Important Camp Information

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Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all,

What a fun filled Friday we had with so many creative costumes filling the Hub with colour and excitement for the Animal Dress Up Day. By the looks of the huge amount of donated goods and money, the SPCA will be happy, too! A great way for tamariki to show We Make a Difference. Thank you for your support.
 
Your tamariki should have today arrived home with the gear list for the Living Springs Camp in their school bag. We spent time this week going over this list, the programme for camp, and the Social Story; hopefully, you have been getting lots of excited chatter about it all at home too! We did a quick countdown with the students today at Team Hui, and worked out that there are just 7 school days before camp! Of course, we have Easter, the school holidays, a teacher-only day, and ANZAC day all between now and camp, too, but the excitement is definitely building!
 
We have attached here all of the things mentioned above: the camp gear list, and the camp Social Story, which includes the camp programme. Please go through these together with your tamariki, as the more they are prepared and the more questions we can answer before the school holidays, the more successful their camp experience is likely to be.
 
Finally, thank you to the 85% of whānau who have already filled out the Health and Medical Consent form. Click here for the form. We would really appreciate you filling this in as soon as possible as it gives us a clear picture of the needs of the children on camp and enables us to plan and support them while on camp.
 
Have a great weekend, everybody. Kia pai ngā rā whakatā.
 
The Pōhutukawa Team

Kahikatea News Week 9 Term 1

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Term 1 Week 9

Kia ora e te whānau,

What a busy couple of weeks we have had! A highlight, of course, was our team trip to Ferrymead. It was a successful day, with our learners getting to experience a range of activities and transport themselves back to the 'olden days'. Another big thank you to our whānau helpers, you were wonderful.

Student Voice

"My favourite part was making an olden day toy."- Thalia

"We got to go on a tram! It was the only tram I've been on in my whole entire life that doesn't have walls!" - Neasa

"I liked the chickens, dressing up, and the river." - Sarah

"I liked the chickens 'cos they were fun to look at! My favourite thing to play with was the yo-yo." -Jace

"I liked having activities and the playground. I liked the horse toys and the skipping ropes." - Finn

"I liked the toy babies and the bikes!" - Maryam

"I liked the costumes!" - James


Home Spaces

On Thursday, we moved home spaces. Each teacher moved clockwise around the hub which means that:

- Katie's home group is in the Theatre

- Lisa and Quynh's home group is in the Atrium

- Krystal's home group is in the Breakout space

- Amber's home group is in the Nook

Making this move before the end of the term has allowed all of our learners to know where they will be when returning to school at the start of Term 2.


Uniform/ Lost Property

As summer draws to a close and Term 2 and 3 are ahead, sun hats are no longer a requirement at school. We will send home all hats on the last day of term. We will need them back at school for Term 4.

Over the holidays please ensure that all of the uniform items that belong to your child are clearly and accurately named. In some cases, there is a sibling's or previous owner's name on labels, which makes it tricky to reunite the items with their owner. 

For Terms 2 and 3, your child is welcome to bring gumboots and jackets to school. We have shoe racks and clothing racks to use for these items.  Please make sure these are also clearly named.


Innovation

We continue our focus on innovation into Term 2, where the main focus is going to be on following a design process to make an instrument. We will explore different types of music and instruments, listen to a live percussion performance, learn about the technology design process, and make our instruments. 

We are looking for items to create these instruments with, such as...

- clean tin cans (with no sharp edges)

- clean plastic containers or bottles (not milk bottles)

- glass jars

- lids (tin or plastic)

- tissue boxes

- other small boxes

- cardboard tubes

- balloons

- thick cardboard

- rubber bands


Ferrymead Photos










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Reminders:

- Last day of school for Term 1 is Thursday 6th April

-The first teaching day of Term 2 is Wednesday 26th April


Have a wonderful holiday break with your whānau.


