Kōwhai News Week 8

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Here is the latest from the Kōwhai team.


Kapa Haka

Last week, we began our Kōwhai Kapa Haka programme with Whaea Cath. She will be taking the whole team for kapa haka each Friday so all children can experience kapa haka. We are lucky to be able to provide this opportunity for our students. Here we are in action as we learn the actions to a new karakia.







Miniball

A huge thank you goes out to Nathan, Jamie and Mike who kindly offered to coach our three miniball teams this term. Without your support, we would not have been able to enter teams into the Pioneer competition. We very much appreciate the time you have given to encourage, coach and support our tamariki with beginner basketball skills. 
Due to the term, being cut short, please keep your child's miniball top in a safe place. We need these to be returned to school when it reopens next term.


Learning Through Play

We have seen many of the children lifting the level of their learning during our Te Taikario time each day. There has been a huge improvement across the team especially in relation to problem-solving, being creative, working co-operatively and asking questions for inquiry. Here are some of the activities the children have been undertaking.








Learning at Home

As Sandy explained in her post earlier in the week, the holidays have been brought forward to the start of next week. We understand that every family will be different and as you settle in to this new normal, schoolwork may be far from a priority for you. Below we have listed some learning activities that are part of the normal weekly routine for the children in our team. If you would like your child to engage in learning over the next few days, the list below could guide you. Prior to school finishing, we set the children up with a login book for them to be able to access their codes from home. Here are some options that your child might like to explore.

Maths
* Study Ladder
* Maths Games

Reading
* Epic
* Sunshine Online
* Ready To Read 

Writing
* Google Docs
* Google Classroom Literacy

That's all for now. Please stay safe and enjoy your time at home with your family. We are looking forward to seeing you after the holidays and Easter break via our new online learning programme! Until then...

Kia Kaha

Kōwhai Teaching Team

A message for Kauri Kids from Nicky, Megan, Jenny and Hannah

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Kia ora everyone,

We hope that life at your place, inside your bubble, is going well. As this is the last day of term and term finished in a bit of an unexpected rush on Monday, we just wanted to touch base before the holidays. This afternoon we got some of our pets together online to say a quick hello. Hannah has posted this video onto the Kauri Google classroom. Pop over and take a look. If you want to send us a quick pic or wee video, you are welcome to email us.

Ngā mihi
Nicky, Megan, Jenny and Hannah






Kauri Whānau: some learning for the next few days

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Kia ora everyone. We hope all is well in your household as you settle down into lockdown.

As Sandy explained in her post last night, the holidays have been brought forward to start next week. That means there are just a few days left of this term. We understand that every family will be different and as you settle into this new normal, schoolwork may be far from a priority for you. Below we have listed some learning activities that are part of the normal weekly routine for our Year 7&8s. If you would like your child to engage in learning over the next few days, the list below could guide you. I have written this list to your child.

Maths:

  • Xtra Maths
  • Maths Whizz

Writing:

  • Continue writing your leadership essay. Jenny has created a screencast that will be added to the collection of resources for this assignment on google classroom.
Reading:


  • Nicky's group: either independent reading, shared reading or Steps Web for those who are signed up for this.
  • Megan, Hannah and Jenny's groups: complete your Figurative Language example slide. This is on the Kauri google classroom, complete with instructions. 

Genius Hour OR Kete Blogging

  • If you have everything you need at home for your Genius Hour Project and know what your next steps are, go for it - keep learning. If it won't work to continue your current Genius Hour Project, you may like to start another that is better suited to doing at home. This could be a great opportunity to learn some new skills from your parents.
  • OR finish off any unfinished blogposts and post about other ways you are living our school values, either already this term, or what you are doing at home. E.g. leadership week, cheese roll making, duathlon, swimming sports, or making a meal for your family, helping to tidy out cupboards etc.


Dave, our 24/7 Youth Worker is keen to support our Year 7 & 8 tamariki over the next four weeks. If your child would like to touch base with him, they can email: dave.bisgrove@beckenham.school.nz


Leadership talks

We had two fabulous guest speakers last week. Mark Inglis was an amazing example of being proactive no matter what life throws at you. He had the children enthralled throughout his hour long presentation. Then on Tuesday Lucy Schrader-Manuera, head girl at Cashmere High, shared lots of practical tips about self leadership. Her experiences really resonated with the children and led to some great questions. She was very appreciative of the leadership experiences and knowledge she gained during her Year 7 & 8 years at Beckenham. 

The children are now applying the knowledge they have gained from listening to our speakers and their learning in class and leadership week, to write an essay on what makes a good leader. 


