Kauri Whānau Weekly Update: Term 2 Week 10

We are on the home straight now, with just two days until the end of term. Your child will come home with their school report, technology report and languages report on Friday. There are three pieces of work that we expect the children to finish this week: their argument writing, their artwork and their camp photo presentation. Those who are finished by Friday will get some free choice time in the afternoon.

Ski trip:

Have you filled in the ski trip information form for your child yet? If the answer is no, please click here. If the answer was yes, thanks!

Home learning for everyone:

In the first three weeks of next term all children will have a