Pōhutukawa News Term 1 Week 9 2025

Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all

Camp

On Wednesday next week, we are going to Living Springs Camp. Now is a good time to make sure your child has all the equipment needed for camp. Please check the previous camp notices for a list of what to bring.

On Wednesday morning, please remember to bring the following into the hub:

• a backpack that will be worn during the 1 hour+ walk in which contains their lunch, a drink, a coat and any medication they need for the walk in (e.g., an inhaler).
• a clearly name zip-lock bag/container containing your any other medication your child may have. Please make sure it has clear instructions on how and when to administer it. We will have a lot of medication to give out so please make the instructions really clear and simple to follow. Please hand the medication to your child's teacher on Wednesday morning. 
• a suitcase/large bag containing their clothing and other items that will be delivered directly to the camp.

AI Art

During CCC (Cool Curriculum Classes), the children have been creating some AI-enhanced artwork. Here are some of their creations:

We are all very excited about camp next week. 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 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