Planning is well underway for Team Pōhutukawa's Term 4 camp at Living Springs (23 - 25 November). Living Springs is a self-contained complex where the children stay in comfortable and clean bunk rooms with attached ablution blocks. Parent helpers stay in the Harbour View Conference Centre or, if on bunk room supervision duty, in an adult bunk room adjoining the children's bunkrooms.

If you are able to be a parent helper at the camp, please complete the online form at https://goo.gl/forms/zUFikIgIYbwQt6r33 by Friday, 2 September. We require the help of approximately 15 parents if the camp is to go ahead. If you are able to help, your role will involve direct supervision of groups of children (inside/outside activities, evening bunk room duty, setting tables, supporting children during the bushwalk into camp), serving meals, operating the dishwasher, helping with the cleaning of all areas used at the end of the stay. You will need to be able to stay the entire camp. As the cost of parent helpers is covered in the camp fee, we will only take the necessary number of parent helpers in order to minimise costs. If we have more volunteers than we need, we will select first based on the skills needed and then names will be drawn from a ballot.

A consent form and medical questionnaire will be sent home in Term 4 to students and parent helpers.

The camp costs us $135 per child to run and this includes food, accommodation, the cost of the programmes run by the Living Springs staff and transport. Your next statement (due out at the end of August) will have a request for contribution for $135. You are welcome to make payments either in full or by instalment at any time. Please don't hesitate to contact your child's teacher or Audrey Cooper (Financial Officer) in the office, if payment will be difficult for you. Any funds raised prior to camp, including our Term 3 Market Day, will be shared evenly across the team and will appear as a credit on the Term 4 statement.

We are looking forward to a great camp.

In Hub 21/22 we settle into the school day with literacy learning. We begin with writing, which is done in home groups. Our latest text type has been persuasive writing which was ignited by the topic of 'Scooters should be banned at Beckenham School'. We had some very interesting discussions around this.

Please enjoy reading the following two examples of children's work.


After writing, we begin reading. We are in groups and have different activities each day. These include independent novel study, Olympics activities, guided reading with the teacher, and plays. We enjoyed watching two groups perform their plays this morning.

This term, the two central themes for learning in Team Pōhutukawa are "Asia Awareness" and "Entrepreneurship". As part of their learning, our students will work in small groups to investigate an Asian culture of their choice. They will then learn to develop an authentic business based on this culture throughout the rest of the term.

In Week 8, the students will open their businesses at a special "Market Day" that families and the other classes will be invited to. During the Market Day, each business will operate a small shop where the children will sell their Asian themed product/service. The money raised from the businesses will go towards reducing the cost of camp in Term 4.

The children will be provided with some start-up resources for their business. They are also allowed to accept donations from family members but this is entirely at your discretion. Please do not feel pressured to contribute anything at all unless you want to. This is an authentic opportunity for the children to develop financial literacy skills and understand the value of money.

The children are very excited about developing their businesses and we are all looking forward to Market Day.

Asia Awareness

What an exciting first week back! 

The children in Pōhutukawa have dived straight into their learning for this term by exploring a range of Asian countries and cultures. Both hubs have been completing a variety of research and experiences to embrace different Asian culture. Some of these cultures even belong to children in our very own hubs so it has been an exciting opportunity to get to know more about these in particular.


I have been exploring Japan with my group and on Thursday we decided to have a go at making sushi. A very messy, yet exciting task! Below is a video of one of our students completing the 'wasabi challenge'. I gave the challenge a go myself and can confirm it is no easy feat. A big thanks to Fonterra's Milk in Schools programme for the aftercare support for the brave souls who took on the challenge.

Caitlyn