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:

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

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.