Monthly Archives: June 2024

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Schoolwide Newsletter, Rāpare (Thursday) 27 June 2024, Week 9

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

Matariki Evening
Our thanks to everyone who made our Matariki evening such a success. It was great to see people coming together, having fun, making connections and enjoying some kai (food). We saw 'We Love Challenge' and 'We Get There Together' in action as our Kapa Haka groups performed to a large audience - ka rawe!

Matariki is a special occasion signifying the start of the Māori New Year. As the Matariki cluster of stars reappears in our night sky we take the time to reflect on the past year, celebrate the present, and plan for the year ahead. 

Staffing Update
From the beginning of Term 3, we welcome back Nicola Reddecliffe to the Koru Team. Nicola will be the Home Group Teacher for the New Entrant roll growth class. 

On Wednesday 3 July at 2.15pm we have a Farewell Assembly for Sandy Hastings. The Board, staff, tamariki and community will take this time to acknowledge Sandy's leadership during her time at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto. Whānau are welcome to join us for this celebration. 

With one week left of term, it's a great opportunity to thank staff, tamariki and whānau for the mahi (work) and support during the busy last couple of weeks with the Disco, Learning Conferences and our Matariki evening. These opportunities add to the richness of school life.

We hope that the coming school holiday provides our tamariki with much needed rest, ready for the start of Term 3 on the 22nd of July.

Ngā mihi nui
Jo Smith - Tumuaki (Acting Principal)

Important Dates

Upcoming Events

Fri 28 Jun - Matariki Public Holiday (kura/school closed)
Tue 2 Jul - Y0-4 Cross Country Challenge, 12:00 - 3:00pm, Hillview
Wed 3 Jul - Sandy's Farewell Assembly, 2:15-4:00PM, in the Hall, RSVP required
Fri 5 Jul - Student Council Dress Up Day (see info below)
Fri 5 Jul - Celebration Assembly, 10:00-10:30am, in the Hall
Fri 5 Jul - Last day of Term 2, School finishes 3pm
Mon 22 Jul - First day of Term 3, School starts at 8:55am
Wed 24 Jul - PTA Midwinter Breakfast 8am to 8.30am
Fri 26 Jul - Welcome Assembly, 9:15-9:30am, in the Hall
Wed 31 Jul - PTA Meeting (AGM), 7:00-9:30PM, Green Room
Fri 2 Aug - Celebration Assembly, 10:00-10:30am, in the Hall
Fri 15 Aug - Celebration Assembly, 10:00-10:30am, in the Hall
Mon 26 Aug - Staff Only Day (kura/school closed)
Wed 28 Aug - BOT Meeting, 5:30-7:30PM, Staff Room
Wed 28 Aug - PTA Meeting, 7:30-9:30PM, Green Room
Fri 30 Aug - Celebration Assembly, 10:00-10:30am, in the Hall
Mon 2 Sep - School Duathlon, 12:15-3:00PM
Wed 4 Sep - Kauri Ski Trip TBC
Fri 13 Sep - Celebration Assembly, 10:00-10:30am, in the Hall
Thu 19 Sep - New Entrant and Year 8 Photos, 9:00-10:00am
Wed 25 Sep - PTA Meeting, 7:30-9:30PM, Green Room
Thu 26 Sep - BOT Meeting, 5:30-7:30PM, Staff Room
Fri 27 Sep - Celebration Assembly, 10:00-10:30am, in the Hall
Fri 27 Sep - Last day of Term 3, School finishes 3pm
Mon 14 Oct - First day of Term 4, School starts 8:55am

Term Dates

Click here to view 2024 term dates.

Citizen of the Week (Week 8)

Imogen Orchard - Year 7

Imogen, you are a shining star in our Kauri whānau. You are exceptionally kind and inclusive to all. Imogen, we see positivity, integrity and diligence in everything you do. You get involved, strive for excellence and are wonderfully nurturing towards younger tamariki. What a fabulous role model you are. 