Ngā mihi nui,

The Kahikatea Team

Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter Rāmere (Friday) 24 March 2023

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

This week is the start of Ramadan which is a really important celebration for Muslim people and their families. Ramadan is the 9th month in the Islamic calendar and is observed worldwide by Muslims as a month of fasting, prayer, reflection and community.

We can show support to our friends who are Muslim by asking them about how they observe Ramadan - because each family will probably do something a bit different.

It is important to us that we can support all of our tamariki with the values and beliefs that are important to their families. If your family have a faith, values and beliefs that you want us to understand better, please make contact with your child's teacher(s) or one of our team in the office and we will be very keen to learn more.

Last week we were fortunate to have Jeff from the ASB GetWise programme working with our tamariki, from Years 3-8. 



GetWise is a financial literacy programme for children and it was really heartening to see the children engaging with the programme.
ASB have a website with excellent resources for whānau to support you with helping your children about money and to enable them to develop skills that will last them for life.

Being in a 'House' at Beckenham

Once a child has started at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto, they will be allocated a ‘House’ to belong to. Children from the same family/whānau are put into the same house. Usually, a child will stay in this house for the duration of their time at Beckenham, except if they are made a leader of another house when they are in Year 8.


Each house has its own colour, and there are House Shirts that are an optional part of the school uniform, that can be purchased and worn on Fridays, or sports/special event days as advised in the newsletter.

Each house has its own ‘chant’ and tamariki learn this so that they can participate in the house chant at sports and special events, and in Celebration Assemblies, if it is their house that has won the House Points for that fortnight.

You can find the House Chants here, and there are also videos that you can share with your child to help them learn their house chant

Ngā mihi nui
Sandy Hastings
Tumuaki - Principal

Important Dates

Upcoming Events

Term 1

Thu 30 Mar - Board Meeting - Staffroom 5:30pm - Visitors welcome
Fri 31 Mar - ANIMAL DRESS-UP DAY for the SPCA (New date)
Thu 6 Apr - Last day of Term 1
Fri 7 Apr -  School Holidays begin (School closed)

Term 2

Mon 24 Apr - Staff Only Day (School closed)
Tue 25 Apr - ANZAC Day (School closed)
Wed 26 Apr - First day of Term 2
Mon 1 - Wed 3 May - Year 5/6 Camp - Living Springs
Mon 5 Jun - King's Birthday (School closed)
Fri 30 Jun - Last day of Term 2

Citizen of the Week

Frida Corin - Year 8

Frida, you have grown as a leader and learner within our kura. You are compassionate and thoughtful. When you step up to lead, the respect and trust that your peers have for you is clearly evident. When it comes to learning, you embrace opportunities to improve by responding to feedback and giving your best effort. Thank you for all that you bring to our Kauri whānau.

School Notices

'Kiss & Go' Drop Off Area

You may have noticed the 'Kiss & Go' signs on the fence at the drop off and pick up area on Sandwich Road (by the bike stands). This area is for whānau to pull in and drop off or pick up their children kerb side and then leave. 

The area works best when it is just the children getting in or out of the car (on the kerb side).  If whānau need to come into the school please park elsewhere on Sandwich Road.

Return of the coffee car

The Coffee Car will be on Sandwich Rd on Mondays and Fridays. A reminder to parents who purchase a hot chocolate for their child, that they will need to drink it before the final bell at 8.55am. 
The coffee car will be at school before 8am and leave at approx 9.10am. 

Thanks!

Community Dental Service - Holidays Notice

Congratulations to...

Hayley Rose Ruyters. On the 16th to the 18th of March at Horncastle Arena, Hayley Rose competed in Nationals for Marching. On the Friday they qualified for the champions in March, on the Saturday they competed and came 1st in technical, 2nd in display and were the under 12 championship team.

