Monthly Archives: July 2021

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter Friday 30 July 2021

Posted on by

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

Welcome back to Term 3!

Monday was a very special day, and a wonderful way to begin the term, with the opening of our new 'Hangere' building. This new, double learning space replaces the old, earthquake-damaged building with 1.5 learning spaces that were there previously.
Thank you to the Ministry of Education, Logic Group, and HRS for getting our building delivered, and two weeks ahead of schedule! Te Whānau Mahi Tahi, our senior kapa haka group, performed and led us in a waiata.

Thank you to Marcel Frei for speaking, to Sampson Karst for blessing our building, and to our two students, Jayda Taylor (Student Council Chair) and Felix (newest student) for officially opening the building and cutting the ribbon! 


Ngtā mihi nui

Sandy Hastings
Tumuaki - Principal

Important Dates

Upcoming Events


Term 3, Week 2:

Thu 5 Aug - South Zone Winter Sport (1200 - 3:00pm)
Thu 5 Aug - Parent Info session on 'Keeping Ourselves Safe' and 'CHOICEs' programmes (2:15 - 3:00pm)
Thu 5 Aug - Year 6 Whānau - Introduction to the Intermediate Hub - Open Night (7:00 - 8:00pm)
Fri 6 Aug - Celebration Assembly (12:00 - 12:30pm)
Sun 8 Aug - Working Bee (10am-12noon)

Term 3, Week 3:

Tue 10 Aug - School Duathlon (12:00 - 3.15pm)
Thu 12 Aug - South Zone Winter Sport (12:00 - 3:00pm)
Thu 12 Aug - Board of Trustees Meeting (5:30 - 7:30pm) All welcome

Term 3, Week 4:

Tue 17 Aug - School Duathlon Postponement date (12:00 - 3.15pm)
Thu 19 Aug - South Zone Winter Sport (12:00 - 3:00pm)

Click here to view 2021 term dates.

Citizen of the Week

Layla Jenkins - Year 8

Layla, you are a kind and dedicated member of our Kauri whānau. You strive for excellence in all that you do whether it is embracing challenge on the sports field or giving 100% to your academic learning. Your friends appreciate your fun loving and respectful personality. When leading, younger children adore your approachable and nurturing nature.

School Notices

Food Allergy Guidelines

Across our school, we have a number of children with different food allergies.
To support the wellbeing of these students we have the following guidelines in place which we ask you to follow:
Whenever children bring food to school for shared kai occasions, please follow the guidelines provided by the teachers for that event. 
We will inform you during the year if specific guidelines for your child’s hub change.  Our full allergy policy and guidelines in this booklet, are also available on the Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto website under “Information - Policies - SchoolDocs” then search ‘allergy’.  If you have any questions or concerns, please discuss them in the first instance with your child’s point of contact teacher.

Year 6 whānau evening - Introduction to the Kauri Hub


Dental Care





Sports News

Term 2 Wrap Up:

The hall was full of energy on the last day of Term 2 as the staff versed the students in a game of basketball in front of a bunch of very enthusiastic supporters. With both our Year 7/8 basketball teams qualifying for Canterbury Winter Tournament, the staff drafted support from Jamie Day, who has been coaching our Beckenham Warriors. This proved to be a wise move as the children certainly brought their A game. The game was a close one, but in the end the staff took the win. It was a fun game played in good spirit by all. Thank you to all those who took part and to Quinn for stepping up to ref. 


Winter Sport

The children have been super enthusiastic about their winter sport games each Thursday. There has been really great feedback about the sportsmanship shown from our tamariki in their games. A mammoth thank you to all the adults who have been supporting us with this programme. We couldn’t do it without you. 

Winter sport continues in Term 3.

Primary and Intermediate Ski Race at Mount Cheeseman

This is an opportunity for children who are competent skiers to have an experience of ski racing. Children should be competent on blue groomed runs and be able to use a T-bar. Helmets must be worn. Racing suits are not permitted. 

This is an event where your child can compete and represent our kura and transport and supervision of the children is organised by whānau. Whānau are responsible for entering children on the link below. 

Friday 6 August 2021: Race Registrations Closes
Sunday 8 August 2021: All Schools Practice Race Day
Sunday 15 August 2021: P&I RACE DAY!
Sunday 22 August 2021: Postponement Day

Please email Jenny, if you have any questions about this event.

PTA News

Read-a-thon 2021

Welcome to Read-a-thon 2021 where the PTA support and encourage all learners on their literacy journey and hope to encourage a lifelong love of words, books and knowledge - and raise a little bit of money along the way.  Hopefully, your child's Read-a-Thon sponsorship card came home this week - check those bags for the sponsorship cards and if your child still has not received their card, please contact their teacher.

