Monthly Archives: August 2018

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter August 31 2018

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

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!

School Closed Monday 26th November.
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. 

Term Dates for 2019

These have now been confirmed. Please put them into your diary!
Check the school website for more details 

Term 1: Thu 31 Jan to Fri 12 Apr
NB: Learning Conferences all day Thursday 31 January and Friday 1 February. Supervision will be provided for families who need it. Classes start Monday 4 February.
Waitangi Day  Wed 6th February
Note that Easter holidays and ANZAC Day all fall during the April holidays in 2019

Term 2: Mon 29 Apr to Fri 5 Jul
Queen's Birthday Mon 3 Jun
Includes one Staff Only Day, date to be advised

Term 3: Mon 22 Jul to Friday 27 Sep
Includes one Staff Only Day, date to be advised

Term 4: Mon 14 Oct to Thu 19 Dec

Welcome to Tyson Grinham from Adelaide

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.

Ngā mihi
Sandy Hastings
Principal

Important Dates

Upcoming Events

Mon 3 Sep - Cultural Festival at the Horncastle Arena
Wed 5 Sep - Aerobics, hip hop and dance competition at Hornby High School  - yrs 5-8
Fri 7 Sep - Final day for Readathon cards to be returned to school
Mon 10 Sep - Pohutukawa Pitch Perfect choir rehearsal at Avonhead school
Tue 11 Sep - Cashmere High School Year 8 Testing at Cashmere High.  9am - 12pm
Tue 11 Sep - Zone Speech Competition - held at Beckenham in the hall. 6-8pm
Fri 14 Sep - Celebration Assembly 10:50 - 11:20am.  All Welcome

Term Dates

Click here to view 2018 term dates.

Citizen of the Week

Jack Kelly - Year 6

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!

Freya Pratt - Year 8

Freya, we love the sparkle that you bring to Kauri Whānau. As a confident, caring and reliable Year 8, you consistently model our school values. You know when to laugh and entertain, and when to get down to focused work. Thank you for the initiative you offer and for being one of our regular, enthusiastic volunteers. You make our hub a safe and welcoming place. Tino pai Freya.

School Notices

Traffic Survey for Beckenham Area

The University of Canterbury is working with the community to find opinions on traffic safety on the way to school in the Beckenham area, especially around Tennyson St. Please take the time to complete the following survey, it should take no more than ten minutes.
https://app.maptionnaire.com/en/4748

Keep New Zealand Beautiful Week 

Exciting news - Beckenham Te Kura O Pūroto is taking part in Keep NZ Beautiful week! Each team will complete a daily litter pick up of our grounds and park during week 8. We will be learning about our role as kaitiaki of our grounds and river.  Stay watching for photos of our efforts.


Sports News

How does participating in winter sport demonstrate our school values?

Every Friday for the past 14 weeks, Year 5-8 students have had the option of participating in one of the following sports: netball, rugby, hockey, and football. Games are held at Hagley Park against other teams from a wide variety of Christchurch Schools

Participating in winter sport is a good way to get weekly exercise. It’s also a great way to get out of the classroom and have some fun!  Recently, we have participated in the Winter Tournament. This was an excellent challenge that we took on. We all gave it a try, which was great to see.

This is how we put our values into action...

We Care - By cheering on teammates and showing good sportsmanship.
We love learning - By learning new sporting skills.
We get there together - By turning up to practices and being a good teammate.
We make a difference - By supporting other age groups through coaching and volunteering to help out.
We love challenge - By competing against other schools, facing the hardest challenges and not giving up.
                           
We all had heaps of fun and are excited for winter sport next year. Thanks for the great season and thank you to all the coaches for all their time and effort. We really appreciated it.

Written by Bella Reddecliffe & Tilly Harris

Congratulations to...

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.

Charlotte Gray for having been successful in auditioning for the RNZB The Nutcracker end of November! Over 600 children across the country were auditioned and only a select few have been chosen at each centre to perform.

Strum, Strike, Blow ukulele players for the fabulous concert you and the other 1200 children from around Christchurch put on on Wednesday evening this week at the Horncastle Arena

Year 5/6 Rugby Team for finishing top of the league table at Winter Sport. 

Year 7/8 Ski Team for achieving 3rd place in the Primary and Intermediate School’s Ski Race at Mount Cheeseman. There was some very speedy skiing done by Freddie Winsor, Boyd Goldsbury, Winni Goldsbury, Paolo Reid, Ben Evans and Lena Rybaltovszki.


All Winter Sport Teams for the dedication you have displayed throughout the season. Many coaches have commented on the improvement made by their team over the duration of the 14 weeks that weekly sport runs. We are very grateful to the adults who coached, supported and managed a team; the children have gained a lot from working with you.

