Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter, Rāmere (Friday) 18 March

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

Thank you all for continuing to support our efforts to keep all of our community healthy by keeping sick children at home. Thank you also for keeping us informed about children who are staying home due to being household contacts of confirmed cases. I write this to you today from my home - being myself a household contact of a confirmed COVID case! I expect to be back at school again by Wednesday of next week. 

Please remember to advise us if your child contracts COVID. We are required to give daily numbers (no names) to the Ministry of Education.

We are seeing attendance across the school has been slowly dropping through the term and for the last two weeks, we have had less than 400 out of 473 children at school each day. At one level, this has been expected as we have had COVID cases confirmed and people are having to go into isolation.

However, we do not believe that COVID is being transmitted at school!

We do have a number of students who are staying away from school due to 'being cautious'. While we also understand this, we have seen very little, if ANY, evidence of anyone catching COVID at school. In almost every case reported below, both for staff and students, the transmission has happened at home or in a social setting (which is to be expected as these settings are usually without masks and distancing). For that reason, we would encourage those families who are keeping children home out of caution, to send them to school so that their learning can continue uninterrupted. The measures that we are taking at school certainly seem to be making an important difference, and are making school a safe place for your child.


We are not seeing a huge rise in cases, and this week, we have had two days with no new cases reported. Our total number of cases at school since the first case on 3rd March is 23. This is an average of only 1.4 cases per day over the last 16 days.

Covid Cases per day - average 1.4 cases per day

Let's keep learning and staying safe together!

Ngā mihi mahana
Sandy Hastings
Tumuaki - Principal

Important Dates

Upcoming Events

Wed 23rd Mar - PTA Meeting 7.30pm - 9.30pm (Green Room)
Wed 30th Mar - BOT Meeting 5.30pm - 7.30pm (Staff Room)
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 

Term Dates

Click here to view 2022 term dates.

Citizen of the Week

Maisie Lovelock - Year 8

Maisie, you are a shining star in our Kauri whānau. Your positive, kind and inclusive nature makes you a joy to be around. A proactive attitude and love of learning are key to your success. Thank you for the wonderful ways that you contribute and participate within our kura. 

School Notices

Updates to road closures/route changes

Thank you all for the way that you have supported our students to be safe this week with adjusting your travel around the school for the road works. 

Next week, Sandwich Road will be ONE WAY only, with entry from Norwood St and Exit via Eastern Tce.

Next week Sandwich Road past the school will be ONE WAY ONLY

We would encourage you to continue to walk and wheel as much as possible, and to park on Eastern Tce or Norwood St for pick-ups. There will be no entry into Sandwich Road from Eastern Terrace next week except for residents, staff and accessibility vehicles.

Walk & Wheel Prize Draw

Walk and wheel prizes have been drawn! Thank you to all of our tamariki who entered their names into the draw. It was so amazing to see how many tamariki were eligible to put their name in the draw. To be eligible you needed to have "walked or wheeled" to school at least 3 times over the past two weeks.



Prizes have been drawn and will be delivered to hubs next week.

Lost Property

We have a lost property rack out on the Library deck each day. Please have your children check here during morning tea and lunch. A reminder that it helps to have things named as we can get items back to your childs teacher much easier!

As well as this, we have quite the collection of other items held in the office. If your child is missing a watch, pounamu, or even glasses please come into the office and describe your item. We may have it! (Note some have been lost this year and some are from last year).

Scooter Mix Up today

We have had a look-alike scooter mix-up today after school. Please see the below pictures to see if you recognise this scooter as it may be yours!


The scooter that is missing (likely taken home by mistake) is very similar to this with key differences being it has a mountain-style sticker instead of a cross sticker, and the handle grips are not broken. If your child has picked up the wrong scooter accidentally, please can you return it to the office on Monday, where you will likely find yours waiting for you!

