Pōhutukawa News Term 1 Week 7 2025

 Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all

As the term races on it's time to catch up on what we've been up to in Pōhutukawa, and also let you know some information about a couple of upcoming events. Please read on!

CCC: "Cool Curriculum Areas" have been running all term and we are string to see some fantastic outcomes from these classes! The students skills in coding and technology are super impressive and it is awesome to see how enthusiastic they are to be heading to these classes, not that we thought they wouldn't be popular! Mindfulness, PE and visual art in full swim and the routines have been flawless. We are really impressed with how well things have been ticking over. Kai pai all! 

Mathematics and Literacy is taking off and the real mahi is beginning to show as well. We encourage your child to show you around our learning sites and all the awesome support activities they have at the fingertips for you to be able to engage in your child's learning. Ask for a tour today! 

Living Springs Camp 2025 planning is well underway, keep an eye out on HERO for the upcoming parent evening. Only three weeks to go! Very exciting! 

STOMP Percussion has been a hit! Literally. There has been some very noisy afternoons in the Pōhutukawa hub, so much we have had to move most lessons outside in order to cope! Students have been very inventive with their instruments and their sounds. The toughest challenge is to try to record them! Multiple sessions have been required but we are slowly getting there and they sound amazing! An update on this will be coming up!

We look forward to yet another great fortnight ahead and hoping for some settled warm weather of course. Thank you for all your support and aroha. 

Warm regards

The Pōhutukawa Teaching Team

Chris, Rae, Gayle, Megan, Nick, Georgie, Stacy and Laura

Pōhutukawa News Term 1 Week 5 2025

Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all.

Week 5 was another busy week in the Pōhutukawa Team, here are some of the highlights!

Groups and Adjustment/Program

After having had two full weeks of our learning rotations, it has been fantastic and all students have picked this up very quickly and settled well. We will face a different problem when the wet weather sets in later in Term 2. We have really appreciated the flexibility of students while implementing these routines. Ka Pai! 

Inquiry Learning

For our inquiry in week 4, we have looked at STEAM. This integrates Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. 

Classes looked at Rube Goldberg for inspiration for one of the tasks. A Rube Goldberg machine, named after American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is a chain reaction–type machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and (impractically) overly complicated way. Usually, these machines consist of a series of simple unrelated devices; the action of each triggers the initiation of the next, eventually resulting in achieving a stated goal.

This involved creating our own machines and tracks to run marbles through. We had a blast, chewing through biscuit boxes and sellotape making some marvelous contraptions. Watching students experiment with these materials was very rewarding and made for some very funny moments! Attached are some photos of some of the groups and their creations.

Other stations involved matchstick towers with Blu-Tac, newspaper bridge building, paper plane designs and popsicle stick catapults. 

Music/STOMP

This week we have been looking into music for our inquiry. This has involved creating our own rhythms by using everyday items, forming a beat and focusing on timing. Your child may ask to bring items to school to assist with this. This unit is based on STOMP. We look forward to sharing the finished product with you very soon! 

Swimming Sports

Our annual school swimming sports is on Wednesday 5th March at the Wharenui Swimming Complex. We Love Challenge at Beckenham, and look forward to a fantastic event and seeing the tamariki literally leap out of their comfort zones with a splash. Nau mai te wero! 

Camp

The first notice went out on HERO this week with information about the Pōhutukawa team camp to Living Springs. Please check HERO for details. A reminder that the medical Google form and if applicable, the parent help Google form are past due. These are needed for our planning. If you have not done this could you please log into HERO and complete this as soon as possible. More information regarding parent help will come out next week. 

Have a great weekend everybody, kia pai ngā rā whakatā!

The Pōhutukawa Team

Chris, Gayle, Nick, Megan, Rae, Georgie and Laura.

Pōhutukawa Team Update Term 1 Week 3

Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all

We've now spent a very busy and productive 2 weeks in Pōhutukawa establishing routines and building relationships. We've all been impressed with how quickly the Year 5 students have adapted to new ways of doing things, and we love when the Year 6 students show support and aroha to their peers. Arohaina te tangata me te taiao, We Care. Thank you for reading on for some very important updates about what we have been up to in Pōhutukawa, and what is coming up.

Swimming Sports Wednesday, March 5

Beckenham te Kura o Pūroto Swimming Sports is being held at Wharenui Pool on Wednesday 5th of March.

This is an optional event open to children in Years 5 to 8. Races are held for freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly. For each stroke, there will be a 25m and 50m event. You may enter races in all strokes but may only enter one distance in each stroke. For example, you could enter 25m backstroke and 50m breaststroke but you can not enter 25m and 50m backstroke. Only competitors from the 50m events are eligible to be considered for Zones. You will race against your year group. Please click here to enter.

To take part, you must be a confident and competent swimmer for the stroke and distance you have entered. If you are unsure of your ability, please ask a teacher for advice. Parents and/or your swimming coach, (if you have one) are also great people to ask for advice.

Workshops

All the teachers have now had the chance to teach every student in our team through a series of workshops. Our beginning of the year 'Workshops/ Papamahi' covered Using Google Classroom, Active Listening, UDL (Universal Design for Learning), and Lunchtime Games and Activities. It would be great to discuss with your tamariki about these workshops, and what they have learned. It was a lot of information, so asking them to share what they remember is a good way to consolidate their learning. These Workshops aim to introduce important aspects of life in Pōhutukawa, which we will continue with next week with Cyber Safety, PB4L, Health and Wellbeing, and Diversity.

Learning at Home and Google Classroom

All of the students have now signed up for the Pōhutukawa 2025 Google Classroom and their Home Group Google Classroom. Students can also access the Pōhutukawa Learning Site via their Google Classroom. The site serves as an online hub of resources should you wish for your tamariki to continue doing some school work at home. We will continue to add material and build the students' knowledge around using Google Classroom and Google Sites in the coming weeks. As always, we encourage you to actively participate in this area of your tamariki's learning. Ask them to show you what is available to them online and what they can see and do. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning.

CCC

You may have heard your child talking about our CCC "cool curriculum classes". This is how we start our day; they are a great way to ensure we are teaching all areas of our curriculum. We are planning to start the programme next week. Megan is teaching Midfulness, Rae is covering Digital Technology with Coding. Chris is teaching Visual Arts via visual Mihimihi and Pepehas, while Gayle is teaching PE and Games, Nick is teaching Digital Technology . There is such a lot of learning happening over the term in CCC, so we encourage you to keep chatting about what we are covering in these courses with your tamariki. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning.
Staying Safe Online

As our tamariki spend more time online, it’s important parents and whānau help them stay safe. Now is a great time to talk to them about how we use the internet and digital technology.

Cyber Safety

Netsafe has created an Online Safety Parent Toolkit so parents, families and whānau have all the information they need to talk about online safety.

If you or anyone in your whānau needs support, you can contact Netsafe.

Have a great weekend everybody, kia pai ngā rā whakatā!

The Pōhutukawa Team

Chris, Nick, Rae, Megan and Gayle

Pōhutukawa Update, Term 4, Week 6

 Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all,

We hope you all enjoyed the long weekend, and with Show Day now behind us it means we are well past the halfway mark of the term, and find ourselves with less than 4 school weeks left in the year! You will have received your tamariki's end-of-year school report, and we hope you have had the opportunity to sit down and read through this together with them. As you will know, the General Comment from their homegroup teacher is written directly to your child and is a summation of the highlights and the successes of their year with us. It's also a wonderful opportunity to read and reflect on 2024 as well as look ahead to next year, be they staying in Pōhutukawa or moving on, and start to think about and discuss together some goals and aspirations they may have for 2025.

With all of that being said, it's very important to note that we are not yet at the end of the year and our message to the students continues to be that we have a lot of fantastic things to look forward to yet! You can read about them below, as well as some other important information. Thank you for your continued support, and good luck to all of our athletes competing at the Canterbury Athletics on Wednesday. Nau mai te wero, bring on the challenge!

