Kauri Whānau weekly Update: Term 2 Week 1

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 In this post:

  • Outdoor Education
  • Getting active with Dave
  • Sports news
  • High School Info

Outdoor Education

We have booked two days to go to VelocityKarts for our outdoor ed experience this term. As well as experiencing the fun and challenge of blokarts, the children will also be involved with volleyball, human foosball, top team games and throwing games. Jenny and Caitlin's home-groups will be going on Wednesday, May 18th and Megan and Nicky's home-groups on Thursday, May 19th. The children will travel by bus, leaving school at 9:30 and returning by 3pm. We would love some parents to join us on this trip. Please fill in this form to indicate if you can help.


Getting active with Dave

Last term Dave ran spikeball as an after school session on Thursday afternoons. This will not be happening during term 2 and 3. He will now be taking a running club during Friday lunchtimes.

Sports News

This term we have four sporting opportunities for our Year 5 - 8 tamariki
  • Cross Country
  • Swimming Sports
  • Winter Sport
  • Basketball

Winter Sport

All children are involved in winter sport in some capacity. The winter sport opportunities available at our kura are netball, hockey and football. Weekly winter sport lasts for 10 weeks, (five weeks in Term 2 and 5 weeks in term 3) and takes place on Thursday afternoons. 

Some children join a competitive team and play weekly games against other schools in our zone. Games are held at a range of locations. 
Football - Hansen and Beckenham Park
Netball - School’s netball courts (Hillview, St Martins and so on)
Hockey - Ngā Puna Wai
Some children stay at school and form a development team, who focus on skill development in a non-competitive environment. 


WE NEED MORE TEAM MANAGERS!

This programme heavily relies on having enough adult teachers and caregivers to have an adult with each team. At the moment, we are in desperate need of more team managers, especially for football. The role of team manager is to go with the team to their game. It would be awesome if the team manager felt comfortable refereeing the game and this may not be essential. Referring at this level is not usually too tricky and can be done with no prior experience. What is required is knowledge of the game, or willingness to learn and an ability to make fair decisions. The most important quality in a ref is the ability to be fair.  There may be an older sibling in your whānau who could help out with coaching / reffing. If you think this could be you, please email Jenny at jenny.diggle@beckenham.school.nz. 

Year 5 - 8 Cross Country

Our school cross country is Tuesday afternoon starting at 1:50 and is an event that all children participate in in some way. Please see the previous post for more information. The children have been practising during our PE sessions and we have been really proud in the way that they are giving their best effort in these sessions. 

Year 5 -8 Swimming Sports

Swimming Sports is an optional event. It is usually in Term 1 but this year, due to COVID-19, it is being held on Monday 30th may at Wharenui Pool. Students who wish to take part and are confident swimmers can enter via a Google Form that is shared with them via Google Classroom. Student have until Thursday next week to make their entry. Some of our amazing Year 8 leaders have run information sessions with Year 5 and 6 to let them know details of this event. 

Basketball

We have teams organised to start games at Pioneer after school, starting soon. There will also be opportunities to play in a Zone Tournament. 

High School Info

Each year in term 2, high schools share information for us to pass on to you. Now is a good time to look on the website of the schools you are interested in for your Year 8 child next year. Check out if they have an Open Day / Evening, check the enrollment procedures and you may like to check out scholarship information. We have received the following from Hagley College.

Hagley College

Year 9 enrolments here at Hagley. 
  • Applications for Year 9 2023 will open online from 16 May.
  • Please note that due to the continuing uncertainty around the pandemic, we have made the difficult decision not to hold an open evening this year.
  • We are still very happy to provide information about Hagley for 2023 to all interested parents, caregivers and students.
  • Our 2023 Junior College Lookbook is available on our website at https://www.hagley.school.nz/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2023_Hagley-College-Junior_Lookbook.pdf.
  • Families are also welcome to contact Suzanne Waters (Director of Students) with any questions about learning in Year 9 at Hagley on suzanne.waters@staff.hagley.school.nz.
  • For any other queries, or for those unable to complete an application online, parents/caregivers should contact Lisa Amer on lisa.amer@staff.hagley.school.nz or (03) 364 5134.

Thinking about Hagley for Year 9 2023? 10 key points about us:
  • We're a Designated Character School. To join us, you must agree to engage with our culture and our values of Whakamarumaru (Responsibility), Mana (Respect), Whakawhirinaki (Trust) and Tika (Integrity). We also need to be confident that Hagley has the resources to support you in your learning, that there is a programme that will meet your needs, and that there is a place for you in that programme.
  • We are a restorative school.
  • We have an inclusive and diverse learning environment.
  • We offer a connected curriculum.
  • All Year 9 students have two hours of Te Reo Māori, two hours of Health and three hours of PE each week. They also all take English, Maths, Social Sciences and Science. Students also choose from a wide range of Kete Wana courses to complete their programmes.
  • Social action and student leadership are actively promoted and celebrated.
  • Our Targeted Learning class is very small. Only 2-3 places will be available for new students in 2023 due to returning students.
  • GATE students are able to excel in their specialty fields.
  • Enrolment for Year 9 2023 opens online on 16 May 2022 and closes on 8 July 2022 at midday. It is essential to apply during this time.
  • There are only 125 places available in Year 9 for 2023. A ballot is usually required and will occur on 1 August 2022. Notifications re places will occur by 5 August 2022. Criteria for priority enrolment for those with family/whānau links to Hagley is on our website.

Team Kahikatea News Week 1 Term 2

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Welcome to Term 2 😃

It is wonderful to be able to welcome whanau into school grounds and for our school day to be returned to the usual 3pm. Thank you for continuing to follow our health and safety protocols and supporting your child/ren to do the same. We Get There Together!    

We are well into our learning programs and this week some children have a new literacy teacher. Please look in your child/childrens reading folder to find this HOME LEARNING notice: 

Kia ora e te Whānau,

Please find letter cards attached, for the stage your learner is working at in structured literacy. They can be cut up and put into the plastic bag and used at home. 

This is a copy of the Scope and Sequence your learner will be working through:

How can you help your child at home?

The emphasis in teaching spelling is to focus on the sound. Making the phoneme (sound) - grapheme (letter shape) connection is the first step in literacy learning.

Ensure that your child is saying the ‘pure’ sound without an ‘uh’ sound on the end, for example, ‘lllll’ rather than ‘luh’. Please refer to a Youtube clip, The Sounds of New Zealand English (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SePU-T4S-js) for more information on the sound that matches each of the letters.

In your pack, you will have the letters for the current level. It is helpful to look at the Scope and Sequence above to also revise what has been taught prior. 

Letter-Sound Connections

Speed Sounds: your child can look at each letter card and say the sound it represents. See if your child can do this at speed.

Writing the letters: you say the sounds and your learner can write the letters. If they are not confident with this yet, let them copy the letter cards. They could write them on a whiteboard, on paper, or could even make their own flashcards.

‘I Spy’: You can play games such as ‘I Spy’, using the letter sound (not the name).

Stepping Stones: Place the cards on the floor with the letter facing up, as if they are stepping stones across the river. Explain to your child that they have to cross the ‘river’ without falling in the water. As your child steps on each card they say the corresponding sound.

Fish or Memory: You could make up a matching set of letter cards, and use both sets to play Fish or Memory together, by placing both sets of cards face down on the table or floor. Each player has to be able to say the sound, if they are to keep a matching pair of cards.

Making words and non-words

Using the letters in the pack (and making cards for the letters taught prior), you can make CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant). For example in stage 1, you could make words such as ‘map’, ‘tip’, ‘sit’. If you learner is feeling confident with this, try making some ‘non-words’- e.g. ‘mip’. This can be done as a reading task where you make the word/ non-word, and they read it, or they can build the word with the letters as you say it (e.g. “make the word sit”, and they select the ‘s’, ‘i’, ‘t’ from the letter pack). After your learner has built the word, they can also write it.  From stage 5, you can also focus on words with two consonants at the beginning or end e.g. slip, tilt

Practise decoding

When the decodable story books start to come home, your child will have already practised reading each book several times at school. The aim is for your child to be very confident as they read each text to you at home. If your learner does hesitate at any particular word, you could encourage and support them to segment and then blend the sounds in the word to decode that word. They could then re-read the sentence from the beginning to ensure fluency as they read. 

If you would like to learn more about Structured Literacy or the Science of Reading (as it is also called), a good place to start is the Little Learners Love Literacy website, littlelearnersloveliteracy.com.au, under the tab ‘Why Little Learners Love Literacy’.

Have fun with your children, as they learn the letter sounds and how to blend and segment them!


Health and Well-being

We still need you to let us know if any of our children test positive during the holidays, please.

If your child tests positive, please email me (principal@beckenham.school.nz) with their name, and the date they either started symptoms or tested positive. We will be forwarding numbers to the Ministry of Education through the holidays. 

If your child/children need to isloate at home do take a look at our  Learning at Home Page . It is being updated for Term 2 and will have new themes and activiites to explore. 


Up-coming Events

  • Cross Country (Year 0-4) DATE To Be Confirmed
  • Tuesday 10th May Te Ao o Taonga Puoro (The World of Singing Treasures) 
The performance features 20 different traditional Māori instruments including pākuru, kōhatu, tumutumu, pūrerehua, porotiti, hue puruhau, poi awhiowhio, kōauau ponga ihu, pūtōrino, kōauau, pōrutu, ororuarangi, nguru, pūtatara, pūpū harakeke, karanga ruru, karanga weka, karanga manu and pūkāea.
As well as demonstrating the instruments, discussing how to play them and inspiring students to make their own, the programme features a number of pūrākau (old stories) that give background stories to the taonga.

  • Thursday 23rd June Antartic Centre Visit
An opportunity to learn about the incredible Antartic environment and it's animals. More informtation regarding parent helpers will be sent home soon. 



Ma te wa, Team Kahikatea

amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz

krystal.hunt@beckenham.school.nz

emma.hayes-smith@beckenham.school.nz

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz




Kōwhai News Term 2 Week 1

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Kia ora whānau,

Welcome back to Term 2! We have had a cracking start to the term, getting stuck into our learning and doing lots of exciting new activities.

Discovery

In Discovery, we have introduced some new options, including creating Stop Motion animations on the iPads and developing our dancing skills with Quynh.













Inquiry

This term we are exploring the topic of Sustaining Our Cultures which will involve researching a chosen culture and finding out about certain aspects of it. This may be a culture that the children associate themselves with or just one they are interested in. 

We started this week with some fun introductory activities. One of the activities involved tasting 5 different foods from different countries around the world and the children had to guess what they were and where they came from. The children were totally engaged with this activity and some of the foods were quite tricky to guess! Has anyone ever tasted sun-dried jackfruit from Vietnam before?




Science

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be doing some science experiments in the afternoon. One of the experiments we tried this week was called Cucumber Chemistry which involved predicting what would happen to the slices of cucumber when we put sugar and salt on them. Can you predict what would happen? 

Help Needed

We have been working hard on developing our garden behind the hub and every Monday, Charlotte works with a team of children during Discovery to keep the garden tidy and free of weeds. We are, however, finding it difficult to keep up with the weeds and were wondering if there was a keen parent who could come in and help with this and even prune the apple trees. If you could spare half an hour here or there, we would be truly grateful. Please email your child's homegroup teacher and we will take it from there.

Thank you again for your ongoing support.

From the Kōwhai team


Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto newsletter Monday 2 May, 2022

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou



We are looking forward to seeing all of our tamariki back at school tomorrow. We are also very pleased to be able to welcome whānau back into the school grounds, for the first time properly since August last year! No more dropping and collecting at the gate (unless, of course, that is still working for you!) Masks won't be required when outside, although you are welcome to wear them if you choose to. 

At Orange, we ask you to wait outside learning spaces, well away from the hub entrances when dropping and picking up children. A teacher from each hub will be available to greet you outside the hub in the mornings, and teachers will walk out with children in the afternoons. 

All children will finish school at 3pm again!

Whilst the mandate for mask-wearing in schools has been lifted, schools are being encouraged to consider the needs of their community and put appropriate local guidelines in place.

At Beckenham, we believe that masks have been one of the best tools available to us for limiting the spread of Covid-19 at school, and keeping our staff and our children as safe as we can. We are also aware that further waves of Covid-19 are expected, and that NZ is going into its first influenza winter in three years. We know that many families are also now travelling both within NZ and even outside NZ.



For these reasons, we have decided to continue with our status quo on mask-wearing inside our buildings. This means that children in Year 3/4 are strongly encouraged to wear a mask inside, and that our Year 5-8 children should continue wearing masks inside, as they did so capably during Term 1. Our staff will also continue to wear masks inside. 

We know that this cautious approach has served us well so far, and we will review this during Term 2, as we get a better picture of case numbers in our school community.

Ongoing Roadworks around the school - please walk if you can this week!

As most of you will be aware, the burst pipe on Colombo Street last week has significantly added to the challenges of navigating safely around our streets. This morning Colombo St was still closed and we are working on the possibility that it will still be closed tomorrow.

The section of Norwood St between Fisher Ave and Tennyson is also closed. 

Sandwich Road is also currently closed at the Eastern Tce end and will be so for the rest of this week.

So there is no vehicle access to the school from Eastern Terrace.

SIEPP will install additional signs on Eastern Tce at the Fisher Ave intersections saying ‘NO SCHOOL ACCESS FROM EASTERN TCE’. They will already have ‘ROAD CLOSED AHEAD’ signs in place.

Please avoid bringing vehicles down Sandwich Road for drop-off and pick-up this week unless you need to access the accessible parking. There will be significant challenge for everyone's safety if we have large numbers of cars trying to do 3-point-turns all week on Sandwich Road.


COVID-19 - Please continue to notify us of positive tests.

Please continue to let school know if your child has contracted COVID-19. We are still sending numbers through to the Ministry of Education on a daily basis. 
We currently have three staff at home this week in isolation and we know that we still have a number of families across the school who have been, or are currently, in isolation due to COVID.

You can email the school office: office@beckenham.school.nz or leave a message on the answerphone 03 337 1404

Term 2 Dates

Tuesday 3 May - Term 2 begins
Monday 6 June - Queen's Birthday - School closed
Friday 24 June - Matariki - School closed
Friday 8 July - Last day of Term 2

Student-Led Inclusion

Due to Covid challenges and being in restricted settings, our colleagues and students in the Ferndale satellite have been operating in their own bubble since August last year. Our senior students were missing the connection with the Ferndale students that they had previously been able to enjoy, so Saxon, one of our Year 8 students, suggested an activity where they could communicate through chalk-painting on the windows! 
Such a lot of fun was had by both groups of students! Lots of great comments and conversations came from people noticing the great artwork in the days after too.
We are looking forward to having much more natural interactions with our Ferndale colleagues and akonga this term, now that we are working in the Orange Covid setting.



Ngā mihi nui

Sandy & the Team

Koru Team News: Term 1 Week 11

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Kia ora e te whanau,

We hope you are all happy and healthy, and that everything is going well for you all on the home front. We have officially reached the end of our first term here at school! It has been an incredibly busy term, and we are very proud of the resilience and perseverance our tamariki have shown, along with their ability to incorporate all aspects of our school values into their daily lives. Very well done, koutou!

Here is the Learning At Home page link for those of you who might be wanting to access this throughout the school holidays. You will see that there are enormous possibilities here on our Koru team page, from a range of extra Maths activities, a wide variety of Literacy activities, through to many picture books which have been read by the teachers and uploaded so that the wee ones can enjoy a quiet moment listening to a good story.

As we said, it has been a very busy term full of exciting activities and impressive progress throughout, including:

  • having the wonderful Kate in to teach our tamariki about different aspects of Digitech, 
  • having the lovely Sue in to help with some baking on Fridays, 
  • children making wonderful progress in their Structured Literacy groups, and
  • tamariki learning lots of new concepts, knowledge and strategies in the Maths area.

Unplugged programming, using individual paper mazes, and weaving play-based learning into Digitech, by choosing a character to act as a robot programmer and using kinetic sand as barriers and obstacles.

Vocalising the code, using the simple code blocks of 'forward', 'turn' and 'backwards'.

Guiding Bingo through the maze, by giving him a 'superpower' and adding 'jump' to the code blocks. 

