Year 7 & 8 Team @ Beckenham: Kauri Whanau Update: Term 1 Week 7

What a fabulous week of learning opportunities we are in the midst of! On Monday we were inspired by Ben Atkinson of 'Fill Your Lunch Box', a fabulous leader in our city. Today we spent the afternoon with Zara from Attitude.inc learning about having integrity when using technology devices. Zara will be back next week running workshops to delve deeper into how we can be responsible leaders in the cyber world. The children are responding with enthusiasm and impressive questioning to our guest speakers. Next week, as well as Zara, we have another inspiring leader visiting on Tuesday afternoon.

Important messages for next week:

Monday: Year 7s are to wear mufti as this is our Year 7 leadership day. Year 8 wear uniform as usual.

Tuesday: A normal day, with our guest speaker in the afternoon.

Wednesday: Class photos at Beckenham. No children to be dropped off at Champion street this morning. Be at school by 8:30 and meet in the hall. We will be busing to Champion Street soon after 9am.
Year 8s please bring food donations for leadership camp. Mountains: breakfast cereal. Coast: baking. Forest: a bag of fruit.

Thursday: Year 7 have a normal day at school, with Tracy teaching. Year 8s arrive at school in mufti with gear for next two days. A gear list will be emailed later today and be sent home on paper tomorrow. Year 8 will be sleeping over at school, you will see them again at 3pm on Friday.

Friday: Year 7 meet Michelle in the hall at 8:50am. They will be spending the day at Beckenham, as leaders in junior classes.

Action from the past week:

The Year 5 - 8 Duathlon last Friday was a great opportunity for the children to embrace challenge. Well done to everyone to took part and a big thanks to the parents who helped out. We were also very impressed with the support and enthusiasm offered by those students who were marshals on the course. They did a fabulous job.

After Ben Atkinson visited we spent time reflecting on what he taught us about leadership. Here is Olivia's reflection:

Ben Atkinson is very inspirational, he shows that he cares so much about these kids’ situation. I’m so glad that I got to hear him speak and share what his take on this amazing inspiring project was. Someone asked yesterday “Are you proud?” and his response was “I am proud of my employees but I think we can do alot more.” What I think he is achieving is amazing for our society. 28% of children in New Zealand live in poverty! It’s so sad to think these kids are as old as me and some younger.

The questions people asked yesterday were very deep and formal. He was open about his up bringing.He said that his family were not the richest. That maybe inspired him to come up with this project and succeed.

He currently has his kitchen at the Odyssey House. Volunteering are ex-prisoners. I think what the ex-prisoners are doing is an fantastic thing. One of the values Ben successfully reached is be proactive, he saw on TV that there was in issue in our society. He did not just sit there and do nothing about it, instead he did something, that’s inspirational.

Ben Atkinson he is amazing role model. He makes our community better, he shows he cares, that’s what really stood out to me. We need more Ben Atkinson’s in this world to make life better.