Mark and his climbing mate Phil spent nearly two weeks in an ice cave, the size of the space under this table. The boys were glad to get out of the cramped space after 2 minutes. 


Keeping it fun

With our new normal involving a few less of the extra experiences we usually offer in Year 7 & 8, we are looking for opportunities to keep the highlights coming. Last Friday this was in the form of a basketball game between staff and students. It was a hard fought game with some stunning basketball on display from both sides, possibly a bit more from the students. They beat the staff well and truly!

Theatre Sports

A big congratulations to our 2020 theatre-sports competitive team. The members are: Archie DeClifford, Max Graham, Tess Pratt, Amelia Reid, Connor Colquhoun and Syesha Mee. We will start weekly practices when school resumes and are looking forward to our heats in late October. The name of the team is Mission Improvable! 

Important newsletter: Tuesday 24 March

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Kia ora koutou

Our staff have been at school today, getting our heads around the implications of the Level 4 COVID19 situation and what it means for us as teachers, and also as individuals who have families, elderly parents, friends and loved ones who also need supporting over the coming weeks.

Changes to school holidays

As part of the changes announced yesterday, the school holidays have been brought forward two weeks. This means that Term 1 finishes this Friday, and Term 2 officially begins (at home) on Wednesday 15th April (after Easter Tuesday).

Between now and Friday, we are all adjusting to this new way of being and we do not anticipate that you will want to necessarily be focusing on learning.

We have created a new page as part of our website called Learning at Home. You can either click on the link above, or go to the school website, and find it by clicking on the link (as shown below) on the Learning at Home icon.

This page has some suggestions from the Ministry of Education about how you 'could' engage with learning if you want to over the next three days, or not!

By the end of the holidays, our staff will have created and made live more detailed options for learning that will be team based and from which you can then select, as you need.

Until then, we wish you all the very best with these challenging and important changes for our country.

Ngā mihi nui

Sandy, and the team.

Covid 19 Update from Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto

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Kia ora koutou

With today’s announcement by Government, we are implementing with urgency our plan to support your child’s learning from home. We appreciate this is a sudden and significant change, and will be heavily disruptive to many people in our community.

For children of essential workers, we look forward to seeing your child here at school tomorrow morning from 8:30am. Children may wear mufti, and we ask ALL children to go to Kōwhai on arrival and sign in there with Paulette. You may wish to check if you are considered an essential worker - https://covid19.govt.nz/government-actions/covid-19-alert-system/  however those roles include doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and police. We continue to ask that children who are not well, do not attend school. This option will also be available on Wednesday. After that, as the country moves into Level 4 of our COVID19 plan, school will be completely closed for attendance.

For all other children, school is now closed.

The government have advised that the holidays have been brought forward to begin on Monday 30th March. From tomorrow evening, we will have a page of optional learning activities available for you to select from for the rest of this week.

We will be supporting children's learning from your home with a menu of opportunities that you can select from. Our teachers have been beginning to develop a framework for this, and tomorrow and Wednesday will see our staff putting some of these ideas together in a place you can access them.

The learning options will be linked from our school website, and will include both 'online' and 'offline' options with plenty of choice available for families to select what will work for them.

We are aware that 'being connected' will support families with learning and with social connection.

To support learning, we have a small number of Chromebooks at school that we can loan to families who might need them for learning, particularly for older children. If you think this might be your family, please click on this link to let us know via a brief survey. You need to complete this BEFORE 3ppm tomorrow (Tuesday), so that we can work out how to allocate these on Wednesday and let you know to come in and pick them up on Wednesday.

The following information has come directly from the Ministry of Education and clarifies what support you can put in place around child care whilst the country is at a Level 4 position:
If you need to have your child cared for by someone else you will need to identify that person or people as part of your self-isolated group. This will need to be done by midnight Wednesday and the group must remain the same for the whole 4 week period. The caregiver’s own group (eg, their partner and children), your child and your own group (eg, your parents and other children) become one group. This group needs to be limited to minimise any risk of spread and should be no more than 20 people.

Your child will be looking to you for guidance about this decision. Parents, caregivers, whānau and teachers will have a particularly important part to play in reassuring children at this time. If you haven’t already done so, you may wish to read the information put together by the Ministry of Education to support your conversations with your children – Talking to children about COVID-19

As noted by the Prime Minister these restrictions are our best chance to slow the virus in New Zealand and to save lives. We all have a clear role here to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Please look out for more emails from school over the duration of this nationwide effort to keep our population safe and healthy. We will also post on our school Facebook page. We will continue to communicate with you during this time.

Thank you for your ongoing support of our school staff and school community.

Ngā mini nui, koutou

Sandy, and the amazing team, at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto