Wednesday 18th August

 Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all. We hope you are well.

Here we are again! Fortunately, we are familiar with what teaching and learning look like during Level 4, we have systems already set up, and our team has been in communication this morning. Today we are having staff Zoom meetings and getting our online learning programmes ready to go live tomorrow. If you are keen to have your child engaged in learning today - encourage them to do some of the regular online mahi that we engage with on a daily basis. This includes: Epic Reading, Xtra Math, Solve-Me Puzzles, Free Writing Docs, or our Olympic Inquiry Site. Our Learning at Home Site will be live tomorrow and you will receive a notification of this.

Hopefully, we can all make the most of this situation and use it to spend some extra unexpected time with the people in our bubbles. Our wellbeing, as always, takes precedence and our message to you is to do as little or as much as is suitable for your situation. Ahakoa he iti he pounamu - although it is small, it is precious. Noho ora mai, stay well.

Finally, we are using this as a chance to initiate whānau communication through our new management system HERO. Moving forward, Hero will be our primary way of making contact with you. We would like to ask you to please log on to HERO and open this communication there as well. We will call those who haven't been able to connect with HERO later in the week to get everyone on board. 

Pōhutukawa News, Term 3, Week 2

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

We are off and racing! Pōhutukawa has gotten Term 3 off to a fast start. We are into the second leg of 10, going strong and looking good for a podium finish! Yes, well, as you may be able to tell, the Olympics is at the forefront for us at the moment. It has been great to listen to the students chatting amongst themselves about the Games, and seeing them embrace the rich learning experiences that are accompanying the event. Here is an update for you on the term so far.

School Duathlon Next Week

Our school duathlon will be held next Tuesday, August 10th (postponement day for rain will be the following Tuesday on August 17th). This is an optional event and the students have been invited to fill in a Google Form on 2021 Pōhutukawa Google Classroom to register. The duathlon requires each student to have a bicycle in working condition, a helmet, and a lock. Please take a moment to go over the course with your tamariki and decide whether they would be up for this challenge, nau mai te wero!

Code Club

This term we are lucky to have a member of our Pōhutukawa whānau Kate Allen visiting us on Friday afternoons to run Code Club. Kate, alongside Rae, will be teaching students who have elected to be part of this club about coding (extending what the children learn during our programme), robotics, and using circuit boards to make programmes. The interest in this club was so high that there will be 2 groups this term. Our first group had their first session on Friday, and our second group will start from Week 6.

Trading Cards

We have noticed an increase in students bringing trading cards at school - particularly Pokemon Cards. Unfortunately, due to the tendency of these cards to go missing, or trades to be regretted, we have asked all students to not bring trading cards to school. This includes trading cards before and after school. It is much easier for everyone if cards are kept at home. 

Thank you for your support, have a great week, kia pai tō wiki!

The Pōhutukawa Team.

A Golden Moment!

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

We wanted to share with you all a 'golden' moment that we shared with the tamariki today in Pōhutukawa. We are loving the Olympics!

Enjoy your weekend, kia pai tō rā whakatā.

Welcome to Term 3

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

We hope everyone was able to enjoy some extra family time over the holidays. We have another busy term ahead in Pōhutukawa. Here are some of the things we are looking forward to in the coming weeks.

Winter Sport

Winter sport for us at school will continue until Week 4. We love seeing the tamariki out there giving it their all as they represent our kura on Thursdays, or participate in our in-school Wednesday afternoon programme and develop their teamwork and skills. Our main focus is enjoyment and sportsmanship, which we will be reaffirming with everyone. Please take a moment to go through this slideshow about team sports with your tamariki if you have a chance.

 

"Cool Curriculum Classes"

Our "cool curriculum classes" are continuing with some changes again this term. Anna will still be teaching Social Sciences and taking the children through a project in which they create their own culture, incorporating this with our concept of Change as the term progresses. Steve is taking Te Reo Māori, and integrating this with Health through the lense of the Te Whare Tapa Whā wellbeing model. Gayle is teaching Visual Arts, and Rae will cover Digital Technologies and work with the tamariki on coding. There is a lot of learning that will be 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.

Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

We will be spending this term looking at these Olympics as part of our ongoing Inquiry into change. These games will provide us all with rich learning opportunities, as we discuss and explore with the students the major changes that are happening for the 2021 Olympics, including disruptions, challenges and controversies that have come with them. We will also be looking into how the Olympics have changed over the years by comparing and contrasting the Ancient and Modern Olympics. We encourage you to ask your tamariki what they have been learning about the Olympics via our Google Site "2021 Tokyo Olympics", which is available to view on Google Classroom, and engaging in all the aspects around this exciting, and evolving, topic.

Open Night

Coming up on Thursday, August 5th (Week 2) from 7pm to 8pm is our Open Night for the Year 7-8 Kauri hub. Come along and discover the learning adventure that awaits in Year 7 and 8 at Beckenham te Kura o Pūroto!

Access to Free Period Products

 Access to Free Period Products

To be filled out by all parents/caregivers, with their young people who wish to access these products. 