Citizen of the Week (Week 9)

Max Richards - Year 4

Max, you are an outstanding role model in the Kōwhai hub. You are polite, thoughtful and caring and also respectful of everyone. You are a self-motivated learner, showing great focus on all that you do. You are a reliable leader and can be trusted to fulfil any responsibility you take on. Tino pai, Max!

BOT Update

Principal Appointment

As you will be aware, we are in the beginning phases of appointing a new Principal for Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto. An important part of this process is to hear from our community. Your voice and experiences are important to inform the Board's decision making throughout this process. 
The Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Board of Trustees would really value your input as we embark on this journey, to ensure we appoint the best person for our kura.
If you would like to contribute to this process, please fill in the form, linked here, by the 12th of July.

Alternatively, paper forms have been sent home with tamariki today for your completion. Paper forms need to be returned by Friday the 5th of July, the last day of term.

All responses will be anonymous, and we thank you in advance for your contribution.
Ngā mihi nui,

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Board of Trustees

School Notices

Student Council Dress Up Day

A message from our student council: This Friday, 5th July, the student council is having a dress-up day to celebrate diversity. Tamariki can dress up in rainbow colours and bring a gold coin to donate to Youthline. Youthline is a group that supports the well-being of young people. This is a great group to call for a chat when you are dealing with tricky stuff in your life. 

Sandy Hastings' Farewell Assembly

You are invited to join us in officially celebrating and farewelling Sandy Hastings from her role as Principal at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto.

We will be hosting a Farewell Assembly for Sandy on Wednesday the 3rd of July.
The Assembly is for the whole school, and guests, and will run from 2:15-3:00PM.
Following the Assembly we will welcome all staff and guests to join us from 3:00-4:00PM for kai (food) and refreshments.

Please would you indicate your attendance by filling in this form, linked here. We would appreciate knowing numbers, for catering purposes, if you intend to join us after the Assembly.

If you have any photos, memories or messages you would like to share, these can be emailed to pa@beckenham.school.nz

Matariki Evening

Matariki is a great opportunity to share kai and reflect on the past 4 seasons, celebrating the present with whānau, and looking forward to what is to come as the days get longer. Thank you to everyone who attended our wonderful Matariki evening on Tuesday night. It was a very special celebration, and was awesome to see whānau connecting with our kaiako (teachers), as well as with other whānau. A big thank you to the PTA for having a delicious sausage sizzle, and to our tamariki for their exceptional kapa haka performances. We hope you have a happy and safe Matariki weekend! Mānawatia a Matariki!

Collectively we raised over $500 in koha, consumed 17 loafs of bread, 2 kgs of pre cut onions, and approximately 380 sausages! Kai (food) is a great way to bring a community together!

Show Quest

On Friday the 21st of June, 42 Kauri students performed at ShowQuest, at the Town Hall. The students performed a dance that they had conceptualised and choreographed as a group over Terms 1 and 2. The dance explored the positives and negatives of social media: it can disconnect us from our environment, yet connect us with friends and family. The content we see can inspire creativity, but also give us unrealistic expectations for what our lives and bodies should look like. 

The children were a delight to accompany to this event and they delivered an expressive and engaging performance.  The energy backstage was super positive and exciting. The children were so proud of their performance, and rightly so. 

Thank you to whānau who helped at the town hall. 

The performance can be viewed on YouTube and photos can be seen and purchased on the following link.


Community Dental Service - Holiday Clinics July 2024

The Community Dental Service will be closed for the upcoming school holidays:
 
     Closed from: Monday 8th July 2024
     Reopen: Monday 22nd July 2024

Three of our community dental clinics will be open during the break:

     Hillmorton (80-82 Sylvan Street)
     Aranui        (240 Breezes Road)
     Timaru       (18 Woollcombe Street)

If your child is experiencing any dental pain/discomfort, you can call us on 0800 846 983 and/or email: commdental@cdhb.health.nz and one of our clinicians will contact you.

PTA News

With the colder weather well and truly here we are always looking for donations of school sweatshirts and polar fleeces.  If you have been meaning to have a clear out, now is the time!! We particularly need tops in larger sizes. If you are looking to visit the PTA Uniform Shop, the hours are:

Monday 2:45 - 3:15PM
Friday  8:45 - 9.15AM

Thanks in anticipation.

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto PTA

Community Notices

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






BOSCO school holiday programme.

Bookings can be made through bosco.aimyplus.com

Please feel free to contact Harriet with any questions

office@bosco.org.nz


Koru Team News: Term 2 Week 8 (21/06/2024)

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Kia ora e te whānau,

The time really seems to be flying by with just a fortnight now until the school holidays, the last day of term being on Friday, July 5th. We have some exciting events planned for the final part of the term, including our Art Gallery trip on Monday, the Matariki evening on Tuesday next week and some Matariki baking on Thursday of next week just before the long Matariki weekend. Please see below for reminders about the dates on which these events and some others will be taking place.

We warmly welcome Aylah who has had her first full week at school (what a wonderful first week you've had, Aylah!), and we're also excited to be welcoming Millie who is going to be starting school on Tuesday next week. We're so glad to have you both in the Koru team, tamariki!

Important dates to remember:

  • Monday, June 24th, 9:00 - 12:00 Koru team Art Gallery outing
  • Tuesday, June 25th, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. our whole school Matariki evening
  • Thursday, June 27th, Koru team Matariki baking (we'll be baking plain scones with jam on them - please do let us know if you'd prefer that your child doesn't have a scone)
  • Friday, June 28th, school is closed for the long Matariki weekend
  • Friday, July 5th is the last day of Term 2

Cyber Safety at Beckenham Te Kura ō Pūroto:

In this Blog post, we have a focus on being Aware of Online Harm.

Many parents didn't grow up with the internet, so it can be hard to imagine how tamariki may use it. But these days, digital technology is a key part of our young people's lives. They use it for learning, communicating and entertainment.

Netsafe has released research that looked into parental awareness of children's experiences of online risks and harm. The research found a mismatch between parents' awareness and their children's experiences of upsetting online content.

To check out the research, and other Netsafe resources, visit this link.

Maths in the Koru Team:

In the Koru team, we just LOVE Maths! Our Maths takes the form of:

  • a weekly problem-solving session
  • Hot Spot warm ups, with a focus throughout each week on developing number knowledge, Move and Prove and Notice, Think, Wonder (see below for descriptions)
  • small group lessons, during which the children are taught to use their number knowledge in order to strategise to solve number problems
  • at times throughout each term, a focus on other Maths strands (aspects of Algebra, Geometry and Measurement and Statistics)
  • and once a week on Fridays our handwriting lesson is devoted to specifically learning and practising the correct numeral formation.
During problem-solving, the children will be presented with a story and a challenge and will have the opportunity to work in small groups or pairs to solve the problem. The children will often use a whiteboard and other resources to support their problem-solving. Here's an example of an open-ended problem:

Here are three caves. There are bears in each cave. There are 12 bears altogether. If there are 2 bears in the first cave, how many bears might be in each of the other caves?

Notice, Think, Wonder:
This involves the children simply offering up their observations and thoughts in response to an image which we will have displayed for them. Here is an example of a Notice, Think, Wonder image:

Move and Prove:
This activity begins with the children being shown a slide such as this:


The question is discussed initially, as a whole group, and then children are asked to 'turn and talk' with the person beside them and discuss why they think the way they think. Once this has happened, the children are asked to move to a position on the mat which has been designated as either 'a', 'b', 'c' or 'd'. If a child finds it difficult to make a decision straight away, we have a space in the middle of the mat, which is the 'pause' area and children who are waiting there are given time to make their decision while others are asked to justify their choice. If a child who is sitting in the middle is persuaded by another child's justification, they are then able to move to sit with that child. As you will see from the image above, it's possible that there might be several 'correct' answers, depending on the way you view and think about the possibilities presented, and we inevitably notice that the children are able to come up with very interesting justifications for the choices they have made!
Here is a selection of photos showing aspects of our Maths programme:





















We do hope you have a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing all of those beautiful smiles back at school on Monday, ready for our outing to the Christchurch Art Gallery.