Transition Visits

As busy as it is at the end of the year, we are also preparing our students for next year with 'Transition Visits'. Next week we will be giving the 2025 Year 6's a chance to be with our incoming 2025 Year 5's as a cohort and have a Learning Through Play session together. As well as this, our outgoing Year 6's will be spending 2 mornings in the Kauri team to learn about their programme and will spend a morning with next year's Year 8 students. These visits are a valuable chance for the tamariki to reconnect with some of their friends, and ask some questions they may have about 2025. We encourage you to talk with your tamariki about these visits and start the conversations about 2025 if you feel they're ready. Any momentum we can build now to set everyone up for a successful start to next year is gold. Mā tātou katoa te waka e hoe, we are all rowing the waka together.

Navigating the Journey

Our Navigating the Journey programme continues to roll along, we are into Growing and Changing - Te tipu me te huri o te tangata now, and our key concepts are again attached. Thanks as always for your continued support in continuing the discussions we have at school at home, too.

Cycle Safe Programme (Year 6 only)
During weeks 8 and 9 (December 2 - 10) our Year 6 students will be involved in the Cycle Safe Programme provided by the Christchurch City Council. Cycle Safe is a cycle skills education programme for schools. Students learn the benefits of cycling and how to ride with confidence and be road-wise. All Year 6 students will participate in this course and the instructors cater to all cycling abilities. Your child should have brought home a permission slip for you to sign and return to school.

Next week we will be sending some more information home about which days your child will be participating.

You can find out more information about the programme here https://ccc.govt.nz/transport/getting-around/getting-to-school/resources-for-schools/cyclesafe/ If you have any questions about the programme, please get in touch with your homegroup teacher.

Pioneer Basketball Opportunities

Pioneer Basketball have 2 Upcoming 3x3 Tournaments and a Girls Overnight Program.

 

Pacers 3x3 Girls Year 5-8 Tournament

- 6th December 4pm - 6:30pm

- Individual entries

- @ Pioneer Stadium

 

Pacers 3x3 Boys Year 5/6 Tournament

- 13th December 4pm - 8pm

- Individual entries

- @ Hillmorton High (New Gym)

 

TCP Girls Sleepover (WEBSITE LINK)

- 21st-22nd January 12pm-12pm

- Individual entries

- @ Cracroft Girl Guide Center

 

Any questions or for further information please email Ollie Wilkinson at ollie@pioneer.nz.basketball

 

Ngā mihi o ngā rā whakatā, enjoy your weekend everyone,

 

The Pōhutukawa team

Pōhutukawa Update, Term 4, Week 4

 

Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all,

Another whirlwind couple of weeks has flown by, with lots of things happening in the team to keep everyone busy! A hearty congratulations to all of the 41 students who competed at the Zone Athletics on Monday. It was a fantastic day out, and there were some terrific results! Keep an eye on the newsletter next week for the rundown. Tau ke, awesome work! Back at kura, we have a large focus this term on the Health area of the New Zealand Curriculum, which started this week with a visit from Helly and the famous giraffe Harold. Please read on for a summary of what the tamariki learned about in these lessons, a couple of other highlights of the past two weeks, and a look ahead to what else is to come as we head into the second half of Term 4.

Life Education

You have probably noticed the Life Education trailer parked in the car park over the past couple of weeks.  Life Education Trust is a charity that educates and empowers children to make healthy choices so they can live full and healthy lives. 

The tamariki enjoyed 2 sessions with Helly and Harold and focused on 2 key concepts relevant to their age and stage. The first lesson’s key question was:  How do we know how others are feeling? The key concepts discussed were: 

- Conflict Resolution- Friendships- Decision Making- Emotional Safety- Peer Pressure- Peer Pressure- Feelings and Emotions- Emotional Changes and Grow

Our second lesson focused on the key question: What is peer pressure and how can we deal with it?  Peer pressure has both physical and emotional effects. Students explored what those are, related them to different real-life situations, and formulated strategies to deal with them.

