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

We are now 10 days into Term 1 for 2023! We've enjoyed building relationships with the tamariki and establishing routines over the past few weeks. Please read on for more about what we have been up to, and a look at what's coming up - including an article contributed by three budding journalists: Chester Gardiner, Billy Hudson, and Jensen Greig. Have a great weekend everybody, kia pai ngā rā whakatā.

Workshops

We have now finished our beginning of the year 'Workshops', in which we covered Cyber Safety, Being a Good Sport, Our Kete Values, PB4L, Active Listening, and more. It would be great for you to have a chat with your tamariki about the workshops, and what they have learned. It was a lot of information, so don't be surprised if the feedback is less than forthcoming! The purpose of these Workshops was to introduce important aspects of life in Pōhutukawa, which we will keep revisiting throughout the year.

Learning at Home and Google Classroom

All of the students have now signed up for the Pōhutukawa 2023 Google Classroom and their Home Group Google Classroom. Students can also access the Pōhutukawa Learning Site via their Google Classroom. The site serves as an online hub of resources should you wish for your tamariki to continue doing some school work at home. We will continue to add material and build the students' knowledge around using Google Classroom and Google Sites in the coming weeks. As always, we encourage you to actively participate in this area of your tamariki's learning. Ask them to show you what is available to them online and what they can see and do. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning.

CCC

You may have heard your child talking about our CCC "cool curriculum classes". This is how we start our day; they are a great way to ensure we are teaching all areas of our curriculum. Megan is teaching the Arts this term through Drama, Rae is covering Digital Technology and continuing with Coding. Steve is delving into Health/Hauora with a look at our Wellbeing/Hauora, while Gayle is teaching Geography. 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. 

The Wonder Project

There was much excitement and anticipation around the arrival of some "mystery boxes" in Pōhutukawa this week. Yesterday, we revealed their contents and introduced our topic of Inquiry for this term: the Rocket Challenge, which is part of the Wonder Project.

The Wonder Project is Engineering New Zealand’s free programme for schools, designed to get young Kiwis excited about science, technology, engineering and STEM.  Students blast off into STEM by designing, building and launching a water rocket. They’ll learn about Newton’s laws, the engineering design process, and working as a team. We are very fortunate to have engineers Kate Macdonald (John's mother), Kylie Hills (Quinn's father), Darren Webster (Noah's father) and Richard Scott (Alex's father) all helping us out during the term. We get there together, mā tātou kātoa te waka e hoe! Here is an article written by some of our students to tell you more. 

Mystery Boxes are revealed.  It is the exciting time we have been waiting for!!

by Chester Gardiner, Billy Hudson, Jensen greig

People think it is:                        

A supernatural active volcano...Cookies...Lollies...A rocket...A microscope...Science related...Poppets...PE Equipment

Unboxing in 3, 2, 1!

It is a… ROCKET!!!!   The rocket is a Wonder Project Rocket Challenge.

It will be teaching us physics and science. 4 or 3 people will come in (kids' parents) that are engineers to help us and teach us about rockets and their jobs. Inside the rocket there is safety glasses, wonder project stickers, a clipboard, 3 hi-vis vests, one is a ‘Rocket Safety Officer’, one is ‘Rocket Chief Scientist’, and the last one is a ‘Chief Engineer’, and there's also a StratoLauncher and a StratoChute.

Reminder

If you want to, you should bring an ice cream container for fins. Or a bottle for the rocket base.

bspressnz.wordpress.com 

 Covid related disruptions and extra challenges meant that communication and relationship-building were a little trickier this year. We would like to express our thanks to you all for navigating these challenges with us. We are so proud of how the tamariki rose to new challenges in 2022 with determination, resilience, and perseverance.

Last week we capped our year off with a trip to MASH Tough Kid 2022. The excitement of being able to jump on a bus and head to a fun-filled event was a joy to see, and the tamariki represented our kura with pride and were terrific ambassadors for Beckenham on the day. Once again, we faced a challenge, and every one of the students embraced it. They once again needed to call on all of their determination, resilience, and perseverance in order to meet their point of challenge and finish the course, through obstacles, mud, gunge, and even fire hoses! A fitting finale to our year of challenge.

When we reflect on this year, we celebrate the resilience and adaptability that your tamariki showed in the face of challenges. We wish our Year 6 students all the best as they head into their intermediate years, and we are looking forward to seeing our Year 5 cohort flourishing in their role as tuakana in Pōhutukawa next year. We hope you all enjoy a lovely holiday season with your tamariki, and we look forward to the fresh and exciting challenges of 2023. Nau mai te wero!

We wish you all a safe and happy festive season, ngā mihi o te Kirihimete me te tau hau

The Pōhutukawa Team