It is great to be underway with another fun-filled term of learning in the Intermediate Hub. The children have made a great start to the term this week.
Speeches
We have leapt into speech writing this week, after Jarred led a motivation on writing and presenting a storytelling speech. The children have four weeks to write, and practise the presentation of their speech. Please encourage them to share their writing with you at home. Because the focus is on storytelling, use of voice, gesture and expression is very important, so the more time spent practising and learning the speech, the better. Speeches will be presented to home-groups in week 5. The team competition (six Year 7s and six Year 8s) will be on Monday August 29 and the zone competition, against local schools, will be on Monday September 5th in the evening (one Year 7 and one Year 8). Our school competition will be judged by someone from the Court Theatre.
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| Jarred used the 'story chairs' activity to show the children how to create a story. |
Treaty of Waitangi
For the first three weeks of term 3, Sharon Tipene is running New Zealand History workshops with our hub. Sharon is a primary school teacher and a Treaty of Waitangi and New Zealand history educator. Each home group will have six one and a half hour sessions with Sharon. We are very lucky to have such an experienced and knowledgeable teacher working with us.
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| Sharon introduced props to signify important parts of NZ history. |
Cantamath
Term 3 heralds the start of Cantamath season. This involves various projects and competitions.
Jarred and Nicky’s maths groups are working on Cantamath projects for home learning. These are due on Friday of week 2. Projects that are of a very high quality will go through to the Canatmath competition at Horncastle Arena on Wednesday August 24th. All children should be well underway with their project by now. We are more than happy to support children with ideas and advice. They just need to ask.
On the Monday afternoon of week 3, we will be holding our Becamath (group problem solving) Competition. All children will be competing in mixed ability groups of 4 from each home-group.
A squad of capable mathematicians, will meet during lunchtimes and possibly before school to hone their problem solving skills. From this squad, our Cantamath teams will be selected, comprising of four Year 7s and four Year 8s. They will compete at Cantamath on Wednesday August 24th between 4pm and 6pm.
Ski trip
Our ski trip to Mt Hutt is coming up on Thursday August 18th. We now have enough skiing parent helpers, however we need a non skiing parent to help out at the base of the ski area, keeping an eye on kids who need a break and supporting where necessary. Please email Nicky if you would be happy to do this. This week the children learnt about appropriate clothing for a mountain environment. They will have one more session to learn about ski equipment, so that they are well prepared for a day of fun and learning on the slopes. The cost of this trip is $50, however with profits from our soup fundraising, we hope to reduce this cost. We will confirm this by the start of week 3. The charge includes lift pass, lesson and ski hire (including a helmet). Many thanks to the PTA for funding the bus trip. On Thursday we sent out a form for you to complete so that we can ensure every child is suitably clothed and equipped for this mountain experience. Here is the link to this form if you have yet to complete it.
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| We played 'dress the invisible skiers' to reinforce sensible clothing choices for a mountain environment. |
Arts academies
Every year the Kauri Hub enjoys celebrating the performing arts by creating and presenting a Beckenham flavoured production. Unlike the shopping centres, we will not being celebrating Christmas in October, but will be building up to the joyous season over term three and four. This year we will be decking the halls and wishing everyone tidings of good joy, in ‘A Very Kauri Christmas’. The students will decide how they would like to contribute to our performance by signing up to one of our Arts Academies: acting/singing, dance, or wearable arts.
Swimming
Learning to swim is an essential survival skill, especially for us, living on an island. It is part of the New Zealand Curriculum – ‘it is expected that all students will have had opportunities to learn basic aquatics skills by the end of year 6’. Since the earthquake and the loss of our pool, we have been unable to offer as many aquatic learning opportunities for all students in Year 5 – 8 as we would have liked to. We are very aware that water safety is a topical issue, with many water-related fatalities occurring over the last summer.
To this end, we have arranged swimming lessons for all students in Year 5 – 8 at Aquagym for this term. Each student will have 8 swimming lessons, over two weeks, in weeks 6 and 7 (Monday 29 August - Friday 9 September). The students will be bused to and from Aquagym (459 Cashel St, Linwood) for their half hour lesson.
The Year 7 – 8 whānau will be split into two groups of 40 students, with one group having their lesson from 9 – 9:30am (with their bus leaving school at 8:30am), and the other group having their lesson from 9:30 – 10am (leaving school at 9:00am). The children have been organised into two groups, taking into consideration music lessons and being able to arrive at school by 8:30am. Each group will then be split into smaller ability groups, so they are being taught at their level.
The overall cost of these 8 lessons plus transport is $85 per student. With 200 children involved, this is a total cost of $17,000. A request for your contribution will be added to your school account. If you don’t already have an automatic payment set up, you may like to contact Audrey or Jacky in the office, to enable you to budget for this.
Korfball
The Kauri Hub Korfball team, the Beckenham Guards, are scheduled to take part in their third interschool competition at Pioneer Stadium on Monday 15th August. We have been very successful at previous tournaments, with a second and third placing, and are excited to continue improving and giving our all! The team will be confirmed by Friday 5th August, and permission slips will be sent home.
Asia awareness
The students in the Kauri Hub have been lucky enough to be given the opportunity to receive external tuition from a Chinese educator from the Confucius Institute based at the University of Canterbury. As part of a school wide Asia awareness initiative, we will experience many aspects of Chinese language and culture, on a weekly basis throughout term three, starting in week four.
Talent quest
On Friday 23 September (the last Friday of this term) we will be holding the Beckenham Talent Quest at school. It will be held from 1:30 - 3pm in the school hall. There are three categories: Year 1-4, Years 5-6 and Years 7-8. The students are signing up for the talent quest at the moment, and then auditions will be held in week 6. Three acts will be selected for the final in week 9. We have such a talented group of students in Kauri this year, it will be a hard job just selecting three finalists. Good luck to all the students who intend to participate.
