Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter April 24th 2020

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Stones painted by Sandy's sister, and donated to veterans at Rannerdale Veterans Rest Home

What a strange, and busy term this has been so far!

Some very exciting news this week was the starting of five New Entrant students! Avery special lockdown welcome to them! What a story they will have to tell their children about how they started school without leaving their front doors! We send out a very warm Beckenham welcome to these new students and their whānau and look forward to welcoming you on-site in person once school begins again.

We'd like to send huge congratulations to you all at home, juggling the challenges of being in lockdown and supporting your children with online learning. We absolutely take our hats off to you all for the extra time that you are giving your children with their learning and we have loved seeing and hearing about all the different ways that families have chosen to take on board the different learning possibilities over the past couple of weeks.

With the long weekend coming up, and a move to Alert Level 3 on Tuesday, we are all shifting gear again and will be adapting to the adjusted requirements on us all in this new level.

As you have probably heard, via various sources, Monday is the public holiday associated with ANZAC Day, and on Tuesday, schools across the country have been given a Staff Only Day for preparation for moving to Level 3.

Whilst our staff won't be setting new learning challenges for Tuesday or commenting on children's learning, we know that some of you will want your children to continue on with selecting from the learning options that are available through our website, through Google classroom (seniors) and through Seesaw (juniors).

New learning challenges and videos from staff will be posted ready for Wednesday morning.

What will school and learning look like next week, under Alert Level 3?

Online learning and connection with teachers will continue throughout Level 3 for all children.

From Wednesday 29th April, we will have a skeleton staff on-site during normal school hours and we will be operating two separate school bubbles of learning for children who have no adults at home to support them. Thank you to everyone for responding to our survey and for letting us know about your particular circumstances and needs. We have been able to limit the number of bubbles of children at school to two bubbles. This shifts 4 teaching staff from the online role that they have had so far, to a school-based role. This means that through Level 3, your children may be being supported by a teacher who is different from their usual home group teacher, as their home group teacher may be at school.

From next week, teachers will be focussing on giving feedback to, and engaging with the children in their learning, and won't be making as much contact with caregivers, unless you request it. If you would like to talk with a teacher, please DO get in touch via email or through phoning Jacky on 03 337 1404 and requesting that the teacher calls you back.

We understand that this next two weeks puts new challenges onto some families with workplaces expecting more of people turning up to work in person or online. We do want all caregivers to remember that you have complete say over how much, or how little you decide for your children to engage with the online learning... so that your family can continue to function successfully. Our staff are completely here to support you and will provide more or less support, as you need and request it.

As we will have children on-site during school hours next week, please do not come onto the school grounds during school hours if you are out for a walk. We will be working extremely hard to maintain the small school bubbles that we are creating, and thank you for staying away during this time to keep everyone safe.

On Monday or Tuesday, there will be a special email going out to the families of children who will be at school during Level 3, including more detail about school bubbles and how they will operate, drop-off and pick-up times, emergency contact information and procedures, and what children need to bring with them.

The office will not be open during Alert Level 3. Inquiries can be made by phone 03 337 1404 or by emailing office@beckenham.school.nz and Jacky (from her virtual office at home) will answer those calls and respond to emails during normal school hours.


Welcome Assembly this coming Friday, 1 May

We are very excited to be planning our first 'virtual' Welcome Assembly! Staff are secret-squirrelling away to create something new and special, which will be posted in Google Classroom and Seesaw on Friday 1st May so keep a lookout for that!

Thank you all again for your support through this pandemic.
Our thoughts are with you all, and we wish you all a safe ANZAC weekend.

Ngā mihi nui
Sandy and the team

PTA News

Hello from our bubbles to your bubble. Not much PTA action this term, but we do have a few thank yous to give. Firstly, we wanted to take this opportunity to say a massive thanks for all the wonderful support from our school whānau in the lead up to the Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Twilight Fair. We were blown away by the kind and generous donations of time, service and prizes. It was so disappointing that it couldn’t happen when we had done all the hard work - and almost all we had left to do was enjoy it, but given the clusters that were brewing all over NZ, we are glad the Fair wasn’t one of them!!

