Pōhutukawa News - Week 4, Term 2, 2021

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

Another busy week in the books! We finished the week on a bit of a wet and cold note, although it did give the tamariki a chance for an indoor-only Learning Through Play session to wind up our week. These sessions are such a nice way for us to spend each Friday afternoon as the students explore, experiment, discover, and solve problems in imaginative and playful ways. As teachers, we really enjoy guiding the children and encouraging them to display the key competencies in authentic and student-centred ways. 

House Points

This week we've been excited to reintroduce the use of House Points at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto. We will have a fortnightly values focus, and house points are being given out to children who specifically display this value. The points accumulate in teams in a running tally and will culminate in a shield presentation at waiata assembly for the winning house every second Friday. Each morning excitement abounds as the tally is shared in the Daily Notices. Our focus for this fortnight is our kete value of 'We Care'. 

Teachers, kaiako, are on the lookout for our values in action in the playground, in the classroom and around the Hub. Happily, we have already noticed a huge lift in tamariki showing awareness of this important value. We encourage you to talk about this initiative at home over the next week or so, reflecting on how we can all show that 'We Care' in our daily lives. Arohaina te tangata me te taiao, we care for people and our environment.

Winter Sports

Our winter sports programme kicks off next week. Every student has elected to join, and will be involved in either competitive or development hockey, netball or football. We are still looking for parent assistance on Wednesday afternoons from 2pm - 3pm to help support our tamariki in the development groups. No expertise in any of these sports is required. All we would ask is to support the children in running some skills based activities with the support of our teachers. If you think you could help us at this time, please get in touch with your child/ren's home group teacher. Your support would be hugely appreciated.

Information for Competitive Winter Sport players

Competitive winter sport starts next Thursday and will run for ten weeks.

Children who are not in a competitive team will choose from three options back at school. 

Outcome

The desired outcome of our winter sport programme is to provide an opportunity for interested children to play sport. The primary aim is for children to have an enjoyable experience. It is awesome that we have children trying a sport for the first time or joining a team in a sport that isn’t what they would usually play on a Saturday morning. To accommodate for potential variance of ability, adults are instructed to be flexible and make adaptations to the game as necessary. 

Sportsmanship

We set high expectations for our tamariki around sportsmanship. A model we often use is The 3 Rs:

Respect for my team

Respect for the opposition

Respect for the referee and the rules of the game

Game Locations

Most games start at 1:45 and children should be back at school for 3:00. 

Hockey - Beckenham Park (The 7/8 A grade team will play at Sydenham Park on turf) 

Football - Hansens Park 

Netball - a variety of local schools. 

All travelling teams will be walking to their game, (the ⅞ A grade hockey team will travel by car). They will be accompanied by teaching staff and/or parents. A huge thank you to the parents who have volunteered their time for this. 

Covid- 19 Guidelines

All schools will be keeping records of children and adults at each location in case we need to do contact tracing. 

Safety Gear and uniforms

Uniforms will be issued by Anne Chin at the library. Instructions will be given via the daily notices. 

Essential safety gear

Hockey - mouth guard and shin guards are essential

Football - shin guards and football boots.

Netball - short nails and no jewellery.

If your child needs shin guards or football boots, these can be lent out from school if required. Hockey players will also be able to borrow a hockey stick if needed. 

ALL CHILDREN WHO CARRY PERSONAL MEDICATION, SUCH AS AN ASMTHA INHALER MUST CARRY THIS WITH THEM TO THEIR GAME. ANY MEDICATION USUALLY HELD AT THE OFFICE WILL BE COLLECTED BY A TEACHER.

If you have any questions, you can contact myself or the teacher in charge of the sport that your child is playing. 

Football - Jenny and Steve

Hockey - Gayle

Netball - Caitlin and Anna

Pōhutukawa News - Week 2, Term 2, 2021

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

School Cross Country

What a fantastic day we had for our school cross country on Tuesday afternoon. As it turned out, the weather was perfectly planned and it was lovely to see so many whānau come along to tautoko, support the tamariki. It was so pleasing to see the students giving their best and supporting each other to achieve their goals. You, and they, can feel very proud of their efforts. Congratulations to all of our young athletes who have qualified for the Zone cross country. More information about this event will follow

The Wonder Project

This term as part of our continuing inquiry into the concept of  'Change' for 2021, we are taking up the Rocket Challenge as part of the Wonder Project, which is run by Engineering New Zealand. Students will work with their homegroup teacher and a Wonder Project Ambassador to design, build and launch their very own water rocket! We are lucky to have John Aramowicz (Luka's dad) as one of our ambassadors, along with 3 other volunteers, all of whom are STEM professionals. This project teaches students about Newton's laws of motion, the engineering design process, and also promotes creative thinking and teamwork. This project aims to get the tamariki excited about a career in science, technology, engineering and maths. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning! To enable our project to take off, we are asking for your help. Each student is being asked to bring along a clean, washed 1.5 litre plastic bottle with the lid attached from which we can create our bottle rockets. Your help with this is greatly appreciated.