Please use the following link: https://forms.gle/63B6QzmEpPSUckCEA

About the initiative: 

The access to period products initiative aims to provide free period products to children and young people in all state schools and kura across New Zealand during 2021.

Periods are a fact of life for half the population. Despite this, young people don’t always have access to the products they need to feel comfortable at school, engage in their learning, and manage what should be a normal and healthy part of life.

Access to period products is a necessity, not a luxury. The need to access period products exists for every young person who experiences menstruation including young women, girls, transgender, and gender diverse youth, in ways that meet diverse needs and cultural perspectives.

A variety of packs of pads and tampons will be provided. These products are easy to use and appropriate for a broad range of students’ age, developmental, and cultural needs. Enough product will be provided so that students can effectively manage their whole cycle and can take product home.

Pōhutukawa News - Week 7, Term 2, 2021 (Part 2)

Kia ora ano, e te whānau. Here is the second part of the latest news from Pōhutukawa.

Shoes, Ngā Hū

Mud, glorious mud! We certainly have our fair share of it these days. The mud that is making its way into our learning spaces is always a challenge at this time of the year. Because of this, and for the time being, we are asking tamariki to remove their shoes, hū, before entering the Hub and to leave them outside the door, under the eaves. As mentioned before, we have wonderful underfloor heating to keep feet warm, and we will be having an explicit teaching lesson next week on how to pair our shoes neatly outside the door to stop them wandering off by themselves! If you'd like to supply your tamariki with slippers or warm indoor socks, you are most welcome

On the topic of shoes we would like to ask you, if possible, to ensure that your tamariki are wearing running shoes or sneakers on both Wednesday and Thursday. Although we do some form of fitness every day, Wednesday and Thursday is when we run our winter sports programme and suitable footwear is a must. This ensures that students are able to safely carry out the skills that the kaiako, teachers, and the winter sport coaches are teaching them. As always your support with this is greatly appreciated and please let us know if we can support you in any way with this.

BYOD

We are so lucky to have such a huge uptake of whānau signing up their children to bring their own devices to school. We'd like to ask these whānau to please remind your children to bring their devices to school, and fully charged. This enables the school Chromebooks to be used by those students who do not bring their own devices to school.

Ngā mihi, kia pai ō rā whakatā - have a great weekend!

Pōhutukawa News - Week 7, Term 2

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

 House Points

Our focus for this fortnight is our kete value of 'We Make a Difference". The whakatauki, proverb, that accompanies this value is 'Nā mātou he rerekē te ao'. This translates as 'The world is different because of us'. Kaiako, teachers are on the lookout for students showing co-operation , initiative and making a positive difference for one another in the playground, in the classroom, and around the Hub. 

Once more, we encourage you to talk about this value at home over the next week or so, reflecting on how we can all show that 'We Make a Difference' in our daily lives. 

Wonder Project - The Rocket Challenge

Nau mai te wero! As part of our continuing inquiry into 'Change', we have been working alongside some wonderful ambassadors from Engineering NZ (including Pōhutukawa whānau's own John Aramowicz) in undertaking the 'Rocket Challenge'. So far in our STEM journey, students have discussed with our Ambassadors why Health and Safety is a fundamental part of the engineering world, undertaken test flights of bottle rockets, reflected on variables, discussed Newton's first law of motion, and designed and created prototypes of their very own bottle rockets. 

It has been great to see the children developing their skills of collaboration, problem solving, and innovation while creating their bottle rockets. We have suggested that they speak with you at home about their project, and students are welcome (but not expected) to bring in anything that may support the creation of their rockets. Suggestions include glue guns, lightweight plastic, or cereal boxes (for fins), washi tape, etc. Here are some photos of our journey so far, and a video of a first "test flight".

Shoes, Ngā Hū

Mud, glorious mud! We certainly have our fair share of it these days. The mud that is making its way into our learning spaces is always a challenge at this time of the year. Because of this, and for the time being, we are asking tamariki to remove their shoes, hū, before entering the Hub and to leave them outside the door, under the eaves. As mentioned before, we have wonderful underfloor heating to keep feet warm, and we will be having an explicit teaching lesson next week on how to pair our shoes neatly outside the door to stop them wandering off by themselves! If you'd like to supply your tamariki with slippers or warm indoor socks, you are most welcome

On the topic of shoes we would like to ask you, if possible, to ensure that your tamariki are wearing running shoes or sneakers on both Wednesday and Thursday. Although we do some form of fitness every day, Wednesday and Thursday is when we run our winter sports programme and suitable footwear is a must. This ensures that students are able to safely carry out the skills that the kaiako, teachers, and the winter sport coaches are teaching them. As always your support with this is greatly appreciated and please let us know if we can support you in any way with this.

BYOD

We are so lucky to have such a huge uptake of whānau signing up their children to bring their own devices to school. We'd like to ask these whānau to please remind your children to bring their devices to school, and fully charged. This enables the school Chromebooks to be used by those students who do not bring their own devices to school.