Wednesday 13 December 2017

Pōhutukawa Team Update - Term 4, Week 9, 2017

It's almost the end of Term 4

The children in Pohutukawa hub have had a fabulous term in our new learning space. At some point this week the children will be bringing home their stationery and pencil cases etc.  Please remind your child/ren to have a look at home for any school journals or library books that will need to be returned to school.

Canterbury Athletics competition

Congratulations to Nadia Russell, Nina Callaghan, Jesse Ferguson and Hebe Butland. These talented children from the Pohutukawa hub represented Beckenham School and travelled to Ashburton on Wednesday 6th December, to compete in the Canterbury Athletics competition.  What an amazing effort, performing to such a high level in athletics! Ka pai.

Annual Summer Reading Challenge - Wild About Reading Challenge

The Christchurch City Libraries annual Summertime Reading Club programme is for kids between 0 and 13 years old inclusive. The competition starts on Friday 1 December 2017 and finishes on Friday 19 January 2018 at 5pm.  Try an eBook, read an eMagazine or read to someone – tell us your reading experiences and be in to WIN great prizes.

https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/11/Page-2.pdf

Pick up a challenge sheet from any Christchurch City Libraries or download a copy from the library website: https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/summertime-reading-club/

The emphasis is on encouraging shared family experiences – have fun together as you celebrate the joy of reading!  Children will be asked to get a teacher, librarian, or parent to ‘stamp, sticker, or tick’ the five experiences they have had.

Friday 8 December 2017

Pohutukawa Trip Cancelled

Dear Parents/Caregivers

We have unfortunately had to cancel our trip to Spencer Park due to unforeseen circumstances. Many thanks to the parents that offered to help.

We have instead organised a fun day of activities to be held on Tuesday, 12 December. On this day we will be running a lot of different activities including slip and slides, friendly water fights, crafts and games.

On this day, the children will need to bring:
  • their togs, a towel, a waterproof bag and a water pistol (or a clean water bottle for squirting) for the "water fun" activities.
  • board games, crafts, gaming devices or similar items for the "crafts and games" time.
We may also repeat some of these activities later in the week, depending on the weather. We will let you know if this is the case.

Monday 27 November 2017

Pōhutukawa Team Newsletter - Term 4, Week 6, 2017

Spencer Park Trip

The Pōhutukawa Team is currently arranging an end of year trip to Spencer Park on Wednesday, 13 December 2017.

We need parent helpers who are willing to travel with us to and from Spencer Park and who are happy to be responsible for a small group of children while they are there. Please contact your child’s homeroom teacher if you are interested in attending.

We will depart by bus at 9:00 AM and will return to school by 3:00 PM.

Students (and parent helpers) will need to bring:

  • A water bottle
  • A wide-brim hat
  • Lunch and morning tea (no lunch orders on the day of their trip)
  • A warm layer of clothing
  • Comfortable shoes for walking
  • Any medication they will need (e.g., inhalers for asthma)

A small contribution will be added to your school account to cover the cost of the bus.

Probability Carnival

Recently, the students in Team Pōhutukawa have been learning about probability. As part of this, the students designed and constructed games of chance. We then ran a mini carnival and tested out each other's games. Here are some photos of the carnival:





Twin Day

On Friday, we had a lot of fun dressing up as twins, triplets and quadruplets. Here are some photos of the event:











Wednesday 8 November 2017

South Zone Athletics day (Monday 13th November). Parent help needed.

Kia ora koutou,

The South Zone Athletics day will be held on Monday 13th November, at Hansen Park. 
We have 70 year 5-8 children attending zones this year, which is fantastic.
We will be taking the bus to Hansen Park and Gayle, Jenny and Amy will be accompanying the children on the day.  

We are in need of some parent helpers.  If you are available to help out for all or part of the day, we would love to hear from you.  We will need some parents to take charge of transporting and putting up our gazebo and school flags in the morning.  We would also like to hear from anyone who has a spare gazebo, as we have a lot of children attending zones and want to make sure we can provide enough shade for all of them.

Please email Gayle on gayle.mcnaughton@beckenham.school.nz or Jenny on jenny.diggle@beckenham.school.nz if you are able to help.