Policy Review

From time to time we will ask you to review one of our policies that come up on our review cycle. The policy for parental review this term is the Visitors Policy. 
You will find it on School Docs site using this link.  
You may need to log in using the Username: beckenham and the Password: pride

Click on "Current Review"




Scroll down to find the policy called "Visitors"

Once you have read the policy, click on the red icon in the top right hand corner, to leave your review!



Contact Details

Parents are responsible for letting the school know about any changes to their contact details, including details of parents who don't live with the child but who wish to receive school information and notices. If you have any changes, or want to check your details, please do this by coming into the Office, or emailing office@beckenham.school.nz. We appreciate you keeping us in the loop!

Staff Only Days for 2022 confirmed

Due to COVID, we have shifted the Staff Only Day that was proposed for Term 1 to Term 3.
We have confirmed the following dates as Staff Only Days for 2022:
  • Monday 2 May (Term 2 will now start on Tuesday 3 May)
  • Friday 12 August
  • Monday 19 September  

Absences

Please remember to contact the school office if your child will be absent from school. This includes if they are learning from home, unless you have already provided us with a timeline for their absence. 

When contacting us please remember to include; your name, your child’s name, the reason for their absence and how long you expect your child will be away from school.

If you do not provide a reason for your child’s absence, we are required to mark this as an unjustified absence on their attendance report.

Phone: (03) 337-1404 (Press 1 to leave an absence message)
or Text Message: 021 027 94107
or Email: office@beckenham.school.nz

Scholastic Book Club

Thinking about our environment and the amount of paper waste that occurs we are no longer issuing Scholastic Book Club brochures to students. You can however view the Scholastic Book Club brochure online and place your order as usual. You can access the brochure via the link below.

Lost Library Books

Dear parents and caregivers, if we have lent you one of these wonderful books could you kindly return them back to our library or email the Office (office@beckenham.school.nz) saying you would like to keep them a little longer. Thank you!

Hey Warrior
Hey Awesome

What to do when your temper flares

PTA News

Keep in touch with the PTA

To stay up to date with the PTA, please check out our Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto PTA Facebook page, linked here. Or come along to one of our meetings - all welcome.
 
Meeting dates can be found in the weekly school newsletter, or on the school calendar - linked here.
These meetings are usually held on a Wednesday night 7.30-9.30pm.

You can email the PTA at pta@beckenham.school.nz



Koru Week 7, with a focus on Structured Literacy

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Kia ora e te whanau,

We hope everything's going well for you all on the home front. We have reached the end of Week 7, and it has been a fun-filled and epic fortnight here in the Koru hub.

Here is the Learning At Home page link for those of you who might be needing it. We are adding and updating our content every so often, however you will see that there are enormous possibilities here on our Koru page. If your child completes some Learning Through Play, some Literacy activities and some Maths activities each day, then that is terrific. If, on some days, this isn't achievable for any reason, then that is absolutely fine too. You will see that in class, we start each day with our karakia, followed by the National Anthem, and this might be a good thing to do at home as well.

Today you will see that the children have brought home, in their bags, their unique Home Learning codes which will give you access to Seesaw. We will be using Seesaw for those of you who are engaging in Learning From Home.

Structured Literacy: Across the school and within our Koru hub, we use the Structured Literacy approach to teaching reading. This approach focuses on speech sounds first, then leads on to the writing and reading of these sounds in words. As our tamariki learn different sounds, they then learn to blend and segment these sounds to read and write words. We also follow another specific approach for our handwriting which is called 'Kinetic Letters', and these handwriting skills are also practised during Literacy lessons.

Scope and Sequence: There are 7 different stages within the Structured Literacy approach. Each stage has new sounds for the children to learn and requires different skill sets. As children move through the stages, new skills are learnt and these build upon previous skills that the children have learnt.

We love practising our letter sounds at home with our families.

We can make words using our letter cards, to practise our segmenting and blending skills.
 
We can use our sounds and heart words to write a sentence.

Well done! Great work at writing a sentence independently.

