Pōhutukawa Camp Term 4 2020

Kia ora whānau,

Great news! Planning is underway for our Pōhutukawa Camp at Living Springs. The camp will run for three days and two nights from Wednesday the 25th to Friday the 27th of November, which is in week 7 of Term 4.

The cost of camp is likely to be no more than $180 per child. You can start making contributions for this as soon as you are able to, by setting up a small automatic payment. If you set that up this week, $9.50 per week would ensure that your contribution towards camp was fully paid by the time camp happens. To set up an automatic payment, please copy the school’s bank account number:

12-3148-0131641-00 into your internet banking and use your child’s name and 'Y5/6Camp' as the reference.

We will be needing some parent helpers for the camp, and will be putting out the call for parents who may be interested and available early next term. Next term you will receive more information about the camp, as we firm up the camp programme of activities.

We hope you have a restful and fun filled holiday break.

Pōhutukawa News Term 2 Week 12

Kia ora whānau,

What a busy term we have had! 

Winter Sport
We've been very unlucky with the weather this term for winter sport. Thanks to all of you who put your names forward to help with winter sport development and competitive teams. We are continuing next term on Thursdays - if you are unavailable to help next term please let us know, otherwise we look forward to working alongside you again in term three. 

Learning Conferences
Thanks so much for booking in for the learning conferences. We are looking forward to supporting all our learners to share their learning with you.  The weeks since returning to school after the Rāhui have flown by. Below is some information on what we have been up to.

In recent weeks, our focus  at writing time has been on identifying, understanding the grammatical structure of and creating simple, compound and complex sentences. The children have been  self assessing their writing skills in this context and will share more with you about this at the learning conferences this week.

A large amount of time and focus has been directed at the area of place value in mathematics. Place value is an area of the mathematics curriculum that will be covered every academic year through primary and secondary school, with a view to building upon previous knowledge. An understanding of place value forms the basis of many areas of mathematical understanding. Initially the focus might be on place value columns and reading numbers accurately, then it develops to being able to quickly identify the number of tens, hundreds, thousands and so on in numbers, in conjunction with using place value knowledge and understanding to manipulate numbers in addition and subtraction calculations, for example.

Another area of focus in mathematics this term has been tracking both reasoning and recall ability in relation to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. The children have done a great job of assessing their abilities in this area, and setting some goals for future focus. They will be sharing this with you at their learning conferences, and we will have some work that you can continue at home to support our learners in achieving these goals. Rob has created a brief video below to help you to understand the tracker system that we are using. The children are experts at this, so they will also be able to help!

At reading time we have been working on a variety of activities in order to support our learners to accurately decode what they are reading, comprehend the author's meaning, and analyse the text to develop their understanding. The children are becoming more confident in discussing what they have read with others too.

Term 3

Our focus for term 3 and beyond is to support the children to become more "assessment capable" as learners.  This involves unpacking assessments of their learning in reading, writing and mathematics to look at strengths and next steps, and supporting each learner to develop confidence in assessing themselves against goals that they have agreed upon with their teacher. This will ensure that each child is being extended, whatever their level.

Hand washing

We are in the season for colds and flu at the moment, and we have had many children away sick recently. We continue to encourage the children to wash their hands before they eat, and hand sanitiser is available at school for those who wish to use it.  We are aware of the environmental impact of very regular had washing - if you would like to send your child to school with their own personal hand towel in their bag for use at hand washing time, we will support them to use it.

We hope you have a fun filled and restful holiday, and look forward to seeing everyone relaxed and refreshed next term.

Pōhutukawa Sport HELP WANTED!

Kia ora whānau,

WE NEED YOU! We are on the look out for some parent helpers to help with the development squads for football, hockey, netball. There would be NO REQUIREMENT TO REFEREE! We really just need extra adults to help encourage and run fitness drills and general ball skills so that the children get the support and attention that they need to improve.  This would be for the next three weeks from 1.45 pm to 2.45 pm every Thursday.  If you can help, please email anne.batchelor@beckenham.school.nz.  

We appreciate your support!

Pōhutukawa Sport in 2020

Sport in 2020

We are currently working with schools in our zone, Sport Canterbury and other local sporting bodies to plan for what competitive sporting options might look like this year. All planning for sports will follow the guidelines as set out by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. Given the current climate, we may need to adapt and change plans, (possibly last minute), as new guidelines and instructions are released by the government. We will endeavour to keep you up to date.

Winter SportAll children will be involved in winter sport. This week the children have been asked to fill in a survey asking their preference of sports and asking them to choose between development or competitive.