If you have any questions about this event, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Ka kite,

Gayle & Jenny


Thursday 2 November 2017

Pohutukawa Update Term 4 Week 3

Kia Ora Whanau

The term is already ramping up with different events happening every week. Here are a few reminders:

Calendar Art

What a great Christmas present to receive! The PTA have extended calendar art orders until tomorrow, Friday 3rd November. The office has clearfiles with the art in hard copy for you to look at and you would have been able to get a sneak preview of these during learning conferences last term. Please get the order forms to the office or teacher asap. 

Disco

The PTA are putting on their annual disco this Friday 3rd November. Disco times are as follows:
  • Years 0-3 @ 5:00 - 6:00pm
  • Years 4-6 @ 6:30 - 7:30pm
  • Years 7&8 @ 8:00 - 9:00pm
Gold coin entry. Bling, food and drink will be available to purchase while we boogie to DJ Don's tunes. Please remember that all children need to be collected by an adult, from the hall at the end of their scheduled disco. 

Beckenham Tea Towels

These have all arrived and they look great! Please pop into the office asap to pick them up if you haven't already.

Probability 

Please keep sending boxes and cardboard in for our learning around probability next week. 

Athletics 

We have been lucky enough to hold all of our athletic events with no postponement dates necessary. We are all so proud of the children for taking part in the events enthusiastically and really appreciate the support with cheering, walking groups down to Hillview and trying to win the adults Vs children relays - there's still next year! 

Gayle and Jenny are currently in the process of sorting out placings for the Zones tournament. The South Zone Athletics day is Monday 13th November at Hansen Park. More information about this will be coming out soon. 

Cycle Safe - Year 6

Thank you for the permission slips coming in promptly. Please get these in by next Tuesday 7th November so we can organise groups and equipment. 

Keeping Ourselves Safe

We are currently working through our Keeping Ourselves Safe unit and have started our lessons with Constable Ross. Thank you for working through the home learning booklet with your child, it is awesome to see how confident they are around this subject after discussions with you. These can be handed in by Week 6, Friday 24th November, when we will be finishing the unit. 

The egg-sitting has been a huge hit with some eggs even looking like they will survive the 4 day challenge. Thank you for your support with this. 

Tuesday 31 October 2017

Year 5-8 Athletics - Distance races are being held tomorrow (Wednesday 1st November)

Kia ora Whanau,

As you will be aware, tomorrow afternoon we will be holding the 1000m and 1200m distance races for year 5-8 students. This is an optional event. Your child will have already expressed their interest in competing in these events.

If your child is involved, please ensure that tomorrow they bring to school tomorrow the following:
  • Comfortable P.E / athletics gear or their house t-shirts if they have one
  • Comfortable running shoes or sneakers (the children may run in bare feet or wear socks that are taped to their feet)
  • Sunhat
  • Waterbottle
  • Sunscreen - It would be a good idea to apply sunscreen before school and we will have sunscreen available to apply throughout the day
  • Warm jacket or jersey (school jacket is great)
We will begin running at 1:15pm with the year 13 students.

Warm regards,
Gayle McNaughton and the Pohutukawa team.



Thursday 26 October 2017

Long jump event tomorrow (Friday 27th October) at Hillview Christian School

Tomorrow, Friday 27th October is our long jump event for years 5-8, to be held at Hillview Christian School.


If your child is competing in long jump (this is an optional event) they are to come to school tomorrow wearing their school uniform, as usual, but with the following in thier school bags:
  • Comfortable P.E / athletics gear or their house t-shirts if they have one.
  • Comfortable running shoes or sneakers.
  • Sunhat.
  • Waterbottle.
  • Sunscreen - It would be a good idea to apply sunscreen before school and we will have sunscreen available to apply throughout the event.
  • Warm jacket or jersey (school jacket is great).
  •  Lunch, more food than usual may be helpfual as the children will be on the go.  

Please do not use the lunch-online service tomorrow.


At 1:15pm all classes will be heading out to the East Hub Inner Courtyard (in front of the office) to listen to instructions for the afternoon. Students will then walk down to Hillview Christian School's Senior Campus (on Gamblins Road) at 1:30pm to begin competing. We will be finished and returned back to Beckenham School by 3:00pm.
Families are welcome to meet us at the Hillview campus to support your children, at 1:45pm.

Warm regards,

Gayle & Jenny.










Wednesday 25 October 2017

Athletics Day tomorrow (Thursday 26th October)

Athletics Day



Tomorrow, Thursday 26th October is our Year 5-8 Athletics Day out in Beckenham Park.