Reading books: With Structured Literacy, there is a great series of books that goes along with this approach to support the children with their learning. In order to read the books, our tamariki must know most of the first 8 letter sounds. They will have been practising the skills of segmenting and blending sounds to encode and decode words, which then leads to the children being given a book.

Little Learners Love Literacy: This website, “Why LLLL (Little Learners Love Literacy)? has additional information as to why we use the Little Learners Love Literacy programme.


The above video explains how to clearly and correctly pronounce each of the letter sounds and will help you support your children as they practise these with you at home.


This little video clip focuses on phonological awareness. Watch how Linda Farrell gives Autumn explicit practice in blending, segmenting, and manipulating the sounds in words.

Caroline Moffatt's Structured Literacy Parent talk: Last year, Caroline Moffatt, our Resource Teacher of Literacy, led a workshop for parents, devoted to the Structured Literacy approach to teaching reading and writing. This contains valuable information related to the Science of Reading and our approach towards Literacy here at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto.


Here is a link to all our information regarding our Structured Literacy approach which you will find on our school website: https://www.beckenham.school.nz/index.php/learning/literacy-learning

We do hope you all have a restful and very happy weekend, everyone. We're looking forward to seeing those bright and happy wee faces next week!

Ngā mihi mahana koutou,
Elizabeth, Georgia and Stacey

Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 7

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Wow! Where is the term disappearing? It's amazing to think that we are now in Week 7. As always, we have been a busy hub. Here is an outline of what we have been up to over the past 2 weeks.

Discovery

The children continue to explore their ideas through Discovery, having a choice of activities both inside and outside the hub.

Outside, we have been playing cricket, creating ball games and obstacle courses, digging and engineering in the sandpit, and Charlotte is also running the Gardening Club once a week. 








Indoors, we are creating marble runs and bridges with wooden blocks, learning the art of origami and we are doing lots of construction, making houses out of boxes and dolls out of popsicle sticks and wool. Some of us have even been conducting experiments using magnets. Also, Nick is running a Coding Club which involves the children learning to code a maths game. 












Reading / Writing / Spelling

Next week, we are sending home spelling cards and spelling workbooks for your children to be able to practise their spelling words (both reading and writing them) according to their reading stage. Please click on this link for instructions on how to use them. You will also receive a hard copy of these instructions with your spelling pack next week. Remember, this is an optional extra if you want to practise at home. We will also practise these words at school every week.

Art

We have finally finished our collage art and here are some of the finished results!



Sustaining Relationships

Instead of sustainable art, we have now moved on to sustaining our relationships by playing co-operative games and undertaking co-operative challenges. We have been doing back to back drawing, lego challenges, trust games, building the tallest tower challenges and many, many more. The children have been learning a lot about building and sustaining relationships with one another and co-operating in order to achieve their goals.


Experiments

Some of us have had the opportunity to do some experiments with our wonderful teaching assistant, Elizabeth. Take a look at the volcano experiment they conducted. Exciting stuff!









Wellbeing

Every Friday, we spend time on our wellbeing / hauora and for the first weeks of term, we have been learning about Te Whare Tapa Whā. It is a model of wellbeing, which comprises four key areas, and is widely used in NZ. We've looked at keeping ourselves well by making time for: 
  • Physical health: exercise, sleep, eating healthily
  • Mental and emotional health: self-talk, calming strategies, communicating through challenges
  • Social health: time with family and friends
  • Spiritual health: this includes making time for our passions, and/or things that give us a deeper sense of meaning
There are some fantastic parent guides here to help you support children in areas of need, including sleep and anxiety: https://www.allright.org.nz/tools/parenting-guides



Reminders and Requests

  • We would love some more boxes and cardboard containers for our construction station in Discovery. Please do bring some to school if you have any spares. Thank you!
  • A reminder for your child to bring a named drink bottle to school every day. It is so important that they keep themselves hydrated and ready to learn.
  • Also, a reminder to bring a named mask to school every day too. Everyone is doing so well with wearing them when they are in the hub and we want to continue with this. 
  • Can you please have a chat with your child about the importance of handwashing before and after eating and also after going to the toilet. We are talking to them about it at school but we would love your support with this too. Thank you so much!

