Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter Friday 25th September 2020

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

What a lovely warm week we have had for the final week of this term. Yesterday, this warm weather was further celebrated as the tape was finally removed from the grass areas of the playground and the children rushed out with their morning tea to take advantage of sitting on the lush grass!


We were fortunate to be visited by 7 members of the New Zealand Army Band on Wednesday this week. They played a wonderful half hour concert for the children, hopefully inspiring many to begin or continue with their music lessons and practice in the goal of being a professional musician in the future!




We saw some of that wonderful talent on display this afternoon in our Annual Talent Quest! Congratulations to all of the children who performed, and who auditioned. Thanks to all of the staff who helped with the auditioning process, and to the team of staff and students who supported this today, back stage, judging and doing the sound desk.

Considering home groups for 2021

Next term we will be working on building our home learning groups for 2021. Our staff spend a lot of time carefully considering the needs of each child, and take into account a range of emotional, social, behavioural and academic considerations. We do NOT ask parents to choose a home room teacher that they would like for their child. We do know, however, that you hold information about your child's wellbeing at school that may be relevant when we are putting these groups together. Therefore, if you have any considerations about your child for us to add to our home group placement discussions for 2021 - please email these to Sandy by Friday 30th October (the end of Week 3 of next term).

Reminder - Term 4 begins on Tuesday 13 October.

Have a safe and relaxing holiday!

Ngā mihi nui

Sandy Hastings
Principal - Tumuaki

Important Dates

Upcoming Events

Sun 11 Oct: 10am - 3pm Te Whānau Mahi Tahi Wananga - School Hall

Mon 12 Oct: Staff Only Day - School Closed

Tue 13 Oct: Term 3 begins
Thu 15 Oct: Canterbury Swimming Championships - Selwyn Aquatic Centre
Fri 16 Oct: Welcome Assembly 9:15am - All family of new students this year who haven't yet been to a welcome assembly - Welcome!
Mon 19 - Fri 23 Oct: Kauri Team Camp to Dunedin
Mon 19 Oct: Canterbury Duathlon - Ruapuna Speedway
Mon 26 Oct: LABOUR DAY School Closed
Wed 28 Oct: Christchurch Schools Cultural Festival - Te Whānau Mahi Tahi performing
Fri 30 Oct: Whole School Athletics - Beckenham Park

Term Dates

Click here to view 2020 and 2021 term dates.

Citizen of the Week

Cortana Mee - Year 4

Cortana, you display a positive attitude to all aspects of learning with your persistence and enthusiasm. You are a role model in our hub who naturally demonstrates our school values and this has seen you always willing to lend a hand or help others who need it. This helps to make our hub a wonderful place to be. Tino pai, Cortana !

Max Page - Year 6

Max, you are an extremely positive and enthusiastic member of the Pōhutukawa hub. You consistently demonstrate the school values and you approach everything with a great sense of humour. You are respectful of all those around you and you work hard to achieve your goals. Tino pai!

School Notices

Claiming back 33% of your School Donations and Contributions from the IRD

A reminder that via IRD you can claim back 33.33 cents for every dollar you donate to the school. This includes both school donations, and 'contributions' towards activities and camps. You can submit a receipt to IRD at any time within the past 3 tax years.
This means that right now, you can claim for:
  • 2017 tax year (ending 31 March 2018). 
  • 2018 tax year (ending 31 March 2019)
  • 2019 tax year (ending 31 March 2020)
One of our parents did this recently – it took 20 mins of her time and $400 was deposited in her bank account a week later (4 years of donations for 2 children). 
The steps are easy: 
1. Email Sandra Rauch (accounts@beckenham.school.nz)  to request a tax receipt for your school donation and contributions for the past three years.
2. Go to the IRD Website and search ‘Submit a Donation Receipt’ and follow the steps. 
3. Attach the receipts online and submit.

NB. You’ll have to wait till after Mar 31 next year to claim back this year’s donations.

Congratulations

Here are two YouTube clips of the recent concerts that were held at Hillview Christian School and Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto.  Great to see some of the emerging talent in both the Jazz band and the Training Band.





The PTA will be running a sausage sizzle from 10am - 2pm in addition to a bake stall.  Wheelie Good coffee will also be there so bring some coins and catch up with the community when you cast your vote.

BOT Update

School Board of Trustee Mid Term Elections 2020

Nomination round
Our school will be undertaking Mid Term Elections for our Board of Trustees this year. This process will start with the issuing of nomination papers to our caregiver in our community by Friday 9th October 2020.
The Board of Trustees has again employed CES to undertake the election process on our behalf. This year with legislative change, our nomination forms and full instruction on how to place your nomination into our own School’s Election website will be e-mailed to you by Friday 9th October 2020Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Board of Trustees election site
For those that do not have access to the internet, nomination papers will be available at the school office and those nomination papers should be returned to the school office. The school will send those on to CES for processing. 
Nominations close on Sunday 1st November 2020 at 12 noon.
We look forward to your participation in this process.

Wayne Jamieson 

Returning Officer


Community Notices

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

Children’s Aikido Class

For 8 – 12 year olds
Co-operative approach to conflict resolution. Physical and fun.
Thursdays from 4:30pm – 5:20pm, new intake - start of term 4.
At the Ōtautahi Community Dojo, cnr Truscotts and Martindales Roads, Heathcote.
For more details see www.aikido.gen.nz
Limited numbers so registration essential
Run by Ōtautahi Aikido, a not-for-profit community organisation





Koru News – End of Term 3

Kia ora e te whanau,

Wow! We are at the end of Term 3. What a busy term it has been, full of fun and learning.