At 9:40am all classes will be heading out to the East Hub Inner Courtyard (in front of the office) to listen to instructions for the day and for a Jump Jam style warm-up. All students will then walk out to Beckenham Park and head to their first rotation, for a start time of 9:55am.

Families are welcome to meet us on the park at 9:55am. We will be finished by 3:00pm. At 3:00pm all children will walk back to their hubs and be released to go from there.
In our earlier communication regarding the start time, we said to meet at 9:30am, this has now changed to 9:55am.

Children are to come to school tomorrow with the following:

  • Comfortable P.E / athletics gear or their house t-shirts if they have one
  • Comfortable running shoes or sneakers (the children may run in bare feet or wear socks that are taped to their feet)
  • Sunhat
  • Waterbottle
  • Sunscreen - It would be a good idea to apply sunscreen before school and we will have sunscreen available to apply throughout the day
  • Warm jacket or jersey (school jacket is great)
  •  Lunch, more food than usual may be helpfual as the children will be on the go all day  
Please do not use the lunch-online service tomorrow, if possible.


Please see below for the run-down of the day and a map of the field.


9 year olds
10 year olds
11 year olds
12 year olds
13 year olds
9:55 - 10:40
Shot Put
High Jump
Sprints
Discus
Shot Put
10:40 - 11:00
Morning Tea
11:00 - 11:45
Sprints
Discus
High Jump
Shot Put
Sprints
11:45 - 12:30
High Jump
Shot Put
Discus
Sprints
High Jump
12:30 - 1:15
Lunch
1:15 - 2:00
Discus
Sprints
Shot Put
High Jump
Discus
2:00 - 2:45
Sprint Finals
2:45 - 3:00
House Relay
Adults Verses Children Relay


The long jump will be held at Hillview Christian School on Friday 27th October. We will be leaving school to walk down to Hillview School at 1:30pm, for a start time of approximately 1:50pm, returning to school for 3:00pm.

The long-distance races will be held at Hillview Christian School on Wednesday 1st November.  

The postponement date for the Athletics day is Monday 30th October.

Warm regards,
Gayle & Jenny.

Thursday 19 October 2017

Pohutukawa Team Newsletter Term 4 Week 1

Kia Ora Parents / Caregivers


We are so excited to be back at Beckenham in our new hub. It is lovely to see you all again and catch up with siblings regularly throughout the day. The children have settled into routines quickly and there is a general buzz of excitement about being home.


In the mornings before the bell, we are opening the middle doors through to the Koru team and the children can spend time together doing activities, chatting or playing if they want to. We will be spending time together throughout the term as ‘buddies’ as well.


There are a few events coming up this term which will be keeping us quite busy. Below is an overview of the main points to note:

Keeping Ourselves Safe


As part of our Keeping Ourselves Safe unit that runs throughout the first 6 weeks of this term, the children are going to become chief babysitters for an egg. Yes, an egg! It will be boiled for safety.


The children will be responsible for their egg for 4 days and will have to take care of it at all times. If the children want to leave their egg, they need to arrange another person to egg-sit.


The children can name their egg and will be creating a room for it. We are requesting that children bring a shoebox to school to create a room for their egg and any other materials they may want to spruce the room up.


The aim of this activity is for children to learn to look after themselves and others - a theme that comes through the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme.


The children will hopefully get an appreciation of all the hard work you do as parents!


A Keeping Ourselves Safe Home Learning Booklet will be going home today with the children. Please spend some time going through this with your child to reinforce the messages they are learning at school.



Maths - Probability



Our focus in Week 3 for Maths this term is Probability. Part of this unit is creating a probability based game. If you have any cardboard or cardboard boxes at home, we would really appreciate using them for this learning.



Athletics Day



Next week, on Thursday 26th October we will have our Years 5-8 Athletics Day out in Beckenham Park. The postponement date is Monday 30th October. We will meet families out on the park to begin at 9:30am and be finished by 3:00pm. The long jump will be held at Hillview Christian School on Friday 27th October. The long-distance races will be held at Hillview Christian School on Wednesday 1st November.  


Children will need to bring a hat, comfortable sports shoes and drink bottle. It would be a good idea to apply sunscreen before school and we will have sunscreen available to apply throughout the day. Children can wear clothing that is appropriate for athletics and their house t-shirts if they have one.

