Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter Rāmere (Friday) 27 May, 2022

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

What a frosty start it was today, and what a lovely day it turned into!


We are getting back into a routine of having regular assemblies again each week. It is really great to be able to be rebuilding our sense of family and community, after having spent so long working just within individual hubs.

Whānau Hui and Hāngi - Wed 22 June from 5pm

Please make sure you get this date into your diaries! At 5pm on Wednesday 22nd June we will be having a Whānau Hui. We will meet with a welcome in the hall from Te Whānau Mahi Tahi (masks on please) and then families will be invited to go to a hub and participate in some learning activities about Matariki. At 6:15pm, you are invited to come back to the hall and we will finish the hui with a performance from our Pōhutukawa and Kōwhai kapa haka rōpū. 
Those who are not staying for hāngi will be able to go home around 6:30pm, whilst those who have ordered hāngi will stay on. 

Hāngi order forms will be available next week. There will only be 120 serves of Hāngi available, so if you want to order hāngi you will need to get your order in quickly.

New Entrant Enrolments

Enrolments for the rest of the year - Do you, or one of your neighbours, have a pre-schooler who is turning 5 and wanting to start school this year? If you haven't yet enrolled them, please pop into the office and get an enrolment form, or download one from our website and fill it out and send it into the office, as soon as possible. We need to be able to accurately predict enrolment numbers to ensure we have the appropriate staffing ready.

Ngā mihi nui
Sandy Hastings
Tumuaki - Principal

Term 2 Dates

Wednesday 25 May - Zone Cross Country at Hansen's Park
Wednesday 25 May - BOT Meeting - 5.30-7.30PM in te Rūma Kaimahi (the Staff Room)
Wednesday 25 May - PTA Meeting - 7.30-9.30PM in the Green Room
Monday 6 June - Queen's Birthday - School closed
Wednesday 22 June - Whānau Hui & Hangi
Friday 24 June - Matariki - School closed
Friday 8 July - Last day of Term 2

Citizen of the Week

Mitch Welch - Year 6

Mitch, you make a difference through your actions. You are a great communicator and show that we can all work together to be successful. Your kind and caring nature shines through in your compassion for others and in how you take care of our environment at Beckenham. "Nā koe he rereke te Ao", the world is different because of you!

School Notices

Winter Bugs

As we head into Winter, and in a Covid environment, we see an increase in sickness, including Head colds. If your child is unwell please keep them at home to recover. If a child becomes unwell at school during the day, we will contact whānau to arrange for the child to be collected. The Covid-19  practices we have in place will also support our school community with remaining as well as possible over winter.

Long COVID in children

Long COVID describes the symptoms that continue or develop after the initial COVID-19 symptoms.
 
This is usually longer than 12 weeks after a person is first infected.
 
Most people with COVID-19 recover completely and return to normal health. People usually recover from COVID-19 after two to six weeks and many make a full recovery within 12 weeks.
 
KidsHealth has provided some useful information about COVID-19 symptoms in children which you can see summarised here (and read more in the links below):
  • for most children with mild COVID-19, they will be back to normal within a week. A small number of children might take up to two weeks to feel back to normal
  • most children with COVID-19 will have a mild illness and get better quickly
  • for a child or young person to have a diagnosis of a post-COVID-19 condition (long COVID) their symptoms need to be having an impact on their everyday functioning and cannot be explained by another condition
  • nearly all children will fully recover and return to normal health
  • scientists and health professionals are still learning about long COVID, but studies so far have found:
    • children are much less likely to have long COVID than adults
    • children recover faster than adults
    • it mostly affects children over the age of 10 – it's very rare in younger children.
Further information is also available on the KidsHealth website, including caring for a child with COVID-19.

Masks Reminder

At Beckenham we are still seeing the benefits of continued mask wearing and we are asking everyone  - staff, whānau and students (Year 3/4 and older) to continue to wear masks when indoors at school

We know that Cashmere High School has had another peak of cases in the past week, and with many families having children at both schools, we just want to continue to be as safe as we can.

