Kahikatea Team News Term 2 Week 2

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 Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome to Term Two, and a special welcome to our new tamariki and their whanau. It's a pleasure getting to know you all! 

We are looking forward to our visit to Ferrymead Historic Park next week. 

  • Your child will need to wear their school uniform
  •  A warm jersey or jacket
  • A packed lunch, 
  •  A drink bottle
  • No lunch orders, please 
Children don’t need to unpack their school bags when they get to school. 

School Cross Country 

This will be held on Friday, 23 May. Our children will run in their year groups. Teachers will walk their classes onto the big field for a warm,-up and then each year group will line up ready for their run. 
Year 1 will run at 11.20am (approx)
Year 2 will run at 11.30am (approx) 

We have daily practice runs to prepare for this event, including running on the big field and during our daily fitness sessions. Thank you for sending your child to school in appropriate footwear for running. 

Fraction Fun (MATHS) 

For the last two weeks, we have focused on fractions for our maths learning. Next week, we would like our kids to make Fairy Bread as a celebration of the end of this learning focus. If your child has specific dietary requirements (dairy/gluten), please email your child's homegroup teacher to let them know. 

Dear family and whānau,
This week, we learned about fractions as numbers. We explored the meaning of the top and bottom numbers in a fraction. Ask your child about the meaning of the numbers in a fraction like three-quarters or seven-eighths.
We used two types of material to explore fractions, circles, and rods. Challenge your child to divide circles up into equal parts and to draw a number line showing the size of fractions.


Learning Through Play 

Our beautiful tamariki still enjoy our Learning Through Play sessions with our whole hub. This week included the dress-ups and some disco dancing too! 


























Word of the Week: Honesty 


Honesty means that we are truthful in what we say and do. 

When we are honest, people in our lives know that they can trust us. Trust is an important part of positive relationships with our family, friends, and teachers.



Ferrymead Heritage Park - social story 

Here is the social story we have shared with our tamariki in the daily notices. You are welcome to go over it with your child/ren at home too. 


Book Character Dress-up Day 

Kia ora whānau,
As part of our readathon, we are excited to have a book character dress-up day on Friday, May 16th.
Students are invited to come dressed as a book character or, if they prefer, in their usual school uniform. It is not a casual clothes day.













Kauri -Term 2 Week 1-2

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 Term 2 -Week 2

Welcome Assembly Friday, 9 May. 

Te  Awa were the flag bearers for our Welcome Assembly.







VR- On Monday, we spent a session viewing coastal waters from the sea bed, around New Zealand. This explored what makes a healthy marine ecosystem and what we can do as kaitiakitanga | guardianship to protect it. 




Maths- changes to groups. 

The changes to learning groups have been deliberate and considered. Students have been placed in mixed ability maths classes. The rationale behind this is based on research and is designed to align to the refreshed New Zealand curriculum, which has shown a greater positive forecast of student capability in mathematics. 

As we transition into this new system your child's maths teacher will be reviewing work with students to gauge their depth of understanding. This will allow teachers to cater more specifically for their needs and any extension or support they may require. This may be what they are mentioning regarding the tasks being easy compared to previous work. 

However, each class has a rich routine that challenges and extends their learning. 

Passions 

Friday passions have started for term two. This is a great opportunity for students to try something new in a supportive environment.

Rugby League Workshops-Cameron Snell (Coach Cam) has volunteered his time to run these workshops for our ākonga. Some of you may remember his name from being one of our community leaders when we ran our leadership talks. 

Felting -Nicky is back in our classrooms on Friday for passions sharing her knowledge and craft of felting.

Minecraft-for our digi natives. 

Buddies-working with our younger tamariki in Kahikatea.

Board Games- enjoying some fun over the colder months. 










Inquiry- Art 

We are diving into visual arts over the next few weeks as we explore and create pieces of work. As kaiako this is exciting to see different ideas come together. You will see more on this as ideas and concepts are finalised. 

Winter Sport- parent volunteers are still needed. It's is not too late! Just email Hugo- hugo.weaver@beckenham.school.nz

Uniforms- Jackets- please remember to name jackets clearly. 