Choir


Next week, on Friday 27th October the Pohutukawa Pitch Perfect Choir will be going to the Christchurch Schools’ Music Festival rehearsal at Horncastle Arena. If children are involved in long jump, they will be met by a teacher at Hillview, after the rehearsal.   



Cycle Safe Programme


In Week 7, from Tuesday 28th November - Friday 1st December our Year 6 children will be involved in the Cycle Safe Programme. A parent information and permission letter will be sent home soon.

Tuesday 19 September 2017

Pohutukawa Team Newsletter Term 3 Week 8

Kia Ora Whanau

We are rapidly nearing the end of a fantastic Term 3 and looking forward to being back at Beckenham School next term.

Ferrymead Trip 

We had two amazing trips to Ferrymead where we did lots of learning about how much change has affected our lives over the past 100 years.
   
When we arrived, we dressed up in the school uniforms children used to wear each day. Even the teachers had to wear fancy frocks! 

We explored some of Ferrymead Park before heading off to our lessons.



  

 




 





We had a lesson in the school room with Miss Black who was very strict about us lining up silently, sitting up in our seats with straight backs, following instructions without talking, reciting our timetables and doing our handwriting perfectly in ink. We also did some housework where we washed clothing on the washboards, used the wringer, made beds, cleaned tables and ironed clothing using an iron heated on the coal fire. Then we went to explore the old printing station where we used the embossing machine, stapled wee booklets and printed our own posters. We also learned a lot about how phones used to work by having a turn at connecting calls between two people, dialing the old rotary dial phones and figuring out how to hold the phones so we could listen and talk at the same time! 

Challenges 

Last term, we put out a survey asking our children about their use and understanding of our values, their learning within the curriculum areas and what they wanted more of at school. From this survey, 'Challenge' time was started earlier this term.

The challenges focussed on exploring our Key Competencies:

  • thinking
  • relating to others
  • understanding language, symbols and text
  • managing self 
  • participating and contributing

Here are some of our challenges:








 


Drama

During this term, our Arts focus has been on learning different techniques to create a performance based on a well-known story. We developed our understanding around role, action, space, expression, and voice then worked collaboratively to create and present a play to show our learning. We needed to work together as a team, listening to each others' ideas respectfully and making decisions fairly.


Here we are, learning about freeze frames and thought tracking by creating a scene in 10 seconds from The 3 Little Pigs. 

Special Achievement 

Maria arrived at Beckenham School from Brazil in May with very little English. This week, she completed her speech in English and Portuguese. She has also been learning Te Reo. The determination and persistence required to achieve this is outstanding. What an amazing achievement! 

Here is Maria's speech in both languages:  

Fast food 

Hello my name is Maria and I’m going to tell you what fast food can do to your health and the many things it can do to your body.

Quickly made, quickly served, quickly eaten. That’s fast food. Perhaps badly made, poorly served, quickly eaten is more appropriate.

But fast food can taste so good. Some people don’t stop to eat fast food and the bad thing in all this is fast food can have a lot of  fat stuff and this is not good for our health.

Fast food can be really good to eat with your friends but can make you sick with diabetes because it is not prepared properly. Some fast foods just throw things in the recipes and cook. It’s so bad for our health because they put bad ingredients in it.

So now I am going to tell you in Portuguese (my original language) what fast food can do for your health. 

Feito rápido servido rápido e comido rápido.esse é o fast food possivelmente não feito muito bem,mau servido,e comido rápido isso é mais apropriado 

Mas fast food pode ter o gosto muito bom.mas algumas pessoas não conseguem parar de comer fast food e a pior coisa nisso e que fast food pode ter muita gordura e isso não é bom  para nossa saúde. 

Fast food pode ser muito bom para comer com os amigos mas pode fazer você ficar doente com diabetes porque nao e feito apropriadamente. Alguns fast food só jogam as coisas na panela e cozinham isso não é bom para nossa saúde porque eles podem ter colocado os ingredientes errados.

Então eu acho que pessoas não podem comer muitos fast food porque pode fazer mal para nossa saúde.

End of term outing 

We are off for a visit to Wharenui Pools and Margaret Mahy Playground on Friday 29th September. We will depart from Beckenham School at Eastern Tce at 8:40am and arrive back at Beckenham School by 3:00pm. Thank you for the wonderful offers of support from our parent helpers. We are looking forward to an exciting day out!