Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto School Newsletter, Rāmere, (Friday) 29 July

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

Welcome back to Term 3!

It was certainly a more challenging start than hoped for, with Sandwich Road being closed on Monday, and then the significant rain that once again fell and made the everyday actions of getting to school and going about daily life much more tricky! However, we made it through with lots of smiles and joy at seeing nearly everyone back to school again!

We held two Welcome Assemblies on Friday. In keeping with our current indoor gathering setting of maintaining smaller numbers in the hall, we held a Year 5-8 Assembly and then repeated the welcome for the NE-Year 4 students, with the flag parade, Te Whānau performance and Blake and Liv from Year 7 capably leading both assemblies. Along with the 6 New Entrants and a Year 3 student who started on Monda6y, we also welcomed another 6 New Entrants who started during the last term, along with a Year 1, a Year 2 and a Year 6 student. Along with New Zealand and Māori heritage, these students have cultural links back to China, Pakistan, the UK, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Nepal, India, and Syria. The rich diversity of our community continues to be grown and we welcome all of these new students and their families to our school community. This new intake of students takes our roll to 496.

We are also pleased to welcome two final year Speech Therapy Students from the University of Canterbury to our school for their final practicum placements this term. Lilly and Sarah will be working with many of our Kahikatea learners over the course of the term, in varying capacities. 

ShowQuest - 3rd in New Zealand!

Further to the exciting news last term that our Year 7/8 ShowQuest team had won the Regional Finals, we have just found out today that they placed 3rd in the National Finals! This is an outstanding achievement! We acknowledge the dedication and passion that each of these students brought to putting this performance together. Special thanks to Jenny and the team of whānau who supported them.
To watch our amazing students performance, click on this link and watch the 2022 National Finals. The Beckenham performance starts at 1:25:10


COVID Update
As we are all well aware, COVID continues to impact our community and our wider health system, Winter illnesses and influenza are also taking their toll. Public health advice urges all of those who are able to, to get our COVID boosters. Both adults and children are able to get flu shots, and keeping up-to-date with all your children's regular childhood vaccines, including Measles, continues to be very important.
At this stage, based on the information we have received from you, it appears that 48% of our students and 64% of our staff have now had COVID. Please continue to let us know if your child(ren) has tested positive for COVID.

Rain... gumboots... slippers... umbrellas... coats...

We are certainly experiencing plenty of winter weather at the moment! We encourage children to wear gumboots to school on wet days, and bring a pair of slippers in their bag for inside. Umbrellas and coats are also very helpful in wet weather! Please ensure all items are clearly named so that we can help them make it home again!

The Commonwealth Games: 28th July - 8th August

Many of our tamariki have shown a lot of interest in the Commonwealth Games that are currently being held in Birmingham. We encourage you to engage with the games with your child and you can follow the NZ team through this link: https://www.olympic.org.nz/


Board of Trustees - Nominations close this coming Wednesday

It is not too late to put your nomination in to stand as a Trustee on our Board. See the information further below for details.
Our school needs to always have a board that is diverse and has a strong focus on inclusion, well-being and success for all of our tamariki. What that means is - we need you!

Ngā mihi nui
Sandy Hastings
Tumuaki - Principal

Important Dates

Wed 3 Aug - Board Nominations Close
Fri 12 Aug- Staff Only Day (School Closed)
Thu 18 Aug - BOT Meeting (5.30-7.30pm in te Rūma Kaimahi)
Fri 19 Aug - Book Character Day (dress up)
Wed 24 Aug
PTA Meeting (7.30-9.30pm in the Green Room)
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 in te Rūma Kaimahi - Staffroom)
Fri 23 Sep - PTA Disco (TBC)
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

Term Dates

Citizen of the Week

Liam Ottley - Year 8

Liam, you are an exceptionally personable, positive, and hardworking member of the Kauri team. You bring joy to others with your fun-loving and caring nature; we love the interesting facts, riddles, and jokes that you share with us. You show a love of learning through your curiosity, and complexity of thought. Always quick to lend a hand and show consideration towards others, you make a positive difference every day. Thank you for all that you bring to our Kauri whānau. 

School Notices

School Board of Trustee Election 2022 - 3 Parent Representatives

Our kura is undertaking a parent election for our School Board, and we need nominations to fill the 3 Parent Representative seats available.

By now you will have received your nomination papers by email, or post, if you are on the Parent Roll.
Nomination papers are also available at the school office. The school will send these
on to CES for processing upon receipt from candidates.

Alternatively, if you are interested please complete the online nomination form on our election website: beckenham.boardelections.nz

The Board of Trustees is responsible for governing the school and setting its direction, including curriculum, staff, property, health and safety, finance and administration. The board makes decisions that the principal and teachers then put in place.

More information about our Board is available on our website, linked here.

Nominations close this Wednesday 3rd August at 12 noon - don't miss out!

We look forward to your participation in this process. If you are considering applying yourself, and have any questions, please feel free to email our Board Secretary, Reihana, at pa@beckenham.school.nz with any queries you may have!

Term 2 Reports - Will be turned off on Monday on HERO

From 9am on Monday morning, the ability to view Reports on HERO will be turned off. This allows our teachers to continue updating information about student achievement for the next term and a half. Reports will be turned on again in November when the end of year reports will have been added. If you should need a copy of your child's report in the interim, please contact the office and a pdf of the report can be downloaded and sent to you.

Y7/8 Open Night - Tuesday 16 August 7-8pm

Congratulations to...

Hamish Zinzan, who competed in the orienteering Schools South Island Year 7/8 Championship grade and placed 3rd in the Sprint and 3rd in the Long! Ka rawe, Hamish! Excellent!

