Great news! Planning is underway for our Pōhutukawa Camp at Living Springs. The camp will run for three days and two nights from Wednesday the 25th to Friday the 27th of November, which is in week 7 of Term 4.
The cost of camp is likely to be no more than $180 per child. You can start making contributions for this as soon as you are able to, by setting up a small automatic payment. If you set that up this week, $9.50 per week would ensure that your contribution towards camp was fully paid by the time camp happens. To set up an automatic payment, please copy the school’s bank account number:
12-3148-0131641-00 into your internet banking and use your child’s name and 'Y5/6Camp' as the reference.
We will be needing some parent helpers for the camp, and will be putting out the call for parents who may be interested and available early next term. Next term you will receive more information about the camp, as we firm up the camp programme of activities.
We hope you have a restful and fun filled holiday break.
Week 12! It's been a long term and everyone is in need of a holiday. We are so impressed with how so many of our learners are maintaining focus and continuing to give of their best. Thank you for taking the time to meet with us during learning conferences. This is a great opportunity to share successes and next steps.
Ski Trip Form
Many thanks to the 35 families who have filled in our ski form. If you have yet to do this, please click this link and fill it in now. We need this information before going to the next step of our preparation.
Sport in Term 3
We would like to continue our winter sport programme on Thursday afternoons next term. In order for this to happen, we need a football and a hockey coach. Please email Jenny if you can help.
Over the past two years, we have taken part in Koru Games, a South Island sports tournament for Year 7 & 8s. This competition takes place in the Selwyn District from Sept 12 - 15. Before we decide which teams to enter, we thought we should start by seeing which sports you could support us with. Please click on this link to see what is involved and let us know if you can help.
Evening for Year 8 Whānau attending Cashmere High in 2021
Joe Eccleton, the principal of Cashmere High will be at school on Monday, July 27th, between 6 and 7pm, to talk with families and children planning to attend CHS in 2021. Please mark this date in your calendars.
ShowQuest - seeking a videographer and some sewers
For the past two terms, a group of Year 7 and 8 students have been conceptualising and choreographing an entry for ShowQuest. This is usually an on-stage performance but in response to Covid, the organisers have switched to an online video entry. We are wondering if there is anyone in our school community who has any experience or expertise that they could contribute to this project. We would like to hear from people with knowledge in filming, editing, or sewing. Please, get in touch with Jenny, if you think you could help. The plan is to film early in term 3.
What a busy term we have had! Winter Sport We've been very unlucky with the weather this term for winter sport. Thanks to all of you who put your names forward to help with winter sport development and competitive teams. We are continuing next term on Thursdays - if you are unavailable to help next term please let us know, otherwise we look forward to working alongside you again in term three.
Learning Conferences Thanks so much for booking in for the learning conferences. We are looking forward to supporting all our learners to share their learning with you. The weeks since returning to school after the Rāhui have flown by. Below is some information on what we have been up to.
In recent weeks, our focus at writing time has been on identifying, understanding the grammatical structure of and creating simple, compound and complex sentences. The children have been self assessing their writing skills in this context and will share more with you about this at the learning conferences this week.
A large amount of time and focus has been directed at the area of place value in mathematics. Place value is an area of the mathematics curriculum that will be covered every academic year through primary and secondary school, with a view to building upon previous knowledge. An understanding of place value forms the basis of many areas of mathematical understanding. Initially the focus might be on place value columns and reading numbers accurately, then it develops to being able to quickly identify the number of tens, hundreds, thousands and so on in numbers, in conjunction with using place value knowledge and understanding to manipulate numbers in addition and subtraction calculations, for example.
Another area of focus in mathematics this term has been tracking both reasoning and recall ability in relation to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. The children have done a great job of assessing their abilities in this area, and setting some goals for future focus. They will be sharing this with you at their learning conferences, and we will have some work that you can continue at home to support our learners in achieving these goals. Rob has created a brief video below to help you to understand the tracker system that we are using. The children are experts at this, so they will also be able to help!
At reading time we have been working on a variety of activities in order to support our learners to accurately decode what they are reading, comprehend the author's meaning, and analyse the text to develop their understanding. The children are becoming more confident in discussing what they have read with others too.