Student Council News 

Animal Dress-up Day for SPCA, Friday, March 31st

Beckenham tamariki love animals and so the Student Council has decided to support the SPCA. This coming Friday, 31st March, there will be a dress-up day! Your child/children can dress up as their favourite animal! We would love it if you could help your child to donate one of the following options:
  • Old newspapers
  • Towels, sheets, duvet covers, or blankets (especially polar fleece blankets) – but please NO duvet inners, pillows or pillow cases, mattresses, bean bags, or electric blankets
  • Dishwashing detergent and washing powder
  • Unopened pet food that the SPCA can give out to the community – particularly wet kitten and puppy food
  • Or a gold coin donation!
The student council will be in front of the hall before school starts on Friday, to receive your donations. We can’t wait to see your child in their costume! Thank you for your support.

PTA News

Hot Cross Buns

Orders for hot cross buns are all in and we're looking forward to delivery day on Wednesday 5th April, just in time for Easter!

Donations

This recent wet weather has resulted in lots of wet feet - do you have old gumboots (especially in larger sizes to fit 11+ year-olds) that you could donate to the uniform room? We will gratefully receive them and save them for a rainy day!

Community Notices

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

Sydenham Rugby Club

Sydenham Rugby registrations have started and are looking for players in all grades.  We would love to have you join the Sydenham family.  If interested you can register at https://www.sporty.co.nz/viewform/175943

CodeCamp April School Holidays

CodeCamp allows children from the ages of 7-12 to develop 21st century skills in a fun and action packed environment. Develop confidence & initiative through design, creativity, solving problems, presenting & collaboration. Create games, apps. 
Waimari School: 17th - 20th April. 
Book Now at https://codecamp.co.nz  

Pōhutukawa Update, Term 1, Week 5

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Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all,

We are rocketing toward the end of the term now, with our Wonder Project finishing up next week. A massive thank you to our amazing ambassadors Kate, Darren, Kylie, and Richard. The expertise and knowledge that you brought to the Wonder project were invaluable and engaging and got our students excited about a future STEM career. The project will culminate in the final launch of our bottle rockets on Monday next week. That will also enable us to switch our focus to the upcoming Living Springs Camp, and we will be unpacking that with the tamariki over the final 2 weeks of Term 1. More on our camp below, as well as some other important updates.

Living Springs Camp

As mentioned above, Living Springs Camp will be the focus for us over the last 2 weeks of the term. Next week the students will be going over the gear list, sleeping arrangements, activities, and the camp programme, amongst other things. The programme is challenging, stimulating, and safe. The activities include archery tag,  zipline, swimming (heated pool), group initiative challenges, low ropes course, bouldering wall, orienteering, animal survival and recreational activities. 
 
All children will be well supervised and all risks well managed in accordance with our Camp Safety Action Plan and the Living Springs Risk Management Strategies. It will be an exciting learning opportunity for your child, as well as a chance to live our kete values outside of the classroom. The children will be sleeping in carpeted bunk rooms, which can be heated if required. As well as regular meals, there are two snack times during the day. 

Thank you to the people who have already filled in the Health and Medical Consent Form that is required for each child to attend camp. The deadline for this form to be completed is Thursday, April 6.

ASB GetWise Financial Literacy Programme

Last week we welcomed the ASB GetWise programme to kura, which taught tamariki about how to become "cash clever". Through the workshops tamariki learned the fundamentals of money in four different stages - from identifying needs and wants and learning to save, right through to budgeting - giving them a solid foundation to build on. It would be good to reflect on what they took away from these workshops at home, too. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning.

Kapa Haka and Te Reo Māori

It was fantastic to see Kapa Haka practice a couple of numbers for us at Celebration Assembly today. You can catch a video of the performance here. Whaea Cath Milio continues to be a fantastic kaiako for our tamariki who get so much from their kapa haka sessions both in terms of their performance skills, and also with Cath's wonderful use of "teachable moments" to teach the students some te reo Māori, or explain the purakau, stories, behind the waiata they are learning. This term we have decided use this time to teach te reo Māori tamariki who do not attend kapa haka, so that everyone gets the chance to learn about te ao Māori, the Māori world at the same time.

