Welcome to Term 2 in the Koru team

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 Kia ora ki te whanau,

A very warm welcome to all of our new children and their families, and welcome back to the children and their families who started with us in Term 1. We trust that the children have all had a wonderful holiday, enjoying family time together. We are really looking forward to getting to know all of our new children and families, and seeing new friendships blossom through this next term.

The children have had a marvellous first day (back) at school, and we're looking forward to a fun first week, and term ahead.

Our focus for this week is showing care and kindness towards others (especially towards those who are new to school), and showing respect and care for our equipment and the environment.

Bears, Bears, Bears!

We're also going to have a 'bear' theme this week, with 'We're Going On a Bear Hunt' and 'Bears in the Night' providing a framework for the children's play throughout the week. 

Although most of our Term 1 children have already had a Teddy Bear Day, we are going to have another Teddy Bear Day on Friday, along with a teddy bears' picnic (which will simply be the children's own lunches!). Please send (named, with your child's name) teddy bears to school on Friday. If your child doesn't have a teddy bear, they're welcome to bring their favourite soft toy instead.

Start and End of Day routines:

It's very helpful if you are able to say goodbye to your children out on the veranda each morning. You can encourage your children to take responsibility for their belongings by reminding them to unpack their own lunchboxes, drink bottles and reading folders, and then to store them in the right places once they're indoors. Likewise, at the end of each day, it is really helpful if you wait out in the courtyard where you can easily be seen by your child's home group teacher, so that teachers are able to farewell each child once you've been sighted. You are welcome to come inside if your child has something they would like to show you, once all of the children have been farewelled. Teachers will always endeavour to come out on to the veranda to catch up with you, after all children have been collected by parents or caregivers.

A reminder:

Please ensure that, once your child's Literacy folder starts coming home (again), and you've finished practising the letter cards and heart words with your child, the folder and its contents are returned to your child's school bag and come back to school every day. 

Here are some beautiful Day 1 photos, with the children engaged in a variety of activities during Learning Through Play - how lovely to see new friendships forming so quickly!














Have a great week, everyone, and we look forward to many learning adventures together throughout the term ahead.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Jo, Nicola, Chelsea, Stacey and Elizabeth

Kahikatea Newsletter Week 1 Term 2

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 Welcome Back Everyone! 

We hope you have had time to relax with your child/children over the school break. There are some important events and activities coming up this term including: 

School Cross Country ( Tuesday May 11th) 

Visit to the Botanic Gardens (May 24th & 25th) 

Staff Only Day ( Friday May 21st and Tuesday 8th June) 


Autumn/Winter Term

As the weather begins to change we invite you to please send you child to school with a named school jersey. Your child/ren are not required to bring their school sunhat during Term 2 and 3. 

If you wish to send a pair of warm socks or slippers to school for your child to wear inside please ensure these items are clearly named. 

Raincoats/Jackets/Gumboots need to be clearly named also. 


Cross Country Practices 

Teachers will be taking their homegroups out to the big field each afternoon to practice running the cross country course. Year 1 and 2 students will run a single lap of the Beckenham Park. 

Please send your child to school each day in footwear appropriate for running. Thanks! 


Visit to the Botanic Gardens 

We still need adult helpers for our trip to the gardens in late May. If you are able to support Amber or Charlotte's homegroups (Monday 24th May) OR Katie or Lisa's homegroup (Tuesday 25th May) please email charlotte.verity@beckenham.school.nz 

Communication with teachers

Teachers are in meetings daily from 8.15am to 8.30am and again from 3.15pm three to four times a week. 

If you need to make a time to meet with you child's homegroup teacher please email them. 

It is so nice to see everyone! Here are some first day back photos...

















Kauri Whānau: Holiday Update

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 In this post:

  • ShowQuest 
  • Quiz night help
  • Winter sport / Cross country
  • Learn, Create, Share

ShowQuest 

This is just a friendly reminder to check how you are going with sourcing a costume for your child to wear during our ShowQuest performance. The details were in our end of term 1 post. If you are struggling to find a costume for your child, please send us an email and we will see how we can help. 