Unplugged coding refers to learning coding skills, without the use of technology!

Incorporating our Sustainability theme into Digitech.

The tamariki talked about the impact of pollution and rubbish on underwater life.

They then 'taught' AI (the iPad app they were using) to tell the difference between a fish and rubbish, then, using the iPad to control a bluebot, children then set about cleaning up the ocean so that the sea creatures could be safe, happy and thrive!

Structured Literacy: 

Although your children haven't brought their literacy folders home over the holidays, this doesn't mean that their Literacy learning and practice must stop for the time being. You will find, in our Koru Learning at Home Literacy area, links to the letter sound cards (you could make your own copies for home, if you have a printer), their heart words, and several other aspects of phonemic awareness. In the phonics section, there is a link through to YouTube which gives lots of opportunities for the children to practise a variety of phonemic awareness activities. 

Maths: 

The children have been working hard to increase their knowledge of bigger numbers and the concepts like place value which are involved in this learning. They have been:

  • using tens frames to show the make up of 'teen' numbers (10 + ? = the particular teen number)
  • learning about how the teen numbers are represented by words in te Reo Māori
  • counting forwards to 20, and then on to 100
  • counting backwards from 10, and then backwards from 20
  • learning to read numbers to 20, 100 and beyond (up to any 3-digit number), and working towards understanding the concept of place value required when, for example, zero is a place holder, as in 702
  • solving fun Maths problems using a variety of strategies 
  • learning new maths games (like Traffic Light, Move and Prove and various versions of Memory which involve matching a number, for example, 14, with its matching tens frame pattern) 
  • making patterns and pictures, using the shape equipment
The progress the children have made in this area this term has been very exciting! Please visit our Learning At Home Maths area for a variety of fun activities to engage your children, if they are heard, at any point during the holidays, to make pleas such as, "PLEASE, can we have some Maths fun today?"

We love these Maths activities which require the children to justify their thinking, and which also allow for a wide variety of 'answers'.

Again, impressive thinking here, and a growing ability in tamariki to justify their thinking.

Excellent explanations and problem-solving here!

Learning about 'teen' numbers.

Learning that 'teen' means ten.

The children's drawings are representations of what they actually did, using popsicle sticks and hair ties, to form bundles of ten with some 'ones' left over (please note, the line through the ten 'sticks' is the hair tie!)

And aren't the tamariki amazing to be learning how to write equations in this way?

The Three Billy Goats Gruff: 
Over the last two weeks, we have had a theme within our akomanga, focusing on the Three Billy Goats Gruff. This has led to some incredibly imaginative thinking, along with the use of a variety of creative skills. Our tamariki have been involved in:

  • socio-dramatic role play where they began by building a bridge, then found all sorts of animals to represent the three billy goats and another animal (often a wild cat, such a s a tiger) to play the part of the troll, before retelling the story using those characters
  • creating a small world, where they used the skills of recalling what happens in the story to retell it to their peers using characters they had made 
  • a whole class bridge building competition, using such equipment as Duplo, wooden building blocks, Lego, boxes, small bricks, and a variety of classroom furniture. 
Two trolls (one large and pink; the other a small grey elephant) up to mischief in this retelling!

Watch out, little goats...

Oh, no - what is going to happen next?

... a bad day for one of the trolls.

...and a very bad day for the other!

More creative use of a variety of animals (including dinosaurs) in this retelling.

Another troll about to get his comeuppance!

And a creative variation on the Three Billy Goats Gruff theme, incorporating the use of the train set, some Lego and some shells!

Kete Certificates: 

Congratulations to Neasa, Kit, Jos Luke, and Nellie, for showing our school kete values and recently receiving certificates in the areas of:

  • We Care
  • We Love Learning and
  • We Make a Difference
Ka pai, tamariki!

We trust that you all have a wonderfully safe and happy Easter break and school holiday to follow. 

Thank you so much for the support which you have all provided for us here at school throughout this term. It is always greatly appreciated. Your children have shown wonderful levels of participation and contribution throughout this first term and will all, no doubt, be very tired. We trust you all have the chance to relax and recharge ready for an exciting Term 2 ahead.

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Elizabeth, Georgia, Stacey and Amy