The lessons provided valuable learning about these topics for the tamariki. Thank you for continuing these discussions at home, too.

Navigating the Journey

Continuing with our focus on health and wellbeing this term, we will be participating in the Navigating the Journey programme over the next 3 weeks. The Navigating the journey Te takahi i te ara resources use the metaphor of navigation to describe a person’s lifetime journey of  physical, social, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of hauora (wellbeing). 

Navigating the Journey is a comprehensive age-appropriate programme about relationships and sexuality developed by Family planning for delivery in primary and secondary schools. This programme is aligned with the Ministry of Education’s guidelines for relationship education and sexuality education. This programme is also aligned with the health and physical education learning area of The New Zealand Curriculum. 

The key concepts that will be covered for 2024 can be found on Hero. If you wish to find out more detail about any specific lessons please get in touch with your home group teacher.

William Stedman

We had the honour of hosting NZ Paralympic Athlete #208 William Stedman at kura today. William joined us to speak with the tamariki about his experiences at the recent Paris Olympics and about what it took to get there. The students were captivated by William's journey as a para-athlete. We got to hold his medal (surprisingly heavy!) and he then joined us for a game of Crossover. An awesome visit.

William has Cerebral Palsy, and  was the youngest member of the Para athletics team to compete at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games at only 16 years of age. He has always loved sport and clearly remembers watching the London 2012 Paralympics. This is where his dream started. William was so inspired by watching the Paralympics he decided he was going to become a Para athlete.

William is the embodiment of our kete value 'We Love Challenge'. It was exciting and  inspiring for the tamariki to get to meet a real-life Olympian.

String Ensemble

Yesterday we were treated to some fantastic music from the string ensemble as they performed for us at school. It was heartwarming to see the pride that the tamariki showed in performing for their peers and for us all to have a chance to hear the fruits of their labour from the past year of music lessons. Also amazing to see so many whānau there supporting, and also taking part as learners themselves. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning. Ka rawe, awesome job!

Pōhutukawa Update, Term 4, Week 8

 

Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all,

As this is the last team newsletter of the year, we'd like to take the opportunity to say a big thank you, nga mihi nui, for your tautoko, support throughout 2024. Mā tātou kātoa te waka e hoe, we all row the waka together. We've all really enjoyed the year, and as always it's such a pleasure seeing our students develop self-awareness as learners, and grow in confidence, independence and maturity. We wish our Year 6 students all the best as they head into their intermediate years, and we are looking forward to seeing our Year 5 cohort flourishing in their role as tuakana in Pōhutukawa next year. Although we're not quite there yet, we wish you all a wonderful summer break. The final school newsletter for the year will be sent out next week with information regarding the final few days of school. Please do read on for some updates from the team, and information about an upcoming celebration next Friday here at kura for the Pōhutukawa students.

Navigating the Journey

This week we concluded our Navigating the Journey lessons. We concluded with our last theme of Staying Safe. Students learned about and discussed factors that influence personal safety online, and we identified together skills to ensure safe online use and strategies, and how to respond positively to challenging situations. The Navigating the journey Te takahi i te ara resources use the metaphor of navigation to describe a person’s lifetime journey of  physical, social, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of hauora (wellbeing). Thank you for your support with this by discussing this with your tamariki at home.

Cycle Safe

It has been great to have such miharo, awesome weather over the past week for our Year 6 tamariki to get out there on their bikes and embrace the challenge with the Cycle Safe team from the CCC. It's always such a beneficial programme for our Year 6's to do to learn the benefits of cycling and how to ride with confidence and be road-wise. the programme will continue next week and conclude on Tuesday.

End-of-Year Celebration Picnic

The students have been planning in groups of 2, 3 or 4 what they would like to bring to our picnic next Friday. We have asked them to ensure the people in their group agree on what to bring, and thank you for double-checking at home, too. Even though there have been ambitious plans of fruit platters, and cheeseboards, simple is best, so thanks for your support in ensuring that students bring something small to share with their "picnic group", or enjoy themselves.

