Monthly Archives: September 2023

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter Rāmere (Friday) 22 Sep 2023

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

What an amazing end to Term 3 with the talent show! Beckenham has a lot of talent. Each team got to experience a variety of performances in their hubs, and from there 2 acts were chosen to represent each of the teams. 

Thank you to the Student Council for their organisation of the show and to all the performers for sharing your talents with us - We Make a Difference.

BOT Update

SchooI Board Parent Mid-Term Election 2023

Board of Trustees Nominations

Our school will be undertaking a mid-term parent election for 3 School Board vacancies.
This process will start with the issuing of nomination papers to our caregiver community today, 
Friday 22nd September 2023.



We have employed CES to undertake the election process on our behalf. This year with
legislative change, our nomination form and full instruction on how to place your nomination
into our own School’s Election website will be emailed to you if we have your email address
in our database, or you will receive it by post if we don’t have your email in our database.

Nomination papers will also be available at the school office. The school will send those on
to CES for processing upon receipt from candidates.

Nominations close on Wednesday 11 th October at 12 noon. Election day is Wednesday
15th November 2023.


Our school needs to have people on the Board who reflect the wonderfully diverse community that makes up our school population. This means that we need as many different world views sitting at our board table together, to enable us to have a deep and rich understanding of the needs of our tamariki and the best ways to support them to be successful.

We look forward to your participation in this process. 

Wishing you all a safe and relaxing two weeks. See you on Monday 9th October for Term 4.

Ngā mihi nui

Sandy Hastings
Tumuaki - Principal

Important Dates

NB: You can find our Community Calendar on our school website. You can embed this calendar into your own digital calendar and stay up-to-date with events and information.
 
Fri 22 Sep - Final day of Term 3

Kauri Whānau Update: Term 3, Week 10

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 In this post:

  • Term 3 Reflection
  • Kauri Museum Exhibition
  • Koru Games
  • Beckenham Talent Show
  • Looking ahead

Term 3 Reflection

What an action-packed term! We've managed to squeeze so many varied learning opportunities - from novel studies in literacy to ski day up at Mount Hutt, from Koru Games to learning about Pacific navigation and Waka building. We think everyone has earned a good rest, and hope you all manage to rest recharge safely over the next two weeks.

Kauri Museum Exhibition

Today (Friday), while the students were off at Christchurch South Intermediate for Technology, the rest of the school came through to see our Waka Hourua creations. The reaction from teachers and students was all positive - there was so much praise for everything that had been made.




Koru Games

We really enjoyed hearing about the efforts of our students at Koru games this week. There was a lot of incredible sporting skill on show, and all our students represent our school values. Please see the school newsletter for a full rundown of the week.



Beckenham Talent Show

We finished our term with the return of the school talent show. There were tremendous acts from across the school, and from Kauri we had Harriet playing a wonderful rendition of Grieg's In The Hall of the Mountain King and Ella T salsa-ing up a storm. Hamish did a great job as one of two MCs, and the IT crew did a great job of making sure everything went off without any technical glitches. A big thank you to the student council and Nicky for organising and putting on such a wonderful event.

Looking Ahead

Term 4 is set to be another busy term, but we look forward to more sunshine and warmer weather. Please make sure that all students have hats ahead of Term 4 and that they apply sunscreen before coming to school. We also announced to the team this afternoon that our big focus next term will be a production, which they seemed quite excited by. We look forward to telling them more about it next term!

Have a safe and restful break!

Art Gallery Highlights: Term 3 Week 10

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 Kia ora, e te whānau,

Once again, our grateful thanks to those parents who were able to join us on this outing and support the tamariki as they engaged with particular art works and then participated in the lesson which Jackie and Julie, the Gallery Educators, ran for us.

Please see below, some photo highlights of our time at the Gallery:
















































What a wonderful learning experience our wee ones had - so many of them are extremely eager to get back to the Art Gallery again, so what a great idea for a holiday outing!

For now, though, all that remains is to wish you all a very safe and happy holiday ahead, as we sail through towards Friday.

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Elizabeth, Stacey, Georgia and Sarah


Kahikatea News Term 3 Week 9

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Kia ora e te whānau,

We can't believe there's only one more week of Term 3 left. We have been really enjoying the warmer weather and far fewer wet days indoors. This is a good reminder to dig out those sunhats ready for term 4.

Well done to our learners who auditioned for the talent quest which is being held next week. We loved seeing the joy you had in performing. Thanks for sharing your talents with us!

Cricket Awareness Skills Sessions

Last week we were lucky to experience cricket sessions with Southern Districts & South East Ōtautahi Cricket Club. Each home group had time over at the hall, learning new skills, such as batting and bowling. If your child came home buzzing, check out the brochure and information below, with how to access further cricket lessons.


