Kia ora whānau

Firstly I would like to acknowledge the amazing staff we have, for their outstanding efforts today. We were all operating on significantly reduced sleep, some much more so than others. Our goal for today was to have the children have as normal a day as possible and we did achieve this, as much as we possibly could.

We had 300 out of our 465 children attend school today.

We did send out text messages to all caregivers this morning, about the status of the school. If you didn't receive a text, please ensure that you contact Jacky in the office as soon as possible and check that we have current details for you.

Saying that, we are also aware that only around 80% of our text messages reached their destination this morning - the other 20% didn't get delivered which was frustrating. We discovered that we had similar issues with incoming texts also, when we started phoning parents of children whom we hadn't heard from and you were telling us you had sent a text! 

We do have protocols for dealing with an emergency situation at Champion St. We have an emergency services quality radio with its own private channel to communicate between Champion St and Beckenham which we will be able to use in the event that the telephone and/or cell phone networks are down. 

If we need to evacuate from Champion St, our plan will be to use buses to bring all the children back to Beckenham. Red Bus have assured us that children and schools are their first priority in an emergency. With this in mind, we would ask that you plan to meet all of your children, following an emergency, at Beckenham School, rather than have individual parents trying to get to Champion St. If this plan were to change, we would let the school office know to alert you.

We do encourage you to have your children return to school tomorrow, if they were away due to the earthquake this morning, so that school can support you and them to have a strong sense of routine and normality. 

There is a very useful site that you may want to explore, called 'The Worry Bug' which has a range of resources for parents and schools to use, to help understand and support anxious children.

These 7 tips for supporting children with anxiety come from their website and may be particularly useful over the next few days:

Kia kaha

Sandy and the team

Beckenham School is open as usual today. We have had an engineer check our Beckenham site and the Champion site is also being checked. Everything is as it should be. Buses are operating to Champion St as normal.

We do understand that normality and routine for children and families is important and our goal is to provide this.

We also recognise that some of you may want to keep children at home today.

We will be assessing the numbers of children that we have at school today and may end up joining some classes together so that we can send some of our staff home. We have staff who have evacuated from their homes and/or taken in evacuees, and have had very little sleep as a result.

Our goal today is to provide as much normality, in a low-key way.

Our thoughts are with those who have experienced any loss or damage.

Kia kaha

Sandy and the team

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

Staffing Update

We are at the stage of the year where we have managed to successfully complete our full-time teacher appointments for 2017 and are able to share these with you.
We have some changes in our teaching teams, as a result of staff taking leave and resignations. We look to ensure that we have a range of skills and expertise spread across the teams to provide a strong and balanced team in each area of the school.
This year, we have had two permanent staff members on leave.
Megan Harris took the year off to spend time with her family in Dunedin. Sadly for us, Megan has now decided that her heart lies in Dunedin and that she will continue to live there for the foreseeable future. We wish her all the very best in that journey.
April Chapman left us during the year to become a mother to her beautiful daughter, Alexandria. It’s no surprise that April is loving being a full-time mum and we are pleased for her that she has found a position that will suit her new family commitments, teaching music one day a week at Halswell Primary School. We wish her all the very best with that new career change.
At the end of last year, we encouraged Rowena Barker to take on the Acting Team Leader of the New Entrant Team for this year. Rowena has been a fabulous Team Leader, and has reminded us that she was just filling in for the year, never intending to continue with that role beyond this time. We are grateful for the leadership that she has provided.
Susan Walsh has decided that she would like to relinquish her leadership roles at the end of this year, and focus her energy into classroom teaching. We are very grateful for the leadership she has provided and we are pleased to be able to retain her skills and expertise.
Tracy Inwood has requested, and been granted, a year’s leave for 2017. Tracy and her husband Phil plan to visit family in the UK for a time during 2017. We are likely to still see her around school, in a part-time and/or relieving capacity in 2017.
Amanda McLean will be taking maternity leave for 2017 and we wish her all the very best with becoming a mother for the first time.
We say farewell at the end of the year to Jo Smith, who has been taking our most recent New Entrant class in Hub 13. Jo’s experience, calmness and caring has been the perfect fit for our newest children and their families.

New appointments:

We have been very lucky to attract a new senior teacher to our teaching staff and Leadership Team. Sue Leadbetter will be joining our staff in 2017, moving with her family from Oakura School in New Plymouth. Sue is a Cantabrian who has previously been Deputy Principal at St Martins School and we look forward to welcoming her back to Christchurch.
Gayle McNaughton and Jenny Diggle have both been reappointed to our teaching staff and we are delighted to retain their skills and expertise.

So… working through all of the above, we have put the following teaching teams together, and we are confident that we have all the right people in the right places for 2017!