Kete Certificates

Congratulations to this week's certificate recipients!


Elizabeth

And finally, a shout out to Elizabeth, our wonderful teaching assistant, who is moving on to start a course in floristry. Thank you, Elizabeth, for all your hard work in our hub! The children will miss you but we wish you all the best in the future and we hope you will come back and visit.



Have a wonderful weekend!

From the Kōwhai Team,

Anna, Laura, Charlotte, Quynh, Nick and Rowe


Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter, Rāmere (Friday) 11 March

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

Hooray for warm and sunny weather! Doesn't life always feel that much better when the weather is great? It certainly makes life at school feel more 'normal' in these strange times, as we keep all the windows and doors open to support ventilation, kapa haka happens outside, and a variety of music and sport activities are able to be undertaken outside too.

COVID Numbers Update

We have had a further two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our student/staff population since we reported to you yesterday. This brings our total number of school cases to 14. We are also seeing some  people returning to school having completed their isolation periods. Our staff continue to work hard to keep the school programme happening as normally as possible, whilst we make adjustments for the fact that the number of children and staff at school decreases a little bit more each day. Today we had 100 children out of 476 away from school, and four staff isolating at home as either cases or household contacts. The particular staff who are away can change on a daily basis and we don't always know if they will be away for a day or two, or a more extended time. We are fortunate to have a reliable group of relievers we can draw from who know our children and staff and do their best to keep learning going as per the plan. Thank you for keeping children at home when they are not 100% well. 

Upcoming closure of Sandwich Road next week

We have been informed by SIEPP Construction that they will be closing Sandwich Road from Tuesday 15th March for up to a week. This is to undertake work related to the ongoing main water pipeline replacement project that is happening at a variety of locations across the local area.

From Tuesday 15th March, Sandwich Road will be closed to traffic at the Norwood St end, and open ONLY TO RESIDENTS, STAFF and ACCESSIBILITY VEHICLES from the Eastern Tce end.


We understand that this may cause some disruption and change to your normal travel times in the mornings so please do plan ahead and allow extra time. We understand that this work is important to our local community and that it will ensure strong infrastructure going forward.

This is stage one of three upcoming stages of work around the school that will impact on our usual traffic access. All footpath access to school should be available as usual.

Welcomes and a farewell

Staff and tamariki in our Koru New Entrant team were very excited to have Amy Bell join them this week from the University of Canterbury. Amy is studying to become a teacher and has been here for a week of placement and observation as part of her studies. 

Amy Bell

We also welcome Kal Walker to our school staff. Kal joins our teaching assistant team and comes from a background in Early Childhood Education. 

Kal Walker

We will be farewelling Elizabeth Mahy from our staff next week. Elizabeth joined our staff early last year as a teaching assistant and has provided wonderful learning and personal development support for a number of our children over the time she has been here. Elizabeth is leaving us to begin her tertiary study and we wish her all the very best for that journey!

Elizabeth Mahy

Noho ora e te whānau! Stay well!
Sandy Hastings
Tumuaki

Important Dates

Upcoming Events

Mon 14th Mar - School Photos (Postponed)
Wed 23rd Mar - PTA Meeting 7.30pm - 9.30pm (Green Room)
Wed 30th Mar - BOT Meeting 5.30pm - 7.30pm (Staff Room)
Thu 14th Apr - Last day of Term 1

Term Dates

Click here to view 2022 term dates.

Citizen of the Week

Xavier Kelly - Year 6

Xavier, you have had a great start to the year. You persist when things are tricky and your effort and positive attitude to learning has been noticed. You are clearly showing our kete value 'We Love Challenge', and you should be very proud of yourself. Teno pai, Xavier.