We no longer have any child-sized masks available at school, so we do need you to send your child to school with a named mask each day, please.


Update from SIEPP about Roadworks on Eastern Tce

We received this email from SIEPP this week to share with you:
I want to update you on the works we are currently doing on Eastern Terrace with the water main renewal. Works have been taking longer than we had initially planned there due to having to deal with existing contaminated ground in the road where we are installing the pipe. Currently, we are up to the Fisher Ave end of Beckenham Park and are continuing to install the pipe towards Tennyson Ave. We are now coming up to a section of the road that has been identified as having traces of asbestos within it. Due to the health risks of asbestos, we need to follow strict precautions while excavating the material that has been identified as at risk. While completing these works we will need to set up an asbestos containment zone within our site. Anyone working within the at-risk area will be required to wear full hazmat suits with face masks and gloves. We will have decontamination zones to ensure that all of the material is contained within our work site.

I just wanted to let you know that this work is upcoming so that the school community understands what is happening when they see it commencing. The work we are doing is very low risk as there has only been a small amount of asbestos traces found in the ground and it can be easily contained. However, we must follow all of the required protocols for obvious reasons. We will put black polythene around our fences to make it harder for pedestrians to see in but will also have asbestos warning signs on the fences.

The asbestos area is from the end of Beckenham Park through to Fisher Ave and we plan on doing this work for aproximately 3 weeks.

Apologies from Nic in the Coffee Cart

She won't be available this coming Monday 30 May

PTA News

Last orders for peanut butter TODAY! 

There are 3 Products available:

750g Super Crunchy Peanut Butter
750g Smooth Peanut Butter
500g Everything Butter

Jars cost $11 each $11 a jar (we get $3). 

Please click the link (before midnight tonight) to get your jar!

Community Notices

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

FluTracking NZ

With the relaxing of COVID-19 control measures and the reopening of borders, we’re expecting a resurgence of flu in 2022.

We need more participants around New Zealand to help us track the impact of both flu and COVID-19 in our local community.

Please consider giving 20 seconds a week to reply to a survey and help NZ track flu and COVID-19. In return, you will receive a weekly report and a map of respiratory illness in our community!
Click on this link to find out more and sign up!
https://info.flutracking.net/

Thanks for your time and support.

Flutracking New Zealand
https://info.flutracking.net/
Public Health Group
Population Health and Prevention
Ministry of Health


Rhyme and Reason


Jemma and Nick Smithson, (parents of Bryn (Kowhai) and Elsie (Kahikatea)) are excited to share with the community the opening of their new preschool Rhyme and Reason in Opawa. Community open days are scheduled for both Saturday and Sunday this weekend, so come on down to view their renovated and newly fitted our Early Childhood Centre.

Parliament and its grounds are a place for everyone to share and enjoy, and we are excited to share a creative way for our tamariki to connect to Parliament.

Tell any tamariki you know that Parliament is putting the call out for wild, fun, and creative ideas for how the Parliamentary grounds could be an even more welcoming place!

With this new activity, we want to know what tamariki would do if they were in charge! Would they add another playground? Or cover the lawn with pink flowers? Or maybe add in more statues of people or things that inspire them!

Bring a vision to life and encourage them to design their own Parliament grounds using either the template on the other side of this sheet or freestyle it completely with their own ideas! Your work will be displayed in Parliament and shared with all who work and visit here – and who knows you may even get a special shout out from the Speaker!

Encourage any tamariki you know to take part – it’s easy!

Just follow this link, and use the template provided or create their own design.  Please send their mahi by Thursday 23 June 2022 to the Education Team at: Education Team, Level 11, TSB Building, 147 Lambton Quay, or by emailing to DesignParliamentGrounds@parliament.govt.nz.

We look forward to seeing what they create!
Posted in Weekly Newsletters.