What a wonderful time we had on this trip! Our children sang beautifully at the cathedral. Their behaviour as we walked through the city was exemplary and our time at the Botanic Gardens was a welcome respite from the heat of the day.

As we walked to the Gardens, the children worked in teams to take photographs of items on a scavenger hunt. We were all amazed by the huge number of artworks and sculptures on display in our changing city.

We even had a student's aunty come down to the square to sing for us!

It was a great experience.

Yesterday, we had a wonderful day at Quail Island. The weather was perfect and we had a lovely time walking around the island, swimming in the safe beach, and enjoying ourselves in the outdoors. We would like to say a HUGE thank you to all the wonderful parents who came with us. You are awesome!

We are very lucky to have Angus from Canterbury Sport in our school for the next few weeks to teach Pohutukawa children some skills to play volleyball. So far our children have learnt to dig, set and spike the ball over the net. Check out some pictures from our first session!

Practicing our spiking technique

A powerful serve from one of our students.

Will she be able to hit it back?

At the end of last term all the hubs at Beckenham School were given a country to represent. We were challenged to learn about the history, language and culture of that country and present our work to the RWC judges (Sherrilee and Michelle!). Hub 14/15 were given Fiji and although we were kicked out of the tournament very early on, it did not stop us from going all out. We transformed our hub into a Fijian paradise complete with a coconut tree, ocean, ice cream bar and 50 children in their togs lounging on their beach towels reading. Jamie also did an amazing job at playing some relaxing tunes to really set the mood. We all had a fantastic time and to top it all hub 14/15 was voted by the judges the BEST in the senior school. The only thing that can beat that is if the ABs bring the cup home again!

At Beckenham School we are getting right into the RWC by celebrating and learning about the different countries the teams come from. In hub 14/15 we are celebrating Fiji and have begun by creating a beautiful mural of the beach. Here you can see two students relaxing underneath the coconut tree whilst doing some reading. Alex has to keep his sunglasses on because his future is so bright! 😎☀️