New Entrant, Year 1 & Year 2 (will be one team in 2017 instead of two)

• Sue Leadbetter (Team Leader)
• Rowena Barker
• Amber Donovan (and Dorinda Hampton - part-time)
• Caitlyn Downing
• Gail Hulme
• Charlotte Verity

Year 3/4 Team

• Paulette Newton (Team Leader)
• Mike Matulewicz
• Anna Reid
• Rebekah Stoop
• Susan Walsh

Year 5/6 Team

• Amy Buick (Team Leader)
• Nick Bruce
• Katy Chapman
• Gayle McNaughton

Year 7/8 Team

• Nicky Dunlop (Team Leader)
• Jenny Diggle
• Jarred Skelton

Citizen of the Week

Name - Oliver McLachlan Year 2

Oliver, it has been amazing to watch you grow this year as a confident, caring and enthusiastic member of our Hub. You have enjoyed learning about growth mindsets and have applied ideas around perseverance, problem solving and empathy into daily life at school. You thrive with responsibility and take pride in being a positive role model to others. Your fantastic attitude towards learning has enabled you to come on in leaps and bounds in many learning areas. We are so proud of all your efforts and contributions Oliver. Tino Pai! 

Sharing our Learning

Kowhai Team

Inquiry and writing

Kowhai team  have been learning all about different habitats. We are investigating where animals live, and how different animals are suited to their habitat. We are exploring what would happen if animals had to swap habitats. Could they survive? What adaptations would they have to make? We can't wait  to create our own diorama of a habitat to showcase our learning.
We have been investigating the characteristics of various animals that enable them to live in a particular habitat. We have applied this knowledge to invent a new animal and have identified the key attributes they need to survive in a particular habitat. This coming week, we will be exploring how changes to an environment can impact on animals and what they need to do to adapt to these changes in order to survive.


Fennec Fox

The Fennec fox who is sometimes referred as the desert fox, is the smallest in the entire world. They can grow from 6-15 inches long. They weigh 2 kilograms. They are the only fox you can have as a pet.
Fennec foxes are nocturnal (they hunt at night). They have very soft fur and big ears that help them hear their predators. The Fennec fox is not endangered.  Fennec foxes live in deserts and grassland like the Sahara desert and the Savannah grassland. 
Fennec foxes eat plants, reptile eggs, and birds. They can cope without having water. The Fennec fox has sharp claws which help them dig their burrows. Their ears are so sensitive that they can hear insects such as beetles and locusts walking on the sand and also locate underground prey. 
So after all that, I hope you have learnt a lot about the Fennec fox. I love Fennec foxes!

By Ilia Henderson


Snow leopards

Snow leopards are a member of the wild cat and panther families.
They are a warm blooded large cat. Snow leopards have grey and white fur, rosettes on the flanks, spots on the head and neck, they also have long tails. 
Snow leopards are found at altitudes between 9,800 and 17,000 feet high in the rugged mountains of central Asia.
In captivity, female snow leopards most often bear 2 or 3 cubs in a litter, though there can be more.
Snow leopards eat almost anything they can catch, often hunting animals three times their size. They prey upon blue sheep of Tibet and the Himalayas.
Snow leopards don’t have any predators at all, they are at the top of the food chain.
Snow leopards weigh 77-120 lbs [ 35-55 kg,] their height is 2 feet. Their tail length is 1m. Female snow leopards are about 30% smaller than males.

By Ella Newton

M.A.D (Make A Difference) Time

This term the children have been given the options of:
Photography - Learning how to use the ipad to take photos, how to take a variety of photos, editing and creating photo frames.
Stop Motion Animation - Learning how to make an animated story using lego.


Drama - Learning drama  skills and applying these to create a short performance.
Thorrington Rest Home - Visiting our local rest home to make connections with the elderly residents. The children read stories, chat and sing them songs.
Sewing - The children are learning a variety of sewing skills as they create a monster pillow.
Christmas Crafts and Cards - We are lucky enough to have the assistance of Nicola Arnott who is teaching the children how to make various Christmas crafts and cards.

Athletics

We are enjoying getting out into the sun and training for our Junior school athletics day later on the term. We have been working on high jump, relay running, shot putt, discus and long jump.

Papier mâché animals

The Hub 7 children have been enjoying learning about different habitats and adaptations that animals have to make in order to live in their environments. For our visual art unit this term we have been constructing papier mâché rainforest animals.  The children have been working hard and showing a lot of attention to detail and persistence when making the animals' bodies out of sculpted wire, and newspaper.  We have diligently added layers of newspaper to the rattle snakes, butterflies, tigers, chameleons and a variety of insects. Our next steps are to paint and decorate the rainforest animals to make them look as life-like as possible.  We hope to display these for all to see.

School Notices

Thank You!
We would like to extend a big thank you to 2 organisations who have supported Beckenham with some recent donations. Firstly, Mitre 10 Hornby for donating 15 bird house kits for our Kowhai team to make during their ‘Make a Difference’ time. Also, a big thank you to Carpet Kingdom who donated some carpet for our library when it was relocated to the dental clinic.

Parking is an issue on Eastern Tce...vehicles are parking where the buses are supposed to be and also on the other side of the road making it very narrow. Please take some time to check the signs on Eastern Tce and ensure that you are not parked there during bus times. This helps to keep traffic flowing, and to keep our children safe.
FOUND: by the Big Adventure Playground: Crimson wooden jewellery box with assorted jewellery inside.  Come to the office to collect.