We also wanted to give a massive shout out to all the staff at school, who are working super hard getting the online “school” up and running so that learning opportunities and connection with teachers can continue despite our lockdown.

We want to acknowledge as well you, the parents and caregivers! We are all dealing with unique challenges: managing work, preschoolers, school children, high school children, grandparents, supermarket shopping, all while we are juggling massive amounts of uncertainty: some days with more success than others. Thank you for your patience, your time and your kindness. Like everything else our community has dealt with, we will get through this together. Kia kaha - keep up the awesome work!

Lastly for a wee bit of fun, visit our Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto PTA Facebook page to have a look at the Guess the Baby Competition. Click the link - Guess the Baby and check out how cute our lovely teachers were as babies! We have a few spot prizes to give away to random guessers - so it may be worth your while :). Competition is closing on 29 April 2020.

Community Notices

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

Mainland Uniforms

Following the Prime Minister's announcement, at Alert Level 3 Mainland Uniforms will only run through contactless shopping. Though our physical stores are closed, we will be able to process and courier online orders and orders through phone or by email daily from 28th April 2020.
 Online shopping as usual. https://www.mainlanduniforms.nz/
 Ordering through phone or email and payment by Credit Card
City Store: 03 3776771 Email: City@mainlanduniforms.co.nz
All orders are delivered via courier. Free delivery for over $50.00 purchase.
$5.00 delivery fee for purchase under $50.00.
Thank you very much for your understanding and your support.
Stay safe.
Best regards,
Mainland Uniforms Team
21042020

Please respond to this survey today

Kia ora e te whānau

We need you to carefully consider the information sent out yesterday, and attached again below, and then to complete this questionnaire, to ensure we know where your child(ren) will be learning from next Wednesday when we shift into Alert Level 3.

If you have any questions, please phone Jacky in the (virtual) office in the first instance, on 03 337 1404.

Thank you
Sandy and the team







Moving to Alert Level 3 next week…

Please find below information about what it will look like at school as we move, with you, into Alert Level 3.

Tomorrow (Wednesday 22nd April) you will receive a brief questionnaire that will ask you to confirm if you are keeping your child(ren) at home during Alert Level 3, or if you need to register them to attend school.

This email is to give you the information you may need to help you make that decision.

Ngā mihi
Sandy and the team.







Monday 20th April: Update on today’s Government announcement

Kia ora e te whānau

We hope that Term 2 and our distance learning programme has been a success for you so far. We know there will have been any number of challenges for you to deal with but we have been getting some great feedback about the learning that is happening and thank you for all your support.

This afternoon the Government announced that we will move into Alert Level 3 on 28 April.  That means we will be open to receive students from the 29 April.  We will start to prepare our site from tomorrow.

The key message for you is that if you can, you should keep your child at home. You should only physically send your child to school if you need to. If your child has a health condition that means they are at a greater risk of a severe illness you must keep them at home.  If your child is sick please also ensure you keep them at home.

In order to ensure the safety of those children and our staff who do come to school, we will be operating with strict enforcement of health and safety measures.

I want to assure you that we will continue to support your child’s learning at home.

We will contact you later this week to find out whether you can keep your child learning from home, or need your child to attend in person.

The Ministry of Education has advised that they are working closely with health to develop clear guidance that will support schools to safely re-open their premises to students and staff. This will help us work through the public health requirements that we all need to meet. As you will be doing, we want to be sure that what we do will keep our community as safe as possible.

For now, we will continue to support your child’s learning by distance while we progress our planning for what Alert Level 3 will mean for you and for our school. We will be in touch again soon with more information. As you have been doing, please keep connecting with your teachers with any questions you might have.

Sandy Hastings - Principal/Tumuaki
Ester Vallero - Board Chair

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter April 17th 2020

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

Just a brief newsletter today to say "Thank you" for the way that you have engaged with our staff this week, as we have been contacting you to help understand how your bubble is working and where learning at home might fit in for you and your family. I also want to say a huge "Thank you" to all of our staff, for their flexibility, adaptability and 'courage' in embracing new online platforms and ways of working to bring learning to your children at home.

Our first priority this week has been to make contact with each family and make sure that every family could access the different online platforms that we are using. We have encountered such a range of different situations that you are all trying to manage - from 'prefer to carry on in holiday mode', through to 'feeling overwhelmed by the challenge of keeping your own work-from-home life going whilst trying to oversee childrens' learning', and everything in between.

We are all in this together, and this is a work in progress for everyone, in our school and across the country. Our staff are completely united in focusing on having the wellbeing of our children at the centre of everything we do, and are energised (as well as being occasionally overwhelmed) by the new challenges that learning online has presented us.

Now that we have a better sense of where our families are at, we will be continuing to adjust the learning options that we offer.

We acknowledge that many of you are also dealing with significant other challenges in your lives at the moment, that the lockdown has only made more difficult and isolating to deal with. We may be able to connect you to support networks, including Mana Ake and a Christchurch Methodist Mission Social Worker, and there are other pathways we may also be able to recommend. If you would like to discuss any needs, please email Sue, our Deputy Principal sue.leadbetter@beckenham.school.nz and she will be very happy to offer support.

Moving to Alert Level 3

As you will have heard yesterday, the government are starting to outline what life might look like when we move to Alert Level 3, and to describe with more clarity what this timeline will be.
They have shared some initial thoughts about what this will mean for Education. Like you, we are waiting to hear what this means for school in more detail, and we understand that the Ministry of Education will be working frantically over the coming days to provide us with more clarity.
I do expect that there will be things that we will be
  • required to do,
  • recommended to do, and 
  • given scope to design ourselves, to meet our community needs.
We also expect the information to come will include: public health requirements in an education setting, workforce guidance, and advice for identifying students who will be attending school on site during Alert Level 3.

Until we know what these parameters are, we are not able to provide any more detail than you already know. Do be reassured that our staff are focussed on continuing to support the wellbeing and learning of all of our children, and have already demonstrated that they can be adaptive and flexible in these new times. We will get there together!

Welcome to our new bubbles...

Our staff have all been working in their bubbles, just like you have. Our bubbles vary in size and complexity - some are in a bubble of one, whilst others have large bubbles with children, adults and pets all trying to work, learn, play and relax alongside one another... you know the score!

Our school phone system is working again...

We have managed, this week, to get the school phone system diverted to Jacky's home and my home, so calls can now be made to the school number 03 337 1404 between 9am and 3pm, Monday to Friday, and Jacky will answer them, and she can put calls through to me! (or call you back if you leave a message). 

The new Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto office...slightly smaller but just as efficient!

Rowe in her 'at home office' with her furry companions

Anna at her 'kitchen table classroom'

Sandy at her new office, complete with board games to prop up computers!


Just one of the many and varied staff meetings through different media platforms over the past weeks...

So... from our bubbles to yours, stay safe over the weekend, and we look forward to connecting with you again next week.

Sandy and the team

Getting Support during times of challenge...

To access a variety of activities and ideas to support wellbeing at home, visit Sparklers.org.nz/parenting/

Parenting Helpline

For support and advice on any parenting issue; if you need someone to talk to about what is happening in your family, or need some advice on how best to support your family, call our free parenting Helpline on 0800 568 856. Available from 9 am – 9 pm 7 days a week.

Online coaching
Online coaching to develop parenting strategies or coping skills you can implement straight away.

Our parenting coach can support you with strategies to help in chaotic situations, create structured routines that best support your family, suggest strategies to stop unwanted behaviour, create plans to achieve a calmer household and learn how to work together as a team, etc.

30 mins or 60 mins sessions available via Zoom. Call 0800 568 856 to book an appointment or read more here: www.parenthelp.org.nz/coaching

Affordable counselling

We understand that in this strange new environment we are in that all relationships can be tested and we urge you to reach out for support. Our counsellors offer therapy online via Zoom or via telephone. We offer a 30-mins free initial appointment.
Call 0800 568 856 to book an appointment or read more here: www.parenthelp.org.nz/counselling