The Read-a-thon timeline is as follows;

Friday 30th July - cards sent home to families and the 14 days of reading begin.  Seek any sponsorship and support for your child's reading journey during this time.

Monday 16th -Thursday 19th Aug - Please return money and sponsorship forms to a PTA Member.  We will have a table set up before school near the hall with a selection of bookmarks so when your child returns their card they can select a bookmark of their choice.  We encourage all cards to be returned so the children can go in the draw to win one of 9 Whitcoulls Book Vouchers.

Friday 20th August - Lets celebrate the end of this reading journey and fundraiser with a ‘Book Character Day’- come dressed to school in your favourite book character.

Thank you for supporting your PTA, and your children, in this fundraiser.


Community Notices

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

Tiwerawera Youth Music Competition

An exciting opportunity has come up for young musicians to perform on stage at the popular and well known venue Fat Eddies. We are looking for students ages 5-18 years old who have a musical talent and are either in a solo/duo act or in a band. All genres of music are welcome from Pop, Rock, R&B, Hip-Hop and more!

Our event “Tiwerawera” is exclusively for Ōtautahi that focuses on our tamariki and can help build their confidence when it comes to performing on stage and enrich their love for music. There are two heats and one final event with prizes up for grabs.




For more info and registrations, check out our website:

Sign up closes on the 11th of August 2021 and have limited spaces so get in quick!

Huntsbury Community Preschool, is having a Parent information evening; All Welcome. 

Our Speaker, Rachel McFedries, is an Occupational Therapist, Play & Screen Time Coach.  She will provide practical, realistic strategies and encouragement to manage or reduce kids’ screen time in your home - without tired and busy parents losing sanity time! Rachel’s advice will be aimed at preschoolers’ screen use, with tips that apply to older children also, plus a Q&A session at the end.


Tuesday 3rd August at Woolston Community Library, 689 Ferry Road, Woolston. $2 entry, limited seats available – RSVP essential to:  https://fb.me/e/4tFMzaEW7


A Golden Moment!

Posted on by

 Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all. 

We wanted to share with you all a 'golden' moment that we shared with the tamariki today in Pōhutukawa. We are loving the Olympics!

Enjoy your weekend, kia pai tō rā whakatā.







Term 3 Week 1 in the Koru team

Posted on by

Kia ora koutou,

We have loved catching up with the children over the course of this week, and hearing all about their holidays! It's been lovely to see all of those happy smiles, and the excitement about being back at school.

Everyone, of course, is extremely excited about our new building which many of you will have had the chance to look around on Monday at the official opening. We are loving the spaces, and feel very lucky to have such a beautiful outlook over Ōpāwaho, and through the trees with all of their birds and wonderful birdsong.

You are welcome to come into Hangere on any day after school, and have your children show you around. 

The children are showing impressive respect for the environments they're learning in, as well as the resources we're using. Their level of tidiness is to be highly commended!

Here is a guided tour for you, in photo form...


Our games and jigsaw puzzle 'shelves'

Soft toys awaiting a good book!

View beyond the al fresco dining area and into one of our breakout spaces

A closer view into the same breakout space

The small group teaching space

The wet area and kitchen

Structured Literacy Home Learning:

As of next week, we are going to be starting to add some extra Structured Literacy activities into the children's Literacy folders. These are short paper-based activities which you will be able to supervise and support your children to complete at home. Once finished, these can be returned to school and will be checked by teachers and filed for each child. These activities are purely optional, and there will be no compulsion to complete them. These activities will not be coming home every day, rather, just on occasional days.

Readathon:
Today the Readathon cards are coming home. For our learners who are within Stages 1 to 6 of our Little Learners Love Literacy programme, we would not expect independent and fluent reading of texts beyond the children's reading level. Some of our children who are not yet bringing home reading books from school, will have alphabet letter cards in their Literacy folders. Children are also able to practise their letter sounds, join letter cards together to make up words, and make up simple sentences using their heart word cards as well as their letter cards. Children might need to make extra letter cards if they find that they need more than one of some of their letters when making up little sentences.
We have left the 'Reading Target' (number of minutes per day) blank, and we ask you to fill this number in so that it is appropriate, while also being a little challenging, but at the same time, achievable, for your child.
We would love to use this opportunity for our learners to engage passionately with books and Literacy in general. This could include whanau reading library books to/with their children, children enjoying a picture book independently, and could also include a focus on the language comprehension strand of the ‘Reading Rope’ below:


Identifying, and getting excited about, new vocabulary is particularly beneficial and fun and can have a large impact on writing too. Have fun throughout the Readathon, everyone!

Cafe Theme:
We are having SO much fun with our Learning Through Play theme this week! The play the children are engaging in is absolutely delightful and clearly they have a great deal of experience in this aspect of life, given the inspiration they are bringing to their role play! The cafes have been named, menus have been concocted, there are sign in sheets, QR codes, and indoor as well as al fresco seating available. Orders can also be phoned in and the phones are running hot! Our chefs and wait staff have been kept very busy and customers have been highly appreciative. Their manners are impeccable. The queues on opening day were out the door and down the path! 
We will definitely be continuing with this theme throughout next week. 

Yum, yum!

The 'sign in' form

The al fresco dining area, with a very busy kitchen beyond

Orders being taken

Checking the baking in the oven

Queueing at the door into the cafe

The QR code ready for scanning

Opening up for business

A VERY enthusiastic team of chefs

The cafe menu, including orange juice, apple juice, blueberry muffins and strawberries


Healthy Lunches:
Please note that our school approach to children's lunches is to have a balanced and healthy range of food items. We understand that some children have particular dietary requirements. We encourage the children to eat one or two items for their morning tea, but to save the main items in their lunchbox (e.g., sandwiches, filled rolls, wraps, yogurt, pizza) until lunchtime eating. We ask the children to eat these main items before eating any of their remaining snack items.

Please note that the Canterbury District Health Board has brought back this campaign, with its key message being 'Brush teeth twice a day with fluoride toothpaste!' Follow the link above and this will take you through to the CDHB website.

Reminders:
  • Please ensure, when you drop off and pick your child up each day, that you are using the main school gates or the entrance from Eastern Terrace, rather than walking through one of the school carparks. At school, we ensure that the children know that the carparks are out of bounds
  • Also please continue to encourage your children to be as independent as possible at these drop off and pick up times. Your children are able to take responsibility for their own schoolbags, both carrying them as well as packing and unpacking them. This independence is encouraged even further when you say your goodbyes in the morning, outside the classroom doors, where there will most likely be a staff member waiting to greet them
  • Literacy folders need to be returned to school every day (please remind your children to unpack their folder and take it indoors each morning when they arrive at school)
  • Friday is our library day so your children need to ensure that they unpack their library folders and bring them indoors each Friday morning. Library folders will come home again each Friday after school, and can remain at home until the following Friday
  • Poetry books will also come home on Fridays, and need to be returned to school on the following Monday.
All the best for a lovely weekend, everyone, and we look forward to seeing the wee ones again, bright-eyed and with wide smiles, on Monday.

Ngā mihi mahana,
The Koru team: Elizabeth, Tracey, Nicola, Chelsea and Stacey

Kōwhai Gymnastics Trip Term 3

Posted on by

Kia ora Kōwhai whānau, 

(NB: We sent this post out on Tuesday using the new HERO app. If you didn’t get it through HERO, check your settings on the HERO app so that you get instant notifications. This will eventually become our primary way of sending team notices out so please do try and get your login working. Our staff in the hub, and in the office, are happy to help you if needed.)

Kōwhai students will be attending 2 gymnastics sessions at Christchurch School of Gymnastics (QEII) in Term 3 on Thursday August 26th and Thursday September 2nd. 

Each session will be 1.5 hours long. The Year 3 session will run from 9:30 am to 11.00am and the Year 4 session will run from 11.00am to 12.30pm. 

Children Need to Wear Clothing they can move in:

  • School shirt or equivalent (eg a red t-shirt) 
  • Leggings or shorts
  • Easy to remove shoes
  • No tights, extra long pants, school dresses, skirts, jeans, hoodies, belts, buckles or zippers
  • Long hair must be tied back. 

We will not need additional parent help for these trips. 

The student annual donation is used to help cover the cost of these sessions. If you have not yet made a contribution to your child's school account please do this as soon as possible. You can access this information by logging into HERO. Information about this can be found on the school website.

Ngā mihi, 

Laura, Rowe, Quynh, Meagan and Nick 


Readathon PTA Fundraiser

Posted on by

Kia ora Kahikatea whānau,

Tomorrow the Readathon cards are coming home. For our learners who are within stage 1 to 6 of our Little Learners Love Literacy programme, we would not expect independent and fluent reading of extended texts. We would love to use this opportunity for our learners to engage passionately with books. This could include whānau reading library books to/ with their learner and focusing on the language comprehension strand of the ‘Reading Rope’ below:


Identifying and getting excited about new vocabulary is particularly beneficial and fun and can have a large impact on writing too.


Ngā mihi nui,

Kahikatea Team