Pōhutukawa News Term 2 Week 2 2025

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 Ngā mihi e te whānau,

Warm greetings to you all. We have had a wonderful 2 weeks back in Pōhutukawa. The weather has been mostly welcoming, apart from the wet blast last week, and the students in great spirits! We've hit the ground running this term (literally) with some Cross Country practice. We all noticed how enthusiastic the students have taken to their practice. long may it last! Please read on for some news from the team, and some updates on the term. Have a great weekend everyone, kia pai ngā rā whakata.

Cross Curriculum Classes

We love alliteration in Pōhutukawa, and our "cool curriculum classes" continue with some changes for Term 2. Gayle is delving into Science and looking at The Human Brain this term, Rae is covering Digital Technology and continuing with Coding. Chris is taking a closer look into Art History with the A-Z of Visual Art, Megan is continuing with well being and Nick with his ever creative take on Digital Technology. There is a lot of learning happening over the term in CCC, so we encourage you to keep chatting about what we are covering in these courses with your tamariki. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning.

Winter Sports

Our winter sports programme kicks off in Week 4. Every student has elected to join, and will be involved, in either competitive or non-competitive hockey, netball, or football. We still need parent assistance both on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons (approx. 1:30 pm - 3 pm) to help support our tamariki in the winter sports programme. In particular this year we have a large number of students who have signed up for the football competition and require parent help to make sure every team is supported at their games. If you think you could help us at this time, please get in touch with your home group teacher. Your support is hugely appreciated. We get there together, mā tātou kātoa te waka e hoe!

Legacy Dance Group


We are really excited to announce the availability of some hip hop dance classes, run at school for once lunchtime per week during Term 2. These dance sessions are taken by Legacy Dance Studio dance teachers. There will be a Year 3 and 4 class and a Year 5 and 6 class.

All contact information for Legacy Dance Studio can be found on the flyer attached. Please contact Tash at Legacy Dance for more information.


Book Character Day


Time to get creative and dress up as your favourite Book Character! As part of our readathon, we are excited to have a book character dress up day on Friday 16th May. We are looking forward to seeing everyone having fun and getting creative with their characters! I wonder what Cade will be this time around? Remember it is a book character dress up, not a movie dress up. If your unable to dress up, then the school uniform is to be worn, as it is not just a mufti day. 

Have a restful weekend
Nga Mihi

The Pōhutukawa Teaching Team
Chris, Nick, Rae, Gayle, Megan and Georgie





Koru Team Blog: Term 2 Week 2 (9/05/2025)

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 Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome to this week's Koru Blog!

Book Character Dress Up Day: Friday 16th May
As part of our Readathon, we are excited to have a Book Character Dress Up Day on Friday, 16th May. All children are invited to come dressed as a book character, or if they prefer, to come in their usual school uniform. We can't wait to see all of the fabulous book character costumes- they can be as little or as big as you can make, find or create!!




Cross Country: Friday 23rd May
Our whole school cross country event will be on Friday, the 23rd of May. There will be more information to come about what time our Koru children will be running. Tamariki will be able to wear their house tops for this event. We are training most days for the Cross Country, so it is helpful for the children to wear comfortable running shoes. Our race will be between 11.30am and 12.00pm. The first race is the Year 8 runners, which will start at 11:00am, and the whole event should be finished by 12:00pm. See below for a map of where our Koru children will be running.



Literacy:
Our Koru children need to bring their Literacy Folders back to school EVERY day and put them into their group box in the hub. When the children learn a new letter, this will be added to their 'sound pack' of flash cards. When a literacy group has read a book a few times together, they are ready to take it home to read. If a child does not have their folder at school, we unfortunately cannot give them the book to take home, as each reading book costs $9 and we need to look after them by keeping them in literacy folders and returning them to school.

Phonemic Awareness Instruction
We are learning to blend words. We use the left hand to say the first word, the right hand to say the second word, and then clap our hands together when we say the compound word. eg. out - side, outside

'out'

'side'

'outside'

We are learning to segment words. The teacher says the compound word and place both hands together with palms up. Students repeat the word and then segment into two words, by separating their hands. eg. raincoat, rain - coat.