We are in need of some parent / older sibling help at different times of the day May 17th (the day of ShowQuest). Please click here to see what is involved and let us know how you can help.

Quiz Night

We have a target of $5000 to raise to cover the costs of camp last term. Our cheese roll fundraiser brought in $2500, so we are halfway there! We hope to raise the rest at our Quiz Night on Saturday, May 29th. Many hands make light work, so please click on this link and let us know how you can help. We will be asking every family to donate a 'luxury' supermarket item so that we can make up hampers. 

Winter Sport and Cross Country

We are still in need of parent help on the day of the cross country and with our local winter sport competition. We are particularly short on netball and football coaches. Please click here to find out more and indicate if you can help.

Learn, Create, Share

One of the highlights of the week for many Kauri children is 'Learn, Create, Share', where their learning follows a personal passion. On the last day of term 1, we had our first sharing session. The children worked hard to create an object or presentation so that they could share their learning. We were impressed! Below is a slideshow to give you a glimpse into the learning that took place. We look forward to repeating this process and hope to open the next sharing session up to whānau.

End of Term 1 and Start of Term 2

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Urban Eel Project/Tuna Tāone

Last Friday we spent a fantastic day of scientific inquiry down at our river/ awa investigating the health of our river and discovering many things about the habitat. Thank you once again to all of the whānau that made it possible by being there as tautoko, support, and guidance for the tamariki. Jenny Bond from the Waterways Trust made a follow-up visit on Monday this week and the students were able to reflect on their findings and look carefully at the data that they had collected from the immersion day. Our next step in Term 2 will be to analyse the health of the Ōpāwaho river and look at ways we can make positive changes to the health of our local waterway and its surrounding habitat.


Learning Conferences

It was fantastic to connect with so many of you at Learning Conferences this week. These conferences provided a valuable opportunity to be able to update you on how your child/children are going at school, as well as to give you an insight into the learning that we are doing. As a follow-up to these short catch-ups with your child's homegroup teacher, we do encourage you to have regular chats with your child/children at home about what they are doing, and the things we are learning about at school. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning. To help facilitate this, here is the link to our Pōhutukawa Learning Site for you once again. This site is a one-stop shop for a lot of the learning we do in the team; you can access our other learning sites from here, too! Remember, you will need to be logged in to a Beckenham email account to access the links so it's a perfect chance to sit down and take a look together.

Cross Country in Week 2

Our school cross country is coming up on Tuesday May 11th at 11:45am , which is in the second week of Term 2. We will be doing some cross country training every day in week 1 and going over the course. All students will participate in the cross country and we will be working together on basic running skills and personal goals for the event. Nau mai te wero, bring on the challenge!

Have a safe and happy school holidays, kia pai tō hararei. See you all in Term 2!

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter Friday 16th April

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

What a busy and long term this has been! Thank you to all of the staff for their huge commitment to our tamariki, and especially to our teacher for the massive week they have put in this week with Learning Conferences going into the evening on both Monday and Wednesday. Thank you too to all of the children and whānau who participated in Learning Conferences. The information sheets that you received at learning conferences are the first report of this year. We are expecting the next report to be through our new digital platform - HERO - during Term 3. 


Great to see continued progress on our new classroom blocks.

School Website - Literacy Learning Page

We have updated our website with a new section on Literacy Learning. We will continue to add resources and information to this page.


New Staff for Term 2

Next term we will be welcoming three new staff to the school. 
Chelsea Carmichael will be joining the Koru (New Entrant) Team where she will start the third home group of new entrants who start next term. Chelsea is a Highlanders fan from Mosgiel and has been teaching in Melbourne for the past 10 years.



We also will be welcoming two new teaching assistants to the school - Sonya Watson and Charmaine Pedersen. (photos to come next term!