Term 2 Winter Sports 

Next week we will also be giving the students the options for Winter Sport, which begins in term 2. Everyone in Pōhutukawa will do a sport of their choosing next term. They can either choose to do competitive or non-competitive football, netball, or hockey. If students choose to be competitive, there will be a trialing process and teams will be selected to participate in the interschool competition. Non-competitive players will learn the basics of their chosen sport in a fun way at school with their classmates. It would be a great idea to have a chat with your tamariki at home about the sports they would like to do, and whether they would enjoy to be competitive or non-competitive. Any questions, please let us know.

Kauri Whānau Update: Weeks 6 & 7

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 In this post:

  • Wainui Camp (and lost property remnants)
  • ASB GetWise
  • Non-uniform day on Friday
  • Christchurch Schools Music Festival
  • YouthTown
  • Winter Sports and Cross Country

Wainui Camp

Teachers, parents, and students all had a wonderful time at Wainui Camp in week 6. The weather was mostly fantastic, the students all found ways to challenge and extend themselves while continually supporting and encouraging one another. It was great to see friendships develop and grow over the course of the week, and to see our learners flourish outside of the usual classroom confines.




Lost Property

We still have a small collection of lost property from our time away. Please encourage students to check carefully to make sure that nothing from our collection of assorted odds and ends belongs to them.

ASB GetWise

On Friday this week, we had Jeff from ASB GetWise come to discuss financial literacy with each homegroup. We will have a second session of this on Friday of Week 8.




Christchurch Schools’ Music Festival

Our Year 5 - 8 school choir is excited to be part of the Christchurch Schools’ Music Festival this year.  The Festival is still looking for more applications to audition for one of the Representative groups.  They are looking for the best singers for the Junior Choir (Yr 5 & 6) and Senior Choir (Yr 7 & 8), and for talented musicians (Grade 3 equivalent and above) to audition for the Orchestra and Concert Band. 

The Representative groups are on stage in the Christchurch Town Hall for every performance of the Festival (4 nights).  With more than a thousand people in the audience and children in the choir stalls watching every night, it is an amazing experience they will never forget.

To find out more information or to register your child click here: https://musicfestival.school.nz/representative-group-information/joining-a-representative-group/

Be quick, registrations close Thu 06 April.

Youthtown

Youthtown is a non-profit organization that offers sports and recreation programs for youth in Christchurch.

Every Wednesday (from 3.30pm to 6pm) they run a program called YouthHub. It is a free after school program designed for youth between 12 and 18 years old.

In April 2023 Youthtown offers a memorable holiday programme in a safe space for young people to make friends and enjoy themselves during the school holidays. Please see the April holidays program flyer via this link (in this breakaway program some days might not be free).

Non-Uniform Day

The student council have planned an animal dress up day on Friday, to raise donations for the SPCA. Donations towards the SPCA could include items such as wet pet food (cans or sachets), old blankets towels or sheets, dishwashing detergent, washing powder, pet toys in good condition, or a gold coin. More information is available to students via the daily notices.

Winter Sports and Cross Country 

Our two main sporting events which require parent help in Term 2 are Cross Country and Winter Sport.

Parent help is a key part to us being able to offer sporting events at kura. If you are able to support us in some way in Term 2, please let us know by filling in this form.

Year 5 - 8 Cross Country - Tuesday 9th of May (Beckenham Park)

We need adults to take on the position of course marshals to ensure there is adequate supervision of the children on the course and to help children know which way to go.

Year 5 - 8 Weekly Winter Sports (starts on Thursday 25th May and runs for 10 weeks at local parks and schools).

We need adults that are comfortable taking a team and managing them during their games. Ideally that adult would also be OK refereeing a game. The number of adult helpers we have directly impacts the number of children we can send to winter sport. It is also beneficial to have additional adults to help supervise children during their game.

Thank you in advance for your support.


Ngā mihi
Thomas