PTA News

READ-A-THON 2018

We hope you have been travelling off to some far off amazing places through the pages of your chosen book/s and having some incredible journeys.  Don’t forget you have till the end of this weekend to complete your reading target and start returning cards from Monday!
From Monday 3rd September, please return your cards and money to reception.
Remember plenty of prizes to enjoy.


Hollywood Quiz

See you at the HOLLYWOOD QUIZ (https://www.facebook.com/events/723059334691904/) this Saturday- we would like to encourage you all to grab a “WALKING BUS” to our event. And IF you do have to bring the car, your designated driver will receive juice/fizz all night FOC.
Thanks to all those that are attending, we SOLD OUT.
With so many amazing prizes are up for grabs (https://www.facebook.com/pg/ptabeckenhamschool/photos/?tab=album&album_id=712425929101186 ), a Fathers’ Day raffle, 2 exciting LIVE Auctions, 4 Mystery Bags & the return of an old favourite, the Blue Summit Construction COIN SLIDE guarantees you a night of FUN with a capital F (R18 event)
Doors open at 7pm
Bar & Eftpos available-NO BYO please.
Supper & Nibbles provided
Who will have the most “Star Appeal” & win an Oscar for 'Top Hollywood Quiz Team 2018'??


Community Notices

(Notices placed here are contingent on space and do not reflect the views or opinions of the school.)

Smarttouch 2018


We welcome your entries into the term 4 smarttouch rugby competition run down at Waltham Park. Entries close Friday 28th September. See the attached flyer for dates, times and costs.

Steps to register:

Get a team organised and appoint a team manager and coach.
Enter online using the URL address www.sporty.co.nz/smarttouch
On the Smarttouch home page fill out the touch team manager sign up form and submit it.
You will then receive an email giving you the link to enter your player details.
Remember the competition is social MIXED and you need to have a minimum of 3 girls on the field at a time. Grades: Year 0-2, Year 3-4, Year 5-6, and Year 7-8.

We are all looking forward to a great season,
From the Smarttouch Team.





Mr Science and friends put on a WOW Show! Fun and Educational!

Sensational science demonstrations on stage, audience participation, fun for all ages.
Join us on a magical journey exploring the excitement of FLYING, FLOATING, GLIDING, and SHOOTING!
Mr Science (Sterling Cathman) is a specialist primary science teacher and has been working with kids and teachers for the past 10 years in schools around NZ.
Tickets
www.MrScience.co.nz   or https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2018/mr-science-magical-science-tour/christchurch


Rise for Climate

Trees for Climate Rally.  Pick up a Tree, Plant a Tree Sat 8 September 1-3pm at Victoria Square.
Gold coin koha for your own seedlings to plant where you want, or join our City Council organised planting team and choose seedlings to plant in Grampian Park on 15 Sept.  facebook - 350 Christchurch.

Kauri Whānau: Weekly Update Term 3 Week 6

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Lots to celebrate this week and a few important messages.

Te Whānau Mahi Tahi


Our senior kapa haka group are looking forward to their performance at the Cultural Festival on Monday evening. A reminder that these children have a rehearsal at Horncastle Arena on Monday afternoon. They will be leaving school at 2pm and the bus will return between 3:45 and 4pm.

Headphones at school


This week we will be encouraging a number of children to upload a google extension, ReadWrite, to support their learning in writing. This extension reads text, that the child has written, back to the child. It pauses for punctuation. By using this extension children will be able to pick up sense and punctuation errors in their writing more readily. In order to use this, headphones (or ear buds) are required. Please remind your child to have these with them at school.

Speech Competition


We had a very exciting and entertaining speech final at school on Monday afternoon. A huge well done to everyone who took part. The English teachers from Cashmere High, who judged the competition, were very impressed with children's enthusiasm and talent for public speaking. A special congratulations go out to Vienna and Lily who won their competitions. These girls will go on to the South Speech competition on Tuesday September 11, starting at 6:30pm in our school hall.





Cantamath


What an exciting day we had last Wednesday at Cantamath. A large number of our entries in the display competition gained Highly Commended and Excellence awards. In the teams section our Year 7s did a great job for their first time. The Year 8s were very pleased with their result, scoring 80 / 100 (double their score from last year) and with only 9 schools scoring a higher result. The official results sheet, certificates and badges are yet to arrive.






Mosaic Art Project


Last year in our term 4 passion session, one option was creating collaborative pixel art. The resulting mosaic squares have now been mounted on the heater box at the back of the school hall. The theme of the pieces is wellbeing in our environment. Take a look next time you are strolling through Beckenham Park.


GirlBoss Workshops


The girls who took part in the GirlBoss workshops last week, which explored future options in STEM subjects, came away very inspired. We will make the most of this opportunity in the future. Below is some feedback from the girls.