It is a normal school day, and we have our Final Celebration Assembly in the morning, so please ensure that your child is wearing their school uniform as normal. Thank you checking that tamariki are not bringing lollies, chocolates, or any drinks except water. We will be supplying them with an ice-block as a thirst quencher.

Finally, our picnic time will be from 10:50 am until 12:40 pm, and we will have a normal lunchtime break in the afternoon. If you think your child will need some extra food, please send them with a lunchbox as normal.

Library Books and Sports Uniforms

As we head towards the end of the year on December 17th, it's a good time to remind your tamariki to return any library books they still have issued, or sports uniforms that are sitting at home and need to be returned. The Lost Property on the library deck is where unnamed property ends up, and this is also a place to check as it will be taken to ther Salvation Army at the end of the year

Pōhutukawa Update, Term 4, Week 2

 Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all, what a busy start to Term 4 we've had! It’s been great to make the most of this warm spell of weather to be able to be outside on the Park these past 2 weeks preparing for our school Athletics Day yesterday. We also had a lot of keen students competing at the Huxster MTB relay on Wednesday, and the Choir has been preparing for their big night tonight at the Christchurch Music festival. Special shout out to Megan for supporting them at dress rehearsal today and at their performance at the Christchurch Town Hall tonight. Have fun and sing your hearts out!

Athletics Day

The tamariki embraced the challenges and ran, jumped, threw, and supported each other through a very successful day. It all of our students itwas not only a great way to show out kete value 'We Love Challenge', but also a chance for our students to connect and show support to our junior school... and of course for some it was a much anticipated chance to showcase their amazing athletic abilities! Well done to all students for making these really successful day, and congratulations to those who have qualified for the Zones.

The South Zone Athletics day will be held at Hansen Park on Tuesday November 4th. As students can only compete in 3 events, we will help those who have qualified for more than 3 events, to make the decision about which events to compete in. This sometimes opens up other spots for more students to compete. Thank you for your patience as we work through this decision making process with the budding athletes. We will be sending out more information about the South Zone Athletics Competition next week after these conversations.

Long Jump Next Tuesday - Parent Help Required

On Tuesday afternoon we will be walking to Hillview Christian School with the Pōhutukawa students who have opted to do competitive long jump. We have 40 students, and require some parent help to ensure a successful trip. We aim to leave school just after 1:20 pm, walk to Hillview Christian School, do the long jump, and return by 3 pm. If you can assist, please email your child's Homegroup teacher. We thank you in advance for your support.

Huxster MTB Relay

Hearty congratulations to the amazing contingent of Year 5-6 students who competed at the Huxster Mountain Bike Relay on Wednesday.  

The Huxster Mountain Bike event is a time trial through various tracks at McLeans Island. The objective is to complete as many laps in a given time around a circuit. Our students competed in pairs

Well done to all the competitors for taking on the wero, challenge and giving it their all. Huge congratulations go out to Zach G and Ben S for finishing in 1st place, and Izzy C and Laura S for placing 2nd in their categories. Amazing!

Thank you to Melissa Hurst for the photo of the kids in front of our flash new gazebo!

Full results are here:  HUXSTER24

CCC and Life Education Visit

Our CCC classes are continuing and this term we are covering digital technology (coding), learning languages (NZSL), biology (human anatomy), and physical education (Ki o Rahi). Lots of great learning to be had, as well as plenty of learning conversations to be had at home.  Life Education Trust is a charity that educates and empowers children to make healthy choices so they can live full and healthy lives. The key questions we will be covering with them and the students are How do we know how others are feeling? and What is peer pressure and how can we deal with it? Lots of great learning to be had, as well as plenty of learning conversations to be had at home, too.

AVAILLL

This term we are running the AVAILLL literacy programme, which entails students "reading" selected films with the subtitle feature turned on. While the students read/watch the films they engage in activities to develop vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and spelling. The emphasis is on understanding how words are constructed and the activities reflect this. The aim of the programme is to develop vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and spelling. 

Have a great weekend, everybody. Kia pai ngā rā whakatā

The Pōhutukawa Team