Ngā mihi nui
Sandy Hastings
Tumuaki - Principal

Important Dates

Upcoming Events

Fri 16 Apr: - Last day of Term 1

School Holidays

Term 2, Week 1:
Fri 7 May - Welcome Assembly 

Week 2: 
Tue 11 May - Whole School Cross Country
Thu 13 May - Cross Country (postponement date)

Week 3:
Mon 17 May - Show Quest Year 7 & 8
Thu 20 May - 12-3pm - South Zone Winter Sport
Fri 21 May - Staff Only Day (School Closed)

Term Dates

Click here to view 2021 term dates.

Citizen of the Week

Cassia Turner-Germon - Year 4

Cassia, you are amazing. You have a growth mindset and tackle challenges with a positive attitude! Ka pai! This makes you a role model for others in our kura. You are kind and caring, and always there for others. You show initiative in the way that you volunteer to help out and find different ways of problem solving. We look forward to seeing your lovely smile each day. Keep being your fantastic self. 

School Notices

Are you planning a big clean up during the holidays?

If so, you may have some items you might like to donate to our Koru Team to use in their Learning Through Play. 
We would love…
Old toy cars and vehicles
Sandpit toys including buckets, watering cans, spades, dump trucks, diggers etc.
Old baking equipment you no longer need for our mud kitchen
Bits of downpipe, guttering or other plumbing parts to use in the sandpit
Dolls clothes (to fit 41cm dolls or prem size babies), prams etc.
Pop up tent
Knights and dragons for our castles
Lego or Duplo
Surplus craft supplies
Plastic animals

If there is anything else you come across that you think may be suitable,  please see or email one of the Koru Team.

Showquest

Show Quest rehearsals are in full swing and the children are responding really positively to the challenge. Below is information about purchasing tickets to the show and important costuming information. Our performance date is Monday May 17th. On this day the children will be at the Town Hall from 10am until after their performance in the evening. 

Tickets
Please visit Ticketek to order your tickets. If you can't make the show, there will be a video.

Sports News

Cross Country

Our whole school cross country is coming up at the start of next term. This will be held on Tuesday the 11th of May in the afternoon. 

Seniors will have an earlier lunch and start first. The Junior students will start later in the afternoon. Timings will be confirmed during Week 1 of the term and sent out to you via the school newsletter. 

We encourage all the students to embrace our school value "We Love Challenge" and to try their very best. While for the majority this will be participating as a runner, there will be additional ways to make sure all our tamariki are involved in the event. Teams have started our practises already and will continue during the first week of Term 2. We know that some children will enjoy practising over the holidays. Happy running! 

Congratulations

Congratulations to our own Paul McKinnel who, with his team, won the Canterbury Club Championship, the Watson Shield, last weekend. We wish Paul and his team all the best for the National Club Championships this coming weekend!

Paul (in the blue cap, centre of the photo)

Community Notices

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

The Big Little Theatre Company

There are 2 shows in Christchurch, 1 at the Little Andromeda Theatre on the 22nd of April, and 1 at the Isaac Theatre Royal on the 23rd of April.

So what is the show about you ask?  It’s a  comedy of falsehoods, wit and questionable societal norms, Big Little Theatre Company's reimagining of Oscar Wilde's the Importance of Being Earnest will have you laughing out loud and hungry for a muffin.

Jack is in love with Gwendolen. Algernon is in love with Cecily. Cecily is Jack's ward. Gwendolen is Algernon's cousin. Jack told Gwendolen his name was Earnest. Algernon told Cecily his name was Earnest. Neither Jack nor Algernon are actually called Earnest but of course Gwendolen and Cecily both think their love is called  Earnest. Maddie and Morgan can't find Earnest anywhere on Instagram, someone misplaced a baby and Quin is just happy to be here. 

Confused? Good. You’ll just have to come along for a fun filled evening out to make sense of just who Earnest is and why he is so important.