Kōwhai News Term 3 Week 4/5

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Here is the latest news from Kōwhai Team!

Parent Help Reading
We would LOVE the help of 1-2 parents each day to listen to children read. At the moment there are a few children that require some extra support. Having some parents to come in and listen to children read would greatly help their fluency and give the children some much-needed reading milage. If you are keen to help us please send us an email or pop in and see your point of contact teacher. This would only be for 20-30minutes and can happen at any time during the day! We look forward to hearing from you!


 Readathon
Readathon cards have been sent home and hopefully your child is all ready to go! The goal is for every child to read for 14 days consecutively. Each child has decided on a length of time that suits their ability and committments at home. 
All the money raised will go towards our outdoor spaces. We thank the PTA very much for having this focus and for organising events like this that will eventually provide fantastic outdoor areas in which our tamariki will be able to play and learn.
Miniball
We would love to offer the children in our team the opportunity to participate in mini ball at Pioneer next term.  For this to happen, we would need the assistance of parents who would be able to coach the team (teams of 8-9- they are 5 aside games). In the past, we have been able to enter 3 teams into the competition.
Miniball games are held on Wednesday (A and B Grade) and Thursday (C Grade). If you are keen to help, please contact Paulette

 Writing
At the moment we have been having a focus on persuasive writing during our literacy time. It has been great seeing the children creating sophisticated pieces of text to help persuade the reader to change their opinion on a topic. Here is one example of what the children have been writing:

Why dogs are the best pets!

One day we were walking in our classroom when we saw an AMAZING piece of writing about why cats are the best pets but we have different opinions dogs are the true best pets!
Why cats are bad!
My first reason is that cats are actually PESTS. Did you know that over 25 million native birds are killed each year by these carnivores and we wonder why are native birds are so hard to spot?
Second, cats are hard to train and if you give up your lifestyle could get ruined by a cat scratching up furniture and knocking over valuable and important objects.
You may think cats are cute and cuddly but the first time you do a job for them they think of you as there servant and they don't even give you a reward for it.
Now for the dogs!
Dogs really do deserve their title of, ‘mans best friend’ their loyal, intelligent, devoted and affectionate. Dogs are always wanting a good old pat and love to play games.
Another reason is dogs are really helpful towards humans e.g., they can be guard dogs ,sniffer dogs, guide dogs and search and rescue. How helpful is that?

If you are getting a new pet don't even consider getting a cat, get a DOG!

 Persuasive Writing about Rubbish in the Ocean:

 In Susan's literacy group we have been writing persuasive speeches about plastic in the ocean.
If you want to find out more about this here is a link:

Stop littering! It is bad for the environment and animals. They eat it and die. Did you know that a plastic bag looks like a jellyfish? That is why they are bad for the turtles.


Plastic is destroying habitats and scenery. If we all work together we can fix it by using boxes instead of plastic bags, or picking up rubbish whenever you can. Also, if you litter and you love animals,  stop! I would love to see the ocean with no rubbish in it.


By Annabel Grantham

Stop killing sea animals and stop putting   
Rubbish in the sea! If you throw away plastic bags turtles will think they are jellyfish and eat them. How would you like it? It destroys the scenery and every day more animals are dying.

We need to use reusable bags and honey wraps. Don't use gladwrap! If you throw away plastic it ends up in the sea! We need to do stuff about this! You should see the rubbish island in the ocean. Make the world a better place and stop using plastic.

By Violet Morel

Next week we will use these persuasive pieces as part of our Kowhai Speech Competition. It will be wonderful to see the children working on their speeches and developing the skills to effectively talk in front of others. We are planning to watch the Kauri team on Monday afternoon to help us know what to aspire to.


DMIC (Problem Solving) Maths

We have been having a great time learning about fractions at the moment. The children have really impressed us with their deep levels of thinking as they are solving problems. This term we have been working on solving problems with fractions. Here are two example of what the children have been working on:


Kowhai children went on a class trip to the Botanic Gardens. They searched the river for waterlife. 1/4 of what they found were eels. 1/3 of them were trout and they spotted 40 tadpoles. How many trout and eels did they see?

Problem 2
Image result for grass hockey clip art39 children in Kowhai are playing hockey. They spread themselves evenly into the thirds on the court. How many children are in each third? If another 14 children joined in, how many would be in each third? How many children are in two thirds?
Inquiry- Birds
As part of our Sustainability inquiry, we have been exploring the newly created Treemendous area and how we can make this more sustainable for birds and wildlife. Over the past few weeks, we have spent time in the Treemendous area, investigating the plants and birds that currently reside there. The children have been rotating around the teachers in the hub, participating in bird lessons.  Here is a sample of what we have been doing...