The sports that the children were asked to choose between were netball, hockey, football, rugby, badminton (development only) and table tennis (this is also looking like it would be for development only due to low take-up from other schools).

You may like to talk with your child about the options that they selected. If they feel like they made a mistake on the form, please email Anne.

Development teams have a focus on developing technical skill within a low-pressure and non-competitive environment. Games will be against their peers and have a focus on fun.

Competitive teams have a focus on developing technical skill and a focus on preparation for competition. Government guidelines permitting, they will compete against other schools in our zone.

Competitive Winter Sport

We are currently planning a zone-based winter sport option for 2020. This replaces travelling to Hagley and Nuweek Parks and involves competitive games against teams from our zone, utilising local parks and schools. This plan reduces the need to travel across town, minimises the number of people that the children come into contact with and makes contact tracing easier.

Winter Tournament

No information at this time

Cross Country

Currently, Sports Canterbury is looking at the beginning of term 3 for a Canterbury level event. Our Zone is currently looking at week 12 as a possible time for our Zone competition, making week 10 a logical time for our school-based event. We are still working through what this will look like. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that a whole school event will be possible. Training for cross country will start for children Years 5 to 8 next week. This gives the children time to prepare physically and mentally for this challenge.

Year 0 - 4 Cross Country

No information at this time

Basketball
Pioneer will be running 3 on 3 games for four weeks in term 2. These will be played on a half-court. To keep the numbers down, no spectators will be allowed inside the gym as spectators. One adult per team will be allowed in the gym to manage the team. From term 3, the hope is that the usual 5 on 5 games may resume.

Canterbury Swimming and Canterbury Duathlon

There is a possibility that these events may run in term 4. This can not be confirmed yet.

Hanmer Springs 4 Hour Mountain Bike Challenge

https://www.hanmerevents.co.nz/4-8-mtb-info

This event has a new date of Saturday the 14th of November.

Winter Sport for Year 5/6

Dear whānau,

Here is a link to a survey re Winter Sports for our Pōhutukawa learners. We are still firming up what our options however it would be very helpful to get an indication of what support you may be able to offer.  We would greatly appreciate it if you could complete the survey as soon as possible.

Click here

Thanks for your support!

Welcome back to school Pōhutukawa - IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

Kia ora whānau,

We are SO excited about seeing your children back at school on Monday! As I am sure you are aware, things will be a little bit different at school compared to "normal".  If you haven't already, please watch our Welcome Back to School Video (below) with your family, so you and the children know what to expect.

Also, in error, the wee video that Anne, Steve, Kerilea and Kate made was left out by mistake, so here it is!

Just a few important reminders for next week - your child will need a named drink bottle full of water at school each day. If your child arrives at school without a water bottle we will be phoning you and asking you to drop one in as there are no operational water fountains at school in Level 2. Drink bottles and lunch boxes will be kept in the cubbies with bags.

If your child has borrowed a school device for the lockdown period, please bring it back to school on Monday and take it straight to the verandah outside the library where you can sign it back in.  If your child uses a skateboard to travel to and from school, these will now be stored in the locked bike stand area on Sandwich Rd - they need to be there by 9am at the latest, which is when the area is locked. They will be stored there at your own risk.

If your child has any skin sensitivities or allergies and you are concerned about the use of hand sanitiser and / or school soap, please feel free to send your child to school with their own products to use. If you have any concerns, please don't hesitate to contact your child's home group teacher.

Here is a video outlining the drop off and pick up procedures at school for the time that we are operating in Level 2.  We appreciate your support with this.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Pōhutukawa Learning Week 4 , Term 2

Kia ora whānau,

Here we are at the end of another week of distance learning!  Thanks again for all of your great work supporting your child(ren) in their distance learning. Keep on sending that work through to us - we love to receive it!

We will be having our second social Zoom call for our Pōhutukawa Hub Learners on Monday May 11th at 11am.  If your child would like to join us and their friends for a catch up, please email your child's home group teacher and we will send you the link. Just to clarify, the reason we do not automatically send out the Zoom link to all our learners is because we want to ensure that they have your permission and support to be on the call. Please also ensure that the username that your child will be using to join the call clearly has your child's name or family name visible. As an extra security measure we use a waiting room in Zoom, so that we can ensure that only Pōhutukawa learners are able to join the call. If we cannot identify a potential attendee, we cannot admit them. We appreciate your support with this.

Here is this week's celebration assembly, we hope you enjoy watching it!

Enjoy your weekend whānau!