Lunch Orders 

Sushi Meets Dumplings

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

Lunch Online

Lunchonline is a lunch delivery service that our families are able to access for their children, which is available on Wednesdays (Subway) and Fridays (Sushi Factory). Please ensure that you update your child's details on their database so lunches can be matched up with your child more easily when they are delivered.

To access this, you will need to set up an account with LunchOnline here.

Food Allergy Guidelines

Across our kura, we have a number of children with different food allergies.

To support the wellbeing of these students we have the following guidelines in place which we ask you to follow:
  • Students with severe food allergies should only eat lunches and snacks that have been provided by their caregivers.  Bottles, other drinks, and lunch boxes  provided by caregivers , should be clearly labelled with the name of their child.  Home group teachers and caregivers will decide where the children’s bottles and lunch boxes will be kept during the day to ensure no cross contamination occurs.

  • Parents are asked not to bring food into school to be shared with other children.  Whilst we understand that there are times you want to celebrate special events for your children with their friends at school, e.g. birthdays or being awarded prizes, by bringing food and treats for them to share, we have a policy of children only eating the food that their whānau have prepared and sent with them.  We have a number of students with food allergies and also need to respect the wishes of some families who want to monitor what their children are eating and prefer their children just to eat food they have prepared. From time to time, there may be an event that teachers have organised that will involve food (cultural or learning activities) and they will have advised families in advance that this will be happening.  

  • At the beginning of each year caregivers will check the expiry dates on any medication to be held at school.  
  • On the first day of school, caregivers will bring their child’s medication to the school office where it will be stored in the Hauora Room.  Caregivers will sign a medicine authority form (School Docs Username: beckenham Password: pride).  The responsibility of monitoring the expiry dates of medications rests with the parent.
  • Caregivers may be asked to come and talk to staff about their child and ways we can support them at school.
  • Bottles, other drinks, and lunch boxes provided by caregivers, should be clearly labelled by the caregiver, with the name of the child.
  • We will inform you during the year if specific guidelines for your child’s hub change.  
Our full allergy policy and guidelines  are available on the Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto website under “Information - Policies - SchoolDocs” then search ‘allergy’. (linked here)

If you have any questions or concerns, please discuss them in the first instance with your child’s point of contact teacher.

Scholastic Lucky Book Club

Issue 5 is out now - along with a great free book offer! 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 here via the link below.

https://www.scholastic.co.nz/parents/lucky-book-club/

Visit scholastic.co.nz/LOOP OR download the "BookClubs - LOOP" app to order.

PTA News


Exciting news! It's Readathon time again! This will be our main fundraiser for the year, so please support us if you can. 
The cards will come home in the children's bags today and the reading starts Monday! Please feel free to gather sponsors from family and friends but children are not expected to door knock.
The children have two weeks to read as much as they can, then we will collect their cards and any money they have raised 15-19 August. Everyone who returns their card (with or without sponsors) will get a bookmark and go in the draw for a book token. 

On the last Friday (19th August) will be the annual Book Character Dress-up Day, so get your thinking caps on!

We also wanted to take this chance to say thank you so very much for the support for our hangi and celebrating Marariki with us. We raised $800 but mostly for us it was great to be able to start something that will hopefully become part of our annual traditions. 

And finally thanks to all the utter peanut butter butterers who helped us make $1148 profit on our Fix and Fogg fundraiser that we can donate back to support the school!

Follow us on Facebook or email us at pta@beckenham.school.nz to keep up to date.

BOSCO 

Book in at BOSCO for the upcoming Staff Only Day

We will have a Space themed day at BOSCO! A day filled with SPACE activities: word searches, making rockets on a string, and finger puppet aliens!

Contact Juanita at office@bosco.org.nz if you want to make a booking for Friday, 12th August.

Community Notices

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

BMX - Have a go day

Boost Your Learning

Does your child require further support, over and above what can be offered at school? 
Would your child benefit from bespoke and nurturing learning sessions from a highly experienced teacher designed to accelerate learning and boost confidence? We would love to help. We are a team of dedicated teachers, specialising in English and Maths support, for primary, intermediate, and college students. Visit www.boostyourlearning.co.nz for more information or contact Jenny 021 223 3349 to book a free consultation. 

Wellbeing Bingo 

Wellbeing Bingo is a fun activation developed by the Active Canterbury Network to encourage Cantabrians to re-establish and develop new activity habits. Starts Monday 1 August 2022 and runs for 5 weeks, until Sunday 4 September 2022. Cards are available from various locations across Christchurch, Selwyn and Waimakariri with a full list of locations on the Active Canterbury website, cards can also be downloaded from the site.
Giveaway prizes include gym vouchers, free classes, pool passes, outdoor experiences, sports gear and more!

There will be 5 weekly prize draws, and a final prize draw.

All Right?

Winter's longer nights and shorter, colder days can be a challenge but there are things we can all do to take extra special care of ourselves:
  • Take a wintry stroll – being out and about in nature is great for your mental health. Why not rug up warm, go for a walk, and take some time to admire something beautiful on the way.

  • Head indoors (with friends) – winter is the perfect time to have some friends over to share some baking, have a potluck tea, or play a game of cards. Catching up with mates is one of the best things you do for your mental health.

  • Have a good boogie -  In a 2013 study, researchers showed that listening to upbeat or cheery music significantly improved participant’s mood. 

  • Keep discovering -  Whether it’s finding a new favourite author, learning a new instrument, or mastering your te reo, learning something new stimulates your mind.

  • Share some kindness - Even the little things we do can make a big difference to someone’s day. Doing something nice for a friend, or a stranger, doesn’t just benefit them - being kind produces serotonin and oxytocin, two ‘feel good’ chemicals that help you feel happier, calmer, and more energetic.
Posted in Weekly Newsletters.