Muddy Months

As we head into winter we are noticing the inevitable increase of muddy shoes and clothes as students come back from play and lunch, having played sports and games on our beloved Park. We have spoken as a hub about the need to show We Care for our school environment by taking off muddy shoes before we enter the Hub and lining them up neatly outside the door. We are lucky to have wonderful underfloor heating in the classrooms, so feet stay nice and warm. In addition to this, we suggest that if your child is coming home with very muddy clothes, please consider supplying them with a spare pair of school shorts and a spare school top for them to change into once they finish their games. We appreciate your support with this.

Upcoming Dates

Wednesday, May 19 - School Photos

Friday, May 21 - Staff Only Day

Tuesday, May 25 - Zone Cross Country at Halswell Quarry

Monday, June 7 - Queen's Birthday (School closed)

Tuesday, June 8 - Staff Only Day

Help Needed for Winter Sport

Winter Sport

Winter sport starts in Week 5 of this term. We would love to be able to provide every child who wants to participate in competitive winter sport a place in a sports team. To make this possible, we are still looking for adults to accompany teams. Ideally, this adult would be comfortable having a go at refereeing a game. This is something we can support you in learning how to do if you are new to it. If you are not comfortable refereeing but would be available to support a team, please do still get in touch. The most important thing we need is for the children to be adequately supervised.  

Unfortunately, at the moment we still do not have enough adults for a competitive winter sport to go ahead, and we are still looking for support to help with football, netball, and hockey.

Please get in touch with Jenny Diggle directly at jenny.diggle@beckenham.school.nz or with your child's homegroup teacher. Mā tātou kātoa te waka e hoe, we are all rowing the waka together!

Cross Country Times

 Kia ora e te whānau,

We have received the timetable for the Cross Country next Tuesday from Jenny, who has given us the approximate times that each race will be starting. The first race will be the Year 8 race from 1:35pm and the races will on a staggered start at 10 minutes from that point.

For us in Pōhutukawa the races are expected to start as follows:

Year 6 - 1:55pm

Year 5 - 2:05pm

Please note that the time is different than that on the Community Calendar. Looking forward to seeing many of you there!

Welcome Back/ Important Dates

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

We hope everyone was able to enjoy some extra family time over the holidays. The tamariki have come back looking rested and revitalised, and we are ready for another fantastic term in Pōhutukawa. 

Wellbeing/Hauora

We have also started the term with some stunning weather -very chilly mornings and very warm afternoons! With some similar weather forecast, our message to the children is around the importance of drinking plenty of water and taking off jackets and polar fleeces in the afternoon as we are noticing a big variance in temperatures through the day.

In saying that, the colder weather is ahead, and with it comes the inevitable surge in coughs and sniffles.  We will be vigilant (particularly at the start of the term) in promoting good hygiene practices. Reminders about regular hand washing, sneezing into elbows and using and discarding tissues are all good discussions we will be having at school and would be great to have reinforced at home, as well. Mā tātou kātoa te waka e hoe, we are all in the waka together.

"Cool Curriculum Classes"

We love alliteration in Pōhutukawa, and our "cool curriculum classes" are continuing with some changes this term. Anna will still be teaching Social Sciences and investigating World Cultures, incorporating this with our concept of Change as the term progresses. Rae is delving into Te Ao Māori with a look at comparing and contrasting Myths and Legends, as well as learning Te Reo Māori. Steve is continuing the Science investigation we started last year with the Urban Eel Project/Te Tuna Tāone and looking at how we can use the findings to make a difference to the health of the Heathcote/Ōpāwaho te awa. Finally, Gayle is covering Digital Technologies and working 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.

Cross Country - Tuesday May 11th

More alliteration, this time our whole school cross country, which is coming up next week. It was so great to see many of the tamariki hit the ground running - literally - and come back to school having done some training over the holidays. We are gearing up for the event by having daily training on the park, which the students are tracking on their cross country training goal sheet. Nau mai te wero, bring on the challenge! We are also encouraging the students to think about some of these goals, depending on their level of confidence, as we lead up to Cross Country next Tuesday:

• I can run until I get too puffed and then 'walk a cone, run a cone' until time is up.
• I can jog for the whole time without stopping.
• I feel more comfortable running 
• I feel great doing regular exercise
• I feel great challenging myself
• I feel great achieving my goals
• I have shown a positive attitude towards cross country training

Winter Sport

Winter sport starts in Week 5 of this term. We would love to be able to provide every child who wants to participate in competitive winter sport a place in a sports team. To make this possible, we are still looking for adults to accompany teams. Ideally, this adult would be comfortable having a go at refereeing a game. This is something we can support you in learning how to do if you are new to it. If you are not comfortable refereeing but would be available to support a team, please do still get in touch. The most important thing we need is for the children to be adequately supervised.  

At the moment we do not have enough adults for competitive winter sport to go ahead this year. 

Currently, we are still looking for:

Netball: 2 x year 5/6 and 2 x year 7/8

Hockey: 2 x year 5/6 and 1 x year 7/8

Football: 1 x year 5/6 and 1 x year 7/8 

Important Dates

Tuesday, May 11 - School Cross Country, 11:45 am 

Friday, May 21 - Staff Only Day

Monday, June 7 - Queen's Birthday (School closed)

Tuesday, June 8 - Staff Only Day