Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto School Newsletter Rāmere (Friday) 26 August, 2022

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

We are excited to see signs of Spring all around us as daffodils, spring blossoms and new shoots on winter dormant plants emerge. COVID, weather, winter illnesses and the need for extra ventilation have contributed to this winter being a particularly testing one.

Update on COVID protocols...

This week we have reviewed our COVID protocols based on the continued reduction of cases of COVID in our community.

We will continue to have both a senior and a junior celebration assembly each fortnight. Whānau are welcome to attend these assemblies again - please wear a mask if you are coming into any building at school.
We continue to ask whānau not to come into hubs during the school day. If you need to speak to a teacher, please either make an appointment or wait to speak to them at the end of the day.
We will continue to wear masks inside at school whilst we have high levels of winter illnesses and other bugs circulating (tummy bugs seem to be quite prevalent at the moment).

Update on internal Gate between Koru New Entrant area and the rest of the school...

We did plan to remove the internal gate once the full fencing was in place. However, at the moment, we have a challenge with the water at the bottom of the slide in the junior playground being a huge attraction for some of the children, particularly in the New Entrant team, and we have not been able to prevent them from going into the water with 'education' alone. Until the water pooling issue is resolved, we have decided to keep that internal gate in place. We do have a contract in place for that drainage work and are just waiting on notification as to when it will begin. We will continue to support children to get through that gate when they need to, and we appreciate that it is really tricky at the moment.

Supporting our young people to navigate Snapchat and other Social Media

We are regularly faced with challenges that arise for our young people as a result of behaviour on social media. We can't stress enough how important it is for caregivers to be fully conversant with what their children are doing on social media. The potential for emotional harm is extremely high when children are not supported to use these platforms in positive ways.

Our Kahui Ako (local group of schools) has organised a free, whānau workshop with Netsafe on Tuesday 25th October at St Martins School.

This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to learn how you can help your child(ren) to be safe online.

Ngā mihi nui

Sandy Hastings

Tumuaki - Principal

Important Dates

Wed 7 Sep - School Photos
Wed 7 Sep - Board Election Day
Mon 19 Sep - Staff Only Day (School Closed)
Thu 22 Sep - BOT Meeting (5.30-7.30pm - te Rūma Kaimahi - Staffroom)
Fri 23 Sep - PTA Disco
Wed 28 Sep - PTA Meeting (7.30-9.30pm in the Green Room)
Fri 30 Sep - Last day of Term 3
Mon 17 Oct - First day of Term 4
Tue 25 Oct - Netsafe Workshop for all whānau - St Martins School, 7pm

Term Dates

Click here to view the 2022 & 2023 term dates.

Citizen of the Week

Eve Hart - Year 8

Eve, you are an excellent example of living our school values every day. You are hardworking and always give everything a go. You are focused during all learning tasks and are so supportive of others. You are a fun, caring person who sees the positive in all situations. Thank you for being such a positive role model in the Kauri hub. Tino pai Eve!

School Notices

Roadworks Update for next week:

We understand that Norwood St is now very busy during school drop-off and pick-up time, partly due to the ongoing road works in other parts of the neighbourhood. This is likely to be the case next week too. Please take extra care travelling down Norwood St and watch for children. If you are dropping children off and they need to cross Norwood St, please assist them to cross safely, so that they are not left to 'pop out' between parked cars.

A reminder that Norwood St and Sandwich Road, along with other streets in the Beckenham Loop, are 40km at all times.

On Sandwich Road, please always remind children to use the school crossing as the only place to cross the road, and please always model this to your children so that they do this when you are not with them.

From SEIPP:

Monday 29/08/22 – Friday 02/09/22

Lane closure of Tennyson Street south lane at the Eastern terrace intersection
Traffic will only be able to flow down this section of Tennyson Street from the Colombo Street direction towards St Martins Road
Lane closure will be in place for 5 days

A request for a parent / whānau member who has welding capabilities...

We would appreciate help in finding someone with welding capacity and capability to help repair this chair for our kura:

Please let the office or Tony know if this sounds like you!

Statements

You should have received an email today with a link to your Financial Statement in your Hero account. If you require any assistance logging into Hero or have any queries regarding your account, please email accounts@beckenham.school.nz

A huge 'thank-you' to all of you who have paid, or are making payments towards your school donations. Whilst not compulsory, we rely on these donations to be able to provide the extras that we would otherwise not be able to do including Aquatic instruction in Kahikatea and Kōwhai (Term 4), Senior Ski Trip, trips off-site and visiting speakers and performers to the school.

Lunch Orders

Sushi Meets Dumplings

Order here for Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday lunch delivery services.

PTA News

Readathon

Thanks, everyone for your awesome support of the Readathon! Lots of good reading got done and we received lots of donations! We will let you know the final tally soon, just waiting for the last wee bits to come in. We loved seeing all the cute outfits last Friday!

We Care

We wanted to remind you that we still have a few pieces of our beautiful 'We Care' product for sale:

PTA Disco - save the date!

Remember to save the date: Friday 23rd September for the annual PTA disco. We are hoping to be able to confirm some details soon!

BOT Update

Voting for Parent Elections is currently open. By now you should have received the link to vote via email or via post. Voting closes Wednesday, September 7th @ 4pm.