Team Kahikatea News Week 1 Term 2

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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


Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter, Rāpare (Thursday) 14 April

Posted on by

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

Today is the last day of Term 1, with Good Friday tomorrow marking both the start of the long Easter weekend and the school holidays.

Term 2 Starts on TUESDAY 3rd May

Please remember that the Monday after the school holidays will be a Staff Only Day for our Kura. Term 2 will start again on Tuesday 3rd May. We look forward to seeing everyone back after the holidays.

Covid-19 Update

Note that numbers may be different to previous graphs, as we do get historical cases reported.

After hitting a peak last week and again early this week, we have had no new cases of Covid-19 reported to us in the past two days. That is great news, and brings our rolling 7-day average from its highest point on Monday of 4.9, to a clearly dropping 2.7 today.
Attendance was also at a term low last week, only getting to 72% on three days. It was good to see that we were back up to 77% for most of this week.

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.

Moving to Orange!!!

As you will be aware, the whole country is now working at the Orange Traffic Light setting. 



This means that we are 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, 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 have done so capably this term. 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.

Welcome Back to Nicola Reddecliffe

We are very pleased to confirm that Nicola Reddecliffe will be rejoining ourstaff in the New Entrant Koru Team from the beginning of Term 2. Nicola is well-known to many of you, both as a parent and member of the PTA, as well as having been a teacher in the Koru Team last year. Welcome back, Nicola!


Welcome to Maisie Bowden

Maisie has been working as a casual Teaching Assistant for most of the first term. She began just doing a few hours of back-up work, and has quickly become a regular and indispensable part of our team! We love having Maisie on our staff, and thought it was time we introduced her to you properly! Maisie also works at BOSCO so is well-known by our students, and will be known to some of you as well.


From all of us on the staff, to all of you and your whānau... thank you for your continuing support of us all in the work we do with your children. This term has been really challenging, and we have made it through with your support. We are all going to be taking a well-needed break over the next two weeks, and we wish you and your families a safe and relaxing break too.

Ngā mihi nui
Sandy Hastings
Principal - Tumuaki

Important Dates

Upcoming Events

Thu 14th Apr - Last day of Term 1
Fri 15th Apr - Good Friday (School Closed)

Term 2

Note that Monday 2nd May is a Staff Only Day (School Closed)
Tue 3rd May - First day of Term 2 
Wed 25th May - BOT Meeting 5.30PM - 7.30PM
Wed 25th May - PTA Meeting 7.30PM - 9.30PM

Term Dates

Click here to view 2022 term dates.

Citizen of the Week

Skye Langer - Year 4

Skye Langer, you are a fabulous model of all our school values. You show incredible focus and persistence in learning. You keep trying through challenging ideas or material, and you honestly and openly reflect on your learning.  You have a growth mindset and encourage all those around you to do the same. Being an expert on a number of subjects, you share your knowledge and creativity with those around you, such as in your comic club group! You make a difference by noticing and helping around the hub, and supporting others when they need it. You are a welcoming peer who greets others with a smile and an open mind. Skye - thanks for being your amazing self! 

School Notices

Farewell to Constable Ross Mitchell

Yesterday we had the sad honour of farewelling Constable Ross Mitchell who is retiring from his role as School Community Officer with the NZ Police. Ross has been in this role for over 11 years, and has worked in our school training Road Patrollers, and supporting our teachers with Health and Wellbeing programmes of 'Keeping Ourselves Safe' and 'D.A.R.E.' during that time. Ross has been a person who has built his work on building relationships with our tamariki, showing them that the police are there to support, help and protect our community.


It was a fabulous opportunity for our senior kapa haka students to use their skills to show Ross how much they all appreciate his contribution. He was very moved by the haka they did for him. We acknowledge Ross's contribution to our school and wish him all the very best in his new role leading the hardware department at Mitre 10 Mega in Hornby. Do say 'Hi' to him if you see him there!

Community Dental Service - Dental Care During the School Holidays

The Community Dental Service will be providing urgent and relief of pain appointments during the school break at:
  • Aranui Community Dental Clinic, 240 Breezes Road, Christchurch
  • Hornby Community Dental Clinic, 2 Hei Hei Road, Christchurch
You can access these appointments by calling our Contact Centre on 0800 846 983.
For any dental advice please call the Contact Centre on 0800 846 983 or email commdental@cdhb.health.nz

Lost Property

As always, there is a collection of large and small items, along with various unnamed uniform items at school, awaiting their owners to come and claim them.
These three, precious items, are sitting in the office - the earring found in the playground today, whilst Peter Rabbit and the glasses have been there for a few days. Please come and claim them next term, if they are yours!

BOSCO

If you are looking for AWESOME Easter fun for your kids this holiday – look no further! BOSCO has an exciting April Holiday programme planned, filled with activities to keep all ages entertained so YOU don’t have to. We have Suzie the magnificent performer coming to us, House of Bricks, a dance instructor to teach us a few dance moves and so much more! You will not want to miss out on all our baking, crafts and special days that we have planned like pyjama day, circus day, wizard day and definitely not the BIGGEST EASTER EGG HUNT EVER! So, if this sounds like something you are interested in, email Juanita at office@bosco.org.nz or book online via Aimy Plus. See you there!

Community Notices

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

Hockey

Southern United hockey looking for players keen to try goalkeeping

Are you athletic with quick reactions? If you are, you could be an amazing hockey goalkeeper. Southern United Hockey Club are on the hunt for more goalkeepers for their Year 7 and 8 teams. Specialist coaching and development opportunities will be offered to all interested goalkeepers. Contact juniors@suhc.co.nz for more information.

Cashmere Technical Football Club Holiday Fun Programme

Earth Day competition which TOCK

Pebbles Montesorri Cashmere

Pebbles Montessori Cashmere have limited spaces available in our nursery for under 2 years. Currently we have all day Mondays and Fridays plus every afternoon. Please contact us to find out more information and to arrange a visit admin@pebblespreschool.nz.


Free Family Event - The Cashmere Club