Term 3
Our focus for term 3 and beyond is to support the children to become more "assessment capable" as learners. This involves unpacking assessments of their learning in reading, writing and mathematics to look at strengths and next steps, and supporting each learner to develop confidence in assessing themselves against goals that they have agreed upon with their teacher. This will ensure that each child is being extended, whatever their level.
Hand washing
We are in the season for colds and flu at the moment, and we have had many children away sick recently. We continue to encourage the children to wash their hands before they eat, and hand sanitiser is available at school for those who wish to use it. We are aware of the environmental impact of very regular had washing - if you would like to send your child to school with their own personal hand towel in their bag for use at hand washing time, we will support them to use it.
We hope you have a fun filled and restful holiday, and look forward to seeing everyone relaxed and refreshed next term.
Learning Conferences - this coming Tuesday and Thursday
This coming week, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, we will be having mid-year Learning Conferences. This meeting is designed to be a three-way conversation between you, your child and their home group teacher about their learning and wellbeing. At the conference, you will receive a Learning Snapshot in place of a mid-year report, which will be a brief, written synthesis of some of the discussion you will have had about your child's learning.
NOTE that school finishes at 2pm on each of these days. If your child is booked into BOSCO for either of these days, they will be able to go to BOSCO from 2pm. If you need your child to be supervised on either day, please contact Jacky in the office so we know to expect them, AND ask your child to go to the hall foyer at 2pm on those days to sign in to the supervision programme until 3pm. Children at BOSCO and in supervision will not be playing outside between 2 and 3pm.
If you haven't yet done this, please book a learning conference time for each child you have at school. The learning conference bookings are for 15 minutes each (NOTE that in Year 7/8, even though you will be booking for 15mins, the conference will take 30 mins as your child has a bigger role in the discussion at the intermediate year level.) If you have more than one child to book for, please do not book back to back time slots, as you will lose some of your time in moving from one conference to the other.
A huge "Thank You!" to our PTA for the energy and commitment they put into ensuring that our School Disco happened this year. Thank you also to the staff and `whānau who came along to support with supervision and ensured that the children were safe and having a great time.
Staffing Update
At the start of next term, we will welcome another new teacher to our Koru Team (NE/Y1). Sari Farrant will join Jo, Elizabeth, Stacey and Sophie until the end of the year, to be the point of contact teacher for our fourth New Entrant home group.
Sari Farrant - new NE teacher
New Entrant Enrolments for 2020 and 2021
If you have a 3 or 4 year old at home whom you are intending to enrol at Beckenham, we would really appreciate if you do that this coming week. Whilst their 5th birthday might seem like a long way away, we are required to 'predict' our 2021 roll at the end of this week in our formal 'roll return' to the Ministry of Education, and this prediction will be more accurate with actual enrolments on our system. If you have friends or neighbours with 3 or 4 year olds and you know they are planning to enrol at Beckenham, please let them know that we would like to hear from them sooner, rather than later! Many thanks.
Ngā mihi nui Sandy Hastings Principal - Tumuaki
Important Dates
Upcoming Events
Monday 29 June - Zones Cross Country event at Halswell Quarry. 9am - 12:45pm Tuesday 30 June - Learning Conferences - School closes 2pm Thursday 2 July - Learning Conferences - School closes 2pm Friday 3 July - Final day of Term 2. School closes at 3pm
Term 3 begins TUESDAY 21 July. (Staff only day on Monday 20 July)
Monday 27 July - Year 8 whānau meeting about Cashmere High (see below)
Hatsumi, You are a role model in our hub who naturally demonstrates our school values and you are always willing to lend a hand or help others. You display a positive attitude to all aspects of learning. You show initiative and drive to do the right thing and help make the Kōwhai Hub a happy place to work. Your bright smile and warm friendliness everyday is appreciated by everyone around you. We love having you in our team!
School Notices
Lost property from the mid winter breakfast
Please come to the office to claim these items.
Year 8 whānau meeting - learning about Cashmere High...
Joe Eccleton, Principal of Cashmere High, will be coming to speak to interested whānau about Cashmere High on Monday 27 July from 6pm - 7pm at Beckenham. Diary the date - more information to come.
Term Dates for 2021
At our Board of Trustees meeting this week, we finalised the Term dates for 2021. Click here to see these on our website.
Sports News
It is great to have sports news to share after the long period of no sporting activities.
This week we had a number of teams participate in a zone basketball competition at Hillview Christian School.
Congratulations to our senior girls who won their competition!
Zones Cross Country
These kids were superb representing BeckenhamTe Kura o Pūroto at the Zones Cross Country. Some toe to toe action!
Congratulations to Jonty Mitchell, who placed 4th in the zones cross country, earning him a place at Canterburys next term.
PTA News
Again - a huge thanks to our PTA for the mid-winter breakfast and the school DISCO - both held in the last two weeks. We really appreciate everything you do for our children and community.
Community Notices
(Notices placed here are contingent on space and do not reflect the views or opinions of the school.)
The Big Planting Day!
An opportunity for families to get to know your local reserve, plant some plants and meet some of the regular Friends of Farnley volunteers.
19 July (last Sunday of school holidays)
9am -12pm
Meet at Farnley Reserve
Bring your own shovel and gloves if you have one (make sure they are named). Wear warm clothes, sturdy footwear and bring your own morning tea.
This is a community planting day. Parents need to also attend and supervise their own young people.
Free Martial Arts for Taekwon-Do School Holiday Programme
We have had two zone sports events this week, cross country on Monday and basketball on Wednesday, at which we saw several awesome examples of positive sportsmanship. Seeing some of our seniors cheering on every runner, even when others had zoomed to the finish line, was a great example of getting there together and making a difference. Special congratulations to the girls' basketball team, who won their competition and have qualified for the Canterbury Indoor Tournament. Congratulations to Jonty Mitchel, who placed 4th in the cross country, earning him a place at Canterburys next term.
Camp
When we had to cancel camp before lockdown in term 1, we quickly penciled in a booking for term 4, just in case the situation improved. Now that we are in Level 1, the decision has been made to go ahead with our Dunedin / Waihola Camp in term 4 from October 19 - 23. This is the second week in term 2. I will be contacting our term 1 camp parents to check on their availability for these new dates.
In order to make the camp as affordable as possible, we will be doing some more fundraising in term 3. This will include another round of cheese rolls, selling bulk packs of toilet paper, raffling a bike and holding a comedy evening. If many people pitched in in a small way, we can share the load of these projects. Please click here to let us know how you can contribute.
Unfortunately, since booking this new date, Primary Sports Canterbury have released their postponement date for the Canterbury Duathlon, which is October the 19th. We are happy to discuss options with any of the children who qualified back in March at our school event who wish to still compete at Canterburys.
Ski Trip
We have all our parent helpers confirmed and the buses are booked for our ski day on Friday, August 28th. We now need information about every child so that we can best meet their needs on this day. We need every family to click here and complete this form.
Cashmere High School
We are in the process of arranging an evening where the principal of Cashmere High will come to speak with students and parents about the transition to secondary school and specifically about the transition to Cashmere High School. Once the date is set we will let you know. In the meantime, here is an informative video that CHS has put together.
Cashmere High School Combos and Big Bands will perform an evening of Jazz on Thursday July 2nd in the Cashmere High School McCombs Performing Arts Centre, 172 Rose Street at 7pm (Doors open 6.30pm). We would like to extend an invitation to our wider community to enjoy this event with us.
From Badminton Canterbury
A number of the children in our hub have shown an interest in badminton, so we thought that this might be of interest.
Keep fit and be active these school holidays with the opportunity to either give badminton a try for the first time or build on your existing skills. Sessions will include a combination of fun games, skill practice and some game time. Racquets provided for all sessions. Please bring food and drink bottles. Must have non-marking sole shoes.
ZHU Badminton Centre – 98 Aidanfield Drive, Wigram
Must have non marking sole shoes
Cost is $15 per session.
Minimum of 4 children per session for it to go ahead