School Notices

Postponement of school wide photos

Due to the current high levels of covid cases in the community we have decided to postpone the school photos day planned for the 14th of March.  We will look to rebook this later in the year - potentially Wed 7 Sept 2022, but this will be confirmed at a later date.

Community Dental Service Suspended

The Community Dental Service is suspending some of its services from 5pm Wednesday 9th March 2022 to provide support to the Canterbury health sector in response to Omicron.

They will continue to provide relief of pain clinics by appointment only from Thursday 10th March.  You can access these appointments by calling the Contact Centre on 0800 846 983.

For any dental advice please call the Contact Centre on 0800 846 983.

PTA News

Keep in touch with the PTA

To stay up to date with the PTA, please check out our Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto PTA Facebook page, linked here. Or come along to one of our meetings - all welcome.
 
Meeting dates can be found in the weekly school Newsletter, or on the school calendar - linked here.
These meetings are usually held on a Wednesday night 7.30-9.30pm.

You can email the PTA at pta@beckenham.school.nz

Community Notices

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

Please find the facebook links for these events:
Seaweek: https://fb.me/e/2NIggZW1g 
Global Recycling Day: https://fb.me/e/l7SRroQxN
"2040" Movie Screening: https://fb.me/e/1FC9TKe1x

Community Service Awards & Youth Service Awards

Nominations close 5pm, Thursday 14 April



On behalf of the Spreydon-Cashmere Community Board we wish to advise that nominations are open for the 2022 Community Service and Youth Service Awards.

Community Service Awards are a way of giving well-deserved recognition to people who make our communities better places to live.  They are a way of thanking and honouring volunteers who without pay and little recognition demonstrate dedication and passion, inspiring others to make service a central part of their lives. 

These awards are given to local community members and are intended to give public recognition to those who have contributed significant voluntary service in one or more of the following areas:
  • Physical well-being, eg recreation/sport
  • Children, youth and education
  • Older adults
  • Disability
  • Physical environment
  • Social and economic well-being
  • Cultural, church and community service
Youth Service Awards

Youth Awards are presented in recognition of significant voluntary service by residents aged 25 or under, living in the Spreydon-Cashmere area.  These awards recognize individual effort rather than that of a whole group or organisation.

For more information on the Awards:  ccc.govt.nz/csa

For enquiries: phone Wendy Gunther on 941 5113.

To make a nomination: Complete an online nomination form at:  ccc.govt.nz/csa
Or click on the link to download a printable copy of our nomination guidelines and nomination form.

Nominate now!

Junior rugby registrations are now open for this season - Sydenham Rugby Club


Kauri Whānau Weekly Update: Term 1 Week 6

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 In this post:

  • Tuesday mornings
  • Learning at home
  • Guest speakers

Tuesday Mornings

We are now into a new rhythm on Tuesday mornings, while technology at South is on hold. We received great feedback from the children last week after their first Beckenham science and technology sessions. In science, the children are learning about body systems with links to first aid. In technology, the Year 8s are exploring electronics and robotics. It is great to have Kate join our teaching team for these sessions. The Year 7s are learning about wet felting. 


Year 8s created a foot-operated controller.


Learning at Home

With the current Covid-19 outbreak, attendance numbers at school are down, as was excepted. Our 'learning at home' site is up and running and the children know how to access this via google classroom. 
  • Their literacy work is accessed through their literacy google classroom. 
  • Maths is via MathsWhizz. 
  • There is also a selection of sustainability activities on the learning at home website. 
  • On Kauri google classroom they will find the weekly quiz and a science activity, called 'organ systems'.
If your child has any questions about their learning from home, please get in touch with their home-group teacher. 

Guest Speakers

This week the children will be listening to two highly motivating guest speakers. On Monday and Tuesday we have Attitude.inc coming in to deliver their 'Who am I?' presentation. On Thursday a speaker from 'I Am Hope' will talk with our team. Their presentation has the aim of normalising mental health, encouraging young people to reach out for help, and gives examples of tools to keep themselves well.