'raincoat'

'rain'

'coat'


Literacy Group Lessons
Each lesson covers revision about letter sounds (phonemes) and Heart Words that the children have already been taught. This helps to increase confidence and knowledge of the letters to know their sound when reading and how to write them. As the children work through the Stage 1 sounds (m, s, a, i, f, t, p, c), they learn the name of the letter, the sound (phoneme) and how to write it (grapheme) and read it. Before being given a book, they need to know the first 8 letters and the sounds they represent, as well as the skills of segmenting and blending sounds. This is to ensure success and accurate reading, rather than guessing. 
Writing a list of Heart Words

Literacy group lesson time! Writing heart words: I, my, the.

We read sentences and then write them. We check that they start with a capital letter and end with punctuation, and we read them back to ourselves to check that they make sense. Can you see a Heart Word? Does it finish with a full stop or a question mark?

Reading back the sentence together.

Here is Milo the Monkey, the letter 'm' makes the sound /m/. What do your lips do to make this sound?

Listening to a sound and writing the grapheme for it.

Writing the first 8 letter sounds.

It takes lots of concentration and practice to learn how to make our letters the right way!

Literacy helpful links 


Cybersafety
The HDCA for Parents and Whānau

The Harmful Digital Communications Act (or HDCA for short) is an act passed by the Government back in 2015 to help people dealing with serious or repeated harmful digital communications. It covers anything digital like text, emails or social media content.


The most useful thing for parents to understand about the HDCA is the way the 10 communication principles define what is good or bad behaviour online.


If you’re ever concerned about your young person (or you just want to brush up on your knowledge!) visit Netsafe’s Guide to the HDCA. 



Have a wonderful weekend!
Ngā mihi nui,

Stacey, Elizabeth, Katie, and Niquita

Kahikatea Team News: Term 2, Week 1

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 Kia ora whānau

Welcome back to Term 2! We have had a lovely first week back, hearing all about the holiday break and reconnecting with our tamariki. The Kahikatea kids have coped really well with being inside all day due to the wet and wild weather.

Welcome Nicky!

A big welcome to Nicky Dunlop who joins our team as our release cover teacher. Nicky has worked at Beckenham te Kura for a long time, mostly in the Y7 and 8 team. She is very excited to be joining the Kahikatea crew. Nicky will cover Sarah's team leader release all day on Tuesdays and she will cover Amber and Talia's release alternating Thursdays. Nicky is super creative and loves arts and crafts and is keen to implement a visual art afternoon once a week for our kids!


We would also like to welcome six new students who have started: Zheng Quan Yeow and Evelyn Lewis have joined Sarah's homgroup. Bhavjot Singh and Maliah Lloyd in Amber's homgroup and Erin Bannister and Ahaan Syam are now in Talia's homegroup. Welcome to Beckenham te Kura.


Fun fractions!
For the next couple of weeks our Mathematics focus is on Number, in particular fractions. Students have been learning about fair and equal sharing and how objects can be divided into parts if needed. They have been learning the symbols for different fractions-ask them about halves, quarters, thirds and fifths! They know that a fraction is part of a whole and that the numerator (top number) tells us how many and the denominator (bottom) tells us how many parts it is divided into. For example 1/3 is saying "one piece out of 3 pieces".
We have been working through some pretty tricky problems involving kiwi birds sharing worms. 












Clothing:
A reminder to please make sure all jumpers and wet weather jackets are clearly named. We are asking children to keep their jackets in their bags/cubbies. Jumpers come off when we are inside during the day and get put into tubs.

Cross Country:
When the weather clears we will continue to have daily practice for our whole school cross country coming up on Friday 29th May. Please ensure your children are coming to school with appropriate footwear to be able to run.


Parent Helpers Wanted!
Are there any parents who would love to come in and sort through our hub dress-up costumes. Some need throwing, some need washing and they all need sorting. There are about 5 boxes of them. We probably need 2-3 adults to sort and cull and some to take home a bag and wash.
If you are keen to help, please email sarah.junghenn@beckenham.school.nz.
Thanks to all of the parents who indicated they would like to help with our Ferrymead trip. We are working through groups, etc and will be in touch next week to let you know the details.

Winter Sport: If you are keen to help out on Thursday afternoons with the Year 5-8 winter sports rotation please let Hugo Weaver know. The sports on offer are: Hockey, Netball, Football and Flag football (NFL). If you are able to support the running of any of these, please email Hugo below.
Hugo.weaver@beckenham.school.nz