and vehicles with an accessible parking sticker.  The staff carpark is not a safe place to drop off or pick up children and should not be used as a turnaround area.

Many thanks for your support of this.

Māori Education Engagement Wānanga - Ministry of Education

Earlier this year, the Minister of Education announced a major programme of review and reform across the education sector (the “Education Work Programme”). This work is designed to ensure New Zealand has an education system that is fit-for-purpose for the 21st century.

The Government has been clear that issues and opportunities for Māori education must be addressed across the entire system. In addition, it has commissioned work to refresh and update Ka Hikitia (the Māori Education Strategy) and Tau Mai Te Reo (the Māori Language in Education Strategy).

As part of our work to engage with whānau, hapū and iwi, we are planning a series of wānanga in communities across New Zealand. Through these wānanga, we would like to hear from people about what is important to you: what you like about the current education system; what frustrates you; what you would like to change and how you would change it. We have not prepared a consultation document or any other material because we want to hear from you.

We would like to invite you to be a part of these conversations at wānanga being held in the Canterbury/Chatham Islands region:

• Monday, 1 October 2018, Addington Event centre (Christchurch), 6:00pm to 9:00pm
• Tuesday 2nd October 2018, Addington Event Centre (Christchurch), 6:00pm to 9:00pm
• Thursday 4th October 2018, Temuka Alpine Event Centre (Temuka), 6:00pm to 9:00pm

These are open events and we encourage you to bring along as many voices as you can rally.

Please send your RSVP to Events.Christchurch@education.govt.nz by Midday Monday 1 Oct, 2018.

For further information, please contact : Joanna.Houston@education.govt.nz

Ella, you are a bundle of enthusiasm and bright ideas in the Intermediate Hub. Your contributions enlighten discussions and leave us with new ideas to ponder. We see you embracing new learning, caring for others, accepting challenge, being collaborative and making a difference - on a daily basis. What an awesome role model you are for Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto, Ella!

Beckenham School Hall, this Saturday, September 15, from 9:30 -12:00. Posters either $5 or $10. Raising money for Spanish students at Cashmere High who are travelling to South America next year.

What a fabulous week Book Week has been! Thank you so much to all the whānau who have supported the children with their Readathon fundraising and reading goals, with being so creative about costumes and ideas for Book Character Day today, and for taking time to visit the Book Fair.

We had a very noisy and fun Celebration Assembly today. It felt like we had double the number of people in there - each person in costume bringing their 'alter-ego' to assembly. Clearly the alter-egos never go to assembly and had lots of 'getting to know one another' to do!

Our final staff only day for the year has been confirmed for Monday 26th November. This day has been allowed for from the start of the year, with the actual date to be confirmed.

School will be closed that day. 

On Wednesday morning next week (5th September) at 9:10am we will be welcoming Tyson to our school with a mihi whakatu. This will conclude by 9:30am. Parents are very welcome to attend. Tyson hosted me at Lockleys North Primary School in Adelaide for four weeks at the start of this term and now we get to show manaakitanga back to him.

Cultural Festival - this coming Monday evening

A big shout out to Sherrilee and our senior kapa haka group, Te Whānau Mahi Tahi, who we know will be amazing ambassadors for our school at the Christchurch Schools Cultural Festival this coming Monday evening at Horncastle Arena.

Jack, you are a kind and caring friend, who entertains many with your jokes and witty humour. You are knowledgeable about a range of subjects, and love nothing more than getting your teeth stuck into research and learning. It has been fabulous to see you improve your self-management skills this year. What a charming and thoughtful young man you are! Keep shining Jack!

Tilly Harris for being awarded a Sports Scholarship to Cashmere High School. Congratulations Tilly - this is wonderful acknowledgement of your contribution and participation in a range of sports at a very high level.

Thank you to the people who replied to our last newsletter offering help with our special lunchtime programmes.  We appreciate all your support.