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,
Elizabeth, Stacey and Georgia





Kōwhai News Term 2 Week 8

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Kia ora Whānau, we have had another busy and fun fortnight in Kōwhai! 

Welcome to Tracey

A warm welcome to Tracey who has joined our team. Tracey will be providing CRT for our Teachers as well as using her expertise in Structured Literacy to support our team.

Kia ora koutou,
My name is Tracey Maloney and I'm very excited to be joining the Kowhai team.  I'll be filling in for Charlotte as she heads off on her new adventures in her new school. I know she will be missed but I'm grateful to be taking on her role and working with everyone in the Kowhai hub. Some of my favourite things to do are to go exploring and walking around our beautiful Christchurch spaces, like the Botanical Gardens and the Banks Peninsula. I love to cook and my favourite recipe is Spaghetti Bolognese. My husband is named Kevin and we have a fat black and white cat named DC. These days DC loves to eat biscuits and laze in the sun. I've been working as a Reliever Teacher at several different schools in the Christchurch area and am looking forward to being a part of the Beckenham team once again.
Ngā mihi
Tracey Maloney

Matariki     


We are looking forward to seeing you at our Matariki evening on Tuesday June 25th. All Kōwhai workshops will be in Tahaki. 

The students who are in the Kapa Haka performance group will be performing at 6:40 pm. They will need to be here by 6:15 pm (sharp) and meet in Pūkaki (Nick and Krystal's homegroup space).

NZ Opera in Schools Tour - The Elixir of Love

Last Thursday, the NZ Opera "Opera in Schools" tour visited us to perform Donizetti's The Elixir of Love. 

This 45-minute adaptation of Donizetti’s famous opera follows Adina, the daughter of the local fish and chip shop owner. Nemorino, who works there, is madly in love with her but is too shy to express his feelings. When a famous film star, Belcore, arrives and flirts with Adina, Nemorino must find the courage to fight for his love, possibly with the help of a magical Elixir of Love.






Cybersafety

Awareness of Online Harm

Many parents didn’t grow up with the internet, so it can be hard to imagine how tamariki may use it.

But these days, digital technology is a key part of our young people’s lives. They use it for learning,

communicating and entertainment.

Netsafe has released research that looked into parental awareness of children’s experiences of online risks and harm. The research found a mismatch between parents’ awareness and their children’s experiences of upsetting online content.

To check out the research, and other Netsafe resources, visit this link. 

Friendship Is...



Have a great weekend!

Pōhutukawa Update, Term 2 Week 8

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 Ngā mihi e te whānau,

It was fantastic to see so many of you at our Learning Conferences last week, we really appreciate the whanaungatanga that comes as a result of these conversations. Mā tātou te katoa te waka e hoe, we are all rowing the waka together.

A huge mihi/ thank you to those parents who supported our Food for Thought visit to New World on Wednesday, and St Martins New World for hosting us in-store. We certainly ran the gauntlet with the weather in the afternoon, and all the home groups were able to enjoy a practical lesson outside of school to consolidate what they learned during the in-class sessions. We hope you enjoy the photos, and the pānui/information about the programme below.

All the best to those tamariki who are entering the 40 Hour Challenge this weekend. Nau mai te wero - bring on the challenge! As we wind up the term, we have a few housekeeping items for you to be aware of, so thank you for reading on.

Empowering Healthier Futures Through "Food for Thought

This week we had Karli from Food for Thought visit the school to deliver three nutrition sessions to the students. Our schoolwide concept for 2024 is Identity, and we have chosen to look at this concept through the lens of Health this term.

The first two sessions saw students learn about how foods and nutrients support active and growing bodies. We also learned how to read the nutritional information on packaged foods and explored the sugar content in different drinks. We discovered that a 600ml bottle of Coca-Cola contains a staggering 16 teaspoons of sugar!