 Bird Beaks- Paulette's lessons have seen the children investigating bird beaks and their design. The children participated in a variety of experiments where they tried eating a variety of food using a tool (beak). This helped the children to determine why birds have a particularly shaped beak and how the beak enables them to eat a particular food in their habitat. 
 
Bird Feet- Anna's lessons have been all about the different types if birds' feet and how they are suited to different environments. For example, herons are wading birds and so they have long, thin toes which stop them from sinking in the sand and ducks have webbed feet which help them swim more efficiently through the water. We are now working on making posters which tell us all about birds' feet, what they look like and why. 


Image result for image of birds feet








Bird Identification- Susan
Image result for habitats bird nzBird Habitats- Rebekah's lessons have seen the children looking at the different habitats of birds. The children have demonstrated a lot of thought showing how the food available to birds vary, because of their habitat. We have also looked at how pests and predators effect our native bird numbers. We are excited to discover more ways we can get our native bird 


Hockey
Over the past five weeks, we have been lucky enough to have had Canterbury Hockey taking the children for hockey lessons. The children have learnt some basic hockey skills. This week, they were, 'put to the test' as they played in a mini hockey tournament. Here they are in action!


M.A.D. Time (Passions)
This term, the children have each chosen a passion topic to participate in on a Friday. The children were given the choices of Choir (Anna), Art (Mike), Drama (Paulette), Languages (Susan) and Dance (Rebekah). Each Friday the children have 45 minutes participating in these passion groups. It has been great to see the children so enthusiastic about driving their own learning and interests.

 That's all for now.
Have a great week ahead!
Kowhai Teaching Team

Term 3 Weeks 4-5

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Learning Conferences
Thank you for making the time to attend your child's learning conference. We loved meeting with you and sharing our students' successes. We value your feedback feedback to assist us with our ongoing evaluation and to help us to continuously improvement. 
Please share your thoughts here



Thank you 
...to parent helpers in reading (9-10.30am) and those who put away books. If you would like to assist with our reading and discovery time, or helping to organise resources, please see one of the Koru teachers.




Readathon 
Children are enjoying our Reading Challenge. Congratulations to Robin Reid for reading 10 chapter books!

The whole school Read-a-thon is also happening NOW. Your child will have a green card in their reading folder for collecting sponsors. Please see a teacher if you have any questions.


New Library Days 
Please bring library folders on Wednesday and Thursday from next week. 
Thank-you.

Magazines 
If you have any old magazines, please bring in to Charlotte for literacy and play activities. Thanks. 

Useful Websites 
Website with spoken books for children: https://www.uniteforliteracy.com
Healthy Kids Website, with healthy movement and eating ideas, and a downloadable reward chart 


Fun at the Park





We Get There Together in Discovery




Kauri Whānau Weekly Update: Term 3 Week 5

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Our full on term continues, with a focus on Cantamath and speech delivery this week. After that things settle down a bit, which we are looking forward to. It has been a hectic five weeks so far!

Cantamath:

Tomorrow morning, Wednesday, we head off to Horncastle Arena at 9am. We will be back by 10:30am. 33 children have individual entries in the display competition and all children have been involved in class projects. We are looking forward to seeing how everyone got on and to get inspiration for next year.

In the afternoon our teams compete in 30 minutes of action packed, noisy and exciting problem solving. Good luck to Kate, Freddie, Gemma, Daniel, Santi, Adam, Georgie and Gabriel. If you would like to come along and support the teams, you are most welcome. Parents and staff will be sitting in section H upstairs. Year 7s start at 4pm (meeting at 3:40) and Year 8s at 5pm (meeting at 4:40).

Speeches:

Tomorrow we start our speech deliveries in class. Hopefully your child has brought their speech notes home to rehearse. If not, these can be accessed via Google Classroom. Children who feel they cannot present to their home-group will be videoed delivering their speech. Our hub final will be on Monday afternoon next week, starting at 1:30. Parents are most welcome to attend. We will be announcing finalists this Friday.

GirlBoss workshops:

We have over 30 girls taking part in GirlBoss workshops tomorrow. We are excited to be able to offer this opportunity. The girls will be inspired to fulfil their  dreams in STEM (science, technology, the arts, engineering and maths).

Congratulations to our Beckenham ski team:

Winni, Boyd, Paolo, Ben, Freddie and Lena skied their hearts out on Sunday at Mt Cheeseman. They were competing in the Canterbury primary and intermediate ski champs. We were so proud of their third place intermediate team achievement. With the majority of the team being in Year 7, we have high hopes for next year when they will be a wee bit heavier and a wee bit faster!




Last winter sport:

This Friday is our final session of winter sport at Hagley Park. A huge thanks goes out to all of the parents who have committed to coach and manage teams on a weekly basis. The children would not have this opportunity without your involvement. Can you please wash and return sports uniforms early next week. There is a tub by the courtyard door for returns.