This term we have started utilising our exciting, new Treemendous area.


The children are able to utilise the area in class time with their teacher or an adult, and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at break times when we have duty teachers monitoring the area.


It has been exciting watching our Treemendous wardens take care of the area and the children who play there, offering information about the plants and how we can play in this wonderful area.  The large “nests” have become pirate ships, balance beams in a circus, a dance arena and a place for fairies to rest.


The area is also rich with intriguing creatures which the children can observe and discuss.



Kindest regards













Sue Leadbetter
Acting Principal

Kia ora whānau

I’m writing this from Adelaide where I’m currently shadowing the principal of Lockleys North Primary School. I am feeling very privileged to have this opportunity to meet so many dedicated Australian educators, teachers, support staff and principals, who have all been welcoming, generous with their time and keen to share with me their practice and passion for teaching and learning. It's exciting to see so many similarities between our schools, the beliefs that we share about how children learn, and what authentic, 21st Century teaching and learning needs to look like to successfully equip our learners for the future.

What has surprised me is the difference in the resourcing that schools here get, compared to what we are expected to work with in New Zealand. All teachers here get an hour of classroom release for planning EVERY DAY and they get additional release each term to carry out assessment tasks. Like our teachers, they still take their work home to finish in the evenings and weekends. Children who are English as second language learners are put into classes with a ratio of one teacher to 15 children, that are dedicated to teaching them English for the first three years of their schooling, regardless of their starting year level, before they are transitioned to their local school into a mainstream class. Schools here have dedicated learning support teachers who are able to work individually and with groups of children with diverse learning needs. Students with high behaviour and/or learning needs have access to significantly more teacher aide and specialist teacher support. Teachers are expected to go to training workshops that are run and funded by their Department of Education, during school hours (as opposed to after school or in the holidays). After 10 years, a teacher is entitled to take nearly 10 weeks of long-service leave, and the pay scales here for teachers are at least 30% higher than ours in NZ.

In voting to go on strike on August 15th, our primary teaching profession is asking to be properly resourced and funded to do the work that they are expected to do. This is not simply about pay - it is about the quality of education that we want to be able to provide for our children.

The OECD has warned that our teachers are paid ten percent less than other New Zealanders with similar levels of skills and experience, and we're paid much less than many of our peers overseas. NZ teachers have got some of the highest workloads, biggest classes, and lowest pay of any teachers in the developed world (OECD Education at a Glance, 2017).

In New Zealand we have a serious crisis occurring. We have young teachers leaving the profession in droves and a large percentage of our aging profession heading towards retirement. We have fewer numbers entering teacher training and many of those who graduate are not staying in the profession beyond their first two to four years. In parts of New Zealand, schools cannot get experienced, quality teachers when they advertise positions. Even in Christchurch, where a teaching advertisement 10 years ago would have typically attracted over 50 quality, experienced applicants, we would now be lucky now to get five.

Our students with diverse and complex learning needs are not getting the in-class support and access to expert professionals (resource teachers of literacy, psychologists, behaviour therapists, speech language therapists, etc.) that they need and deserve. Teacher aide funding to schools has always been insufficient and has been continuously eroded over the years.

The wellbeing of our profession has been being eroded and undermined for years and we cannot sustain this any longer. The ones who ultimately suffer are our children who are expected to thrive in  a system that is not being resourced to meet their diverse and complex needs. By taking industrial action, we are asking for more resourcing for our education system:

• by resourcing schools to support diverse learners through more targetted funding for learning support staffing (teachers and teacher aides), 
• by paying teachers more to attract and retain brilliant teachers, and 
• by giving teachers better release time to manage their workloads and to have time for professional development, planning and assessment.

You can read more about the campaign here, on the NZEI website.

Primary teachers in New Zealand have not taken the decision to strike lightly - this hasn’t happened in New Zealand since the 1990s. Please show your support for our teachers in whatever way you can.