Water Play 
Out came the sun and so did the water. There were great examples of 'We Get There Together' and creativity in 'We Love Learning'.



Flat white anyone? They were the best coffees of the week.

Pirates
Ahoy pirates. The past two weeks we have had a focus on pirates. We learned how to talk like pirates, the type of music they like, finding buried treasure, how to make maps, write character descriptions .... the list goes on.

Walk the plank.

Every pirate needs a hat.

Map making to help us find the buried treasure me hearties!








Kete Awards
Congratulations to our Kete Award recipients.


Thank You
Koru team recently received a donation to use in any way to support the children. We were keen to purchase items that were durable and would support Learning Through Play. The water tray was put to great use this week, the dolls have had many outings and the children have shown 'We Care' with them in their imaginative play. The Bluetooth Speakers have helped us sing and dance on many an occasion, and the Duplo has many purposes, only limited by our imaginations.

We would like to say a huge THANK YOU to the anonymous donor. We were humbled by your generosity and very excited to add to our Learning Through Play resources. 


Holiday Clean Out
If you are intending to have a wee clean out or declutter over the holidays please keep us in mind. We are on the look out for many treasures that will support our Learning Through Play.

For example:
  • Mud kitchen supplies - old saucepans, utensils, cake tins, chopping boards
  • Sandpit toys - buckets, spades, watering cans, pipes of any dimension and length, planks of wood 
  • Plastic backed picnic blankets
  • Toy cars, baby clothes, driftwood, shells, craft items, wrapping paper, wool, small pop up tent etc
Calendar Art
Our tamariki showed great creativity in their calendar art pieces. They deserve to be very proud of their efforts. 
A reminder from the PTA that orders close Monday 28th September.

Last Day Of Term
Today we spent time Learning Through Play in Treemendous, which we followed up with lunch together. A lovely way to end the term.








Holidays
We wish all the tamariki and their families a safe and restful time over the holiday break. A reminder that school starts back on Tuesday 13 October. 

Ngā mihi nui,
Elizabeth, Stacey, Sophie, Sari and Jo

Pōhutukawa Living Springs Camp Term 4 2020 – It’s All Go!

 Kia ora e te whānau,

Thanks so much for responding to the questionnaire that Sandy and Anne sent out on Monday. We've had an overwhelmingly positive response from you in support of our Year 5/6 learners attending camp in Week 7 next term. Living Springs has confirmed that we will go ahead as long as the Covid alert level stays at Level One or Level Two.

We have also been overwhelmed by the number of you who put yourselves forward to be available for parent help at our camp from November 25th to 27th. Thank you. We are sorry that we can't take everyone who volunteered.  The people who will be coming with us are:

Colleen Eason                      Koleighne Ford                    Rebecca Carr
Evan McLaughlan                Nicole Forster                      Brett Cooper
Paula Adams-Stace              Chris Hunt                            Jonathan Pooch
Mike Grantham                    Linda Hakeagaiki                 Mami Mori
Simon Scott                          Michelle Boyle                     Michael de Clifford

If your name is listed above and you are no longer available to attend our camp, please email anne.batchelor@beckenham.school.nz as soon as possible, and we will offer your place to another parent volunteer on the list.

The Covid Pandemic situation has made this term (and year!) more challenging than most. Sandy and the team have discussed the options in terms of fundraising for camp, whilst also trying not to overload our school community.  We have decided not to fundraise as a result. If you have any concerns about paying for your child's camp costs and you have not yet communicated this with us, please let Anne Batchelor know.

Early next term we will send out more information about the camp programme of activities and what to bring etc. 

We hope you have a restful holiday break, see you in Term 4.


Kauri Whānau Weekly Update: Term 3 Week 10

 In this post:

  • Calendar art orders
  • Camp forms
  • Rubik's Cubes
  • Speech Final
  • Canterbury Winter Tournament
  • Sports Shed painting in the holidays

Calendar art

Make sure you have placed your order for your child's landscape calendar art. This closes on Monday the 28th of September. Details for ordering are on the form that came home.

Camp Forms

Many thanks to those who have sent back health profile forms. We are looking forward to the remaining 40 coming to school tomorrow. Spare copies were handed out today, for those who had lost theirs. 

Rubik’s Cubes

We have had a number of issues with Rubik’s Cubes going missing in our hub. As a result, we have made the decision to ban these. Please ensure these are not coming to school.

Zone Speech Competition

A HUGE congratulations to Zoë Clarke and Max Graham for competing in the South Zone Speech Competition on Monday evening. Both students did a fantastic job presenting their well-written and entertaining speeches. Max placed 2nd in the Year 8 category. He had the audience in stitches at his personal storytelling. Well done to you both!

Canterbury Winter Tournament

It was a glorious day to be out playing sport today for our hockey and netball teams who qualified to represent our kura in the Canterbury Winter Tournament. Many thanks to Jules, Miranda, Anna and Nic who managed the teams and to Maddi, a former student who reffed the netball games. The adult helpers were full of praise for how well the children played and for how they conducted themselves at the tournament. 

Sports Shed Painting

All going well with the weather, I am hoping to have a good go at finishing the sport shed mural on the second Tuesday of the holidays, in the afternoon. If your child is keen to help, please send me an email and I will confirm times.

A few photos...

Hockey team at Canterbury Tournament

In science we have been learning about body systems and first aid.
.
Boys basketball team celebrating a win.

Ultimate frisbee team in action against St Martins.

Yoda, helps out with our calm focus.

We voted today, as part of our elections learning.