In the third session, students were given the opportunity to apply their newfound knowledge in a real-world setting. We visited St Martins New World where students analysed nutrition labels on various packaged foods to learn more about what is in our foods. Pōhutukawa are now expert food detectives! Don't hesitate to ask them to showcase their new skills to you.

At the end of the programme, each class received a $60 New World gift card to share some healthy kai. Watch this space!

It was great to have the Food for Thought team with us to give our students important lessons they can carry with them through life. If you are interested in learning more about Food for Thought, visit their website here: www.foodforthought.co.nz

 

Toys and Precious Items

We have noticed an increase in students bringing toys and precious items to school e.g. Rubik's Cubes. Unfortunately, due to the tendency of these things to get broken or go missing, we ask that all students not bring these to school. Thank you for your support with this.

Matariki Evening and Kapa Haka Performance

Matariki is the start of the Māori new year and a time of reflection, connection and planning for the year ahead. We would like to celebrate with you and your whānau on the 25th of June from 5pm - 7pm.  As part of the evening Whaea Cath Milio is preparing our kapa haka rōpu for a short performance on the night. The performance will be at approximately 6:40pm in Māpuna, our school hall, and will be after our Matariki activities in the Hub. It's a wonderful opportunity for our kapa haka rōpu to perform. Your child/children will need to meet in Pūkaki (opposite the Pōhutukawa Hub) at 6:15pm in order to get ready. We look forward to seeing you there!

Shoes
It has been really great to see the students 'stepping up' to show We Care for our school environment by removing their shoes during this wet and muddy season.  We are lucky to have wonderful underfloor heating in the classrooms, so feet stay nice and warm, and as an added benefit our carpet stays mud-free! In addition to this, we suggest that if your child is coming home with very muddy clothes, please consider supplying them with a spare pair of school shorts and a spare school top for them to change into once they finish their games. 

Kauri Whānau Update: Term 2 Week 8

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 In this post:

  • Best of luck for ShowQuest!
  • Cyber-safey
  • Opera
  • Young Writers
  • Hagley College Year 9 enrolment

ShowQuest:

Jenny and our ShowQuest team have put in countless hours to prepare for tonight's performance. Their 8-minute dance delves into our obsession with phones and cleverly communicates some thought-provoking messages. We wish them all the best!

Cyber-Safety: Awareness of Online Harm:

Many parents didn’t grow up with the internet, so it can be hard to imagine how tamariki may use it. But these days, digital technology is a key part of our young people’s lives. They use it for learning, communicating and entertainment.

Netsafe has released research that looked into parental awareness of children’s experiences of online risks and harm. The research found a mismatch between parents’ awareness and their children’s experiences of upsetting online content.

To check out the research, and other Netsafe resources, visit this link.  

Opera:

Our tamariki responded enthusiastically to the NZ Opera in Schools performance of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love last Thursday. It was a great introduction to opera: not too long, cheeky appealing characters and a story that was easy to follow. Their parting advice for anyone interested in singing performance was to join a choir.



Young Writers:

 See below for great opportunities from the School of Young Writers for the upcoming holidays and term 3.

We have a fabulous lineup of masterclasses for your Year 7 - 13 young writers in the July school holidays and  on Fridays in Term 3
 
Don't delay in signing up as places are strictly limited. 
Due to popular demand, we have increased initial school bookings to allow up to 6 students per school. Please note that the podcasting classes are for a group of 4-6 students. 

A Message from Hagley College:

Enrolment applications for Hagley College Year 9 2025 are closing soon, on Thursday 27 June at midday – ahead of the long Matariki weekend.

Our close-off date is firm and we will not be able to receive any new applications after this date. We are aware that our closing date is a little earlier than for many of the other high schools, so I am just hoping to avoid anyone missing out.

 
If any of your students and their whānau are keen but haven't put an application in yet, they need to go to https://www.hagley.school.nz/enrolment/year-9-enrolment/ and click the button to start a new application as soon as possible.


Any questions can be directed to me any time at the below number or email address. I do also have paper copies of the enrolment form here for families who are unable to apply online (though we may be cutting it a little fine to rely on physical post at this point).