Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

This week we celebrated Support Staff Day on Thursday with a lovely morning tea.  We are so lucky to have such a wonderful team of teaching assistants and support staff supporting us all at Beckenham.  We also welcomed two new teaching assistants to our staff this week.  Scott Baker and Jamie John join us for term two to work in Kowhai and Koru.   

We ended the week with a couple of very special highlights.  The first was our first session of Waiata for the school for the year.  Steve Cooke and our Tuakana Team led the session which included some new waiata and revisiting some favourites.  A wonderful opportunity for our whole school to get together to learn Te Reo and sing together.


The second highlight was watching the Intermediate Hub’s dress rehearsal for their Showquest performance on Tuesday evening in the Town Hall.  The performance, which is approximately 5 minutes long, evoked a range of reactions, smiles, sighs, gasps and claps from the children.  Many of the adults in the audience also reported goosebumps and tears.  An incredibly powerful performance.  Thank you to the Kauri Team for their creativity, persistence and all the extra hours that go into making costumes, the choreography and planning.  We are all so proud of you.

Happiness is Autumn leaves!!!!


Have a happy Autumn weekend and we will see you on Tuesday after our Staff Only Day on Monday.

Nga mihi nui
Sue, Nigel and Paulette

Citizen of the Week

Caleb Clancey - Year 6

Caleb, you are an awesome role model in our hub.  You settle to tasks quickly and put in your best effort.  You love to help others to succeed and you show empathy for others.

School Notices

Bingo Comedy Night

Dabbers at the ready, Jack & Kitty are looking forward to meeting you all on Saturday 18th May for the Kiwiana comedy Bingo Night.  Book your $20 tickets NOW.
https://forms.gle/sjYH8az6qr4MUz9QA

PB4L

PB4L–SW is one of a range of initiatives within the Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) portfolio led by the Ministry of Education. PB4L came out of the Taumata Whanonga behaviour summit in 2009, which was convened in response to concerns about student behaviour in New Zealand schools.
PB4L (Positive Behaviour for Learning) will be implemented over several years - this is not a quick fix.

What have we achieved over the past two terms:

The Ministry of Education is holding various workshops throughout the year, some for the PB4L Leads (Anna and Nigel) and some for the PB4L Team (we will introduce them in the next newsletter). This ensures that we are keeping on track with our goals and making sure the whole team is involved and informing the rest of the staff and the community.

At the end of the last term, we had the Ministry of Education carry out the School-Wide Evaluation. This evaluation aims to determine how accurately PB4L School-Wide is being implemented and was carried out to gain baseline data at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto. We will provide feedback about our result later in the term.

During a full staff meeting (including support staff), each member completed the EBS (Effective Behaviour Survey) to identify what strategies are ‘in place’ and ‘not in place’ within our school. This is setting us up with the evidence to support positive behaviour in our school and links to our results.

We will be updating the school website with the PB4L Purpose Statement (soon) and some information about what PB4L-SW means at Beckenham.  We will also be sending out information regularly in the school newsletters.

If you have any questions about PB4L, please see Anna or Nigel.

Parking outside the School

When picking up your child from school, please ensure you stay off the painted yellow lines. These are there to ensure drivers and our road patrollers have a clear view of the road. There is a lot of parking on Eastern Tce and on Norwood Street if the drop off zone is busy or alternatively, you might need to make a circle of the block.  Please respect the purpose of these lines especially on wet days to maintain the safety of all our children and their whanau.

REMINDER Teacher Only Day Monday 20th May

School will be closed this coming Monday 20th of May for a Teacher Only Day.  If you need childcare, BOSCO is taking bookings.

Lost Property

We have an ever-increasing amount of lost property at school. When clothes are named, it is very easy to return items to students. We appreciate that purchasing school uniform items can be costly and naming clothing will prevent clothing being lost. Thank you so much for your help with this.

Parent Bookshelf

Many parents often request books to support them at home with parenting.  Historically we have kept these parent support books in the library and now they have been given a new place to live - the parent bookshelf in the school office. There are some incredible titles about reading, Growing Boys into Great Men, Raising Great Girls, dyspraxia, understanding ADHD,  understanding ASD, to name just a few. Feel free to pop into the office to take a look. Books can be issued at any time via a sign in/out book which is found on the shelf.

Possible Strike Action 29th May

New Zealand’s principals and primary teachers have just voted about what to do to get further government action on the current crisis in recruiting and retaining teachers.

We’re agreed – we can’t in good conscience accept the Government’s latest collective agreement offer because it does not begin to address the crisis. We have therefore voted for another course of action, this time involving secondary and primary teachers on May 29th.

Our school will be closed for instruction on Wednesday, May 29th. While we recognise this inconvenience we know this will cause, however, we need to send a clear message to the Government that we are standing strong for our students.

Already children’s education is suffering because of the difficulty in recruiting teachers, having enough support to cater learning differences and giving teachers time to effectively plan lessons, and complete the high administration requirements. We must take bold steps to turn this around.

Through our union, NZEI Te Riu Roa, we are asking for:

Time to teach. More resources and staffing to adequately support children with additional learning needs – this will benefit all children because teachers will be freed to spend more one-on-one time with every student.
A significant increase in teachers’ salaries so that they are properly valued for their qualifications and responsibilities, and as a country, we can recruit and retain teachers.

We appreciate your continued support on this important issue. For more information, please go to http://campaigns.nzei.org.nz/time/ or talk with your child’s teacher.

Ferndale News

Here we are playing balloon tennis and making lego cities.

Sports News

Beckenham Booty

Booty Bookings are NOW open for the Sunday 26th May Car boot Sale, located in the staff car park.  LIKE @BeckenhamBooty Facebook f\page for the latest updates.  Book NOW: https://forms.gle/WyierMvY94zHcaDK6

Disco

Save these dates -
Friday 14th June: Kids Disco
Saturday 15th June: Adults 80s/90s Disco.
More info to come, start practicing those moves!!!