"At Beckenham Park, we not only deliver cricket for all ages, but a quality, engaging sport and physical activity program that we deliver through play, using our natural environment and varied equipment. We aim to improve the physical literacy of our community and encourage them to stay physically active. We would love to see more of our Beckenham whānau join us for a summer of cricket.
We have teams from Friday afternoon Smashies, Year 1-2 Cricket through to Year 6 Hardball, and then for our female only players we have teams from Year 3-4 through to Year 8-10." - Cat Quinn, Kids in Action Christchurch













Beckenham's Got Talent 

Auditions for team Kahikatea were held on Wednesday afternoon. We were so impressed by the confidence shown, the range of talents, and the willingness to give it a go. Ka pai everyone, Nau Mai te Wero! 







Mathematics


This task sparked lots of discussion and thinking. In Lisa and Quynh's homegroup, we voted using tally marks, on which dog was the odd one out. Then we were set the challenge to find a second answer. Most people thought that the top right dog was the odd one out. Here are some of our reasons.
Top left: "That dog is facing the other way."
Top right: "It is the only one with spots. It must be a dalmation!"
Bottom left: "It's smaller than the others."
Bottom right: "It is long and flat, like a sausage dog!"

We have been enjoying exploring fractions as well as using materials to understand place value.




    

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori

We have been celebrating Māori language this week, through a range of activities and waiata.

Here are some waiata you might want to enjoy with your tamariki at home:





Here are some phrases your whānau may want to learn together:


Here are some images from our wiki:












Literacy

We have noticed so much progress in our handwriting over the course of the year. Bounce and Skip, the monkeys, have had many fantastic adventures with our learners and we have loved seeing all of the pictures of what they've been up to. 

Handwriting is such an important part of our literacy programme. Check out this video discussing the research and evidence surrounding the impact of handwriting fluency.








Learning to use the conjunctions 'because', 'but', 'so': 




Some of our eager writers and illustrators enjoyed sharing their books with Sandy on Friday:

We have really been enjoying the sandpit in this lovely weather. Sometimes our water and sand play can get a little messy, so please provide a change of clothes for your child if they are a keen sandpit adventurer! 

Over the holidays we will be moving homegroup spaces. Quynh and Lisa's homegroup will move to the breakout space, Krystal's HG to the Nook, Amber's HG to the theatre, and Katie's HG to the atrium.

Our last day of the term is Friday 22nd of September (the same day that calendar art orders are due).

Have a wonderful holiday break and we look forward to seeing you all back on Monday 9th October.

Ngā mihi nui,
Team Kahikatea

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz
krystal.hunt@beckenham.school.nz
amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz
lisa.collier@beckenham.school.nz
quynh.nguyen@beckenham.school.nz

Kauri Whānau Update: Term 3, Week 9

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In this post:

  • Ski Day video
  • Koru Games
  • Waka Hourua
  • Innovation Expo Winners
  • Year 8 Photos

Ski Day Video

Thank you to everyone who made our Ski Day in Week 7 such an outstanding success for all. Thanks to the media team who put together the following highlights video of the day:


Koru Games

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this coming week, 50 Kauri students will head off each day to the Selwyn Sports Centre in Rolleston compete in Basketball, Touch Rugby, Kī-o-Rahi, Ultimate Frisbee, and Hockey.

Our students have been really committed to their training sessions throughout the last few weeks, and we've been very grateful for parents who have volunteered their time to coach teams in the lead up to the event. A big thank you in advance to the parent volunteers who will be in attendance next week as well. 

If you have any questions ahead of this event, please check the notices sent out by Jenny via Hero, or email her directly.

Waka Hourua Inquiry

The hub has been a hive of creative energy this week as students have worked collaboratively to create their model replicas of traditional ocean-going waka hourua.

Alongside the construction component, students have been tasked with putting together a blurb that supports their model by explaining about the vessel, pacific navigation, and polynesian migration. Some students may need to spend time finishing off this written element over the weekend, and others may need to revisit their work to ensure it's entirely original - we would like to ensure that plagiarism is avoided.




Innovation Expo Winners

You may have seen on the school newsletter that one of our three teams that participated in the Build Ōtautahi: Minecraft Build Challenge at Te Pae's Innovation Expo was the overall winner of their group. All three teams of four students did an excellent job of using Minecraft to design sustainable structures for vacant city centre lots within the 60-minute timeframe. Many thanks to the parents for supporting this opportunity for our ākonga.



Year 8 Photos

It's the time of year where the teachers begin planning for all the end of year celebratory bits and bobs. If you are a parent of a current Year 8 student, can you please email through to Nicky a photo of your child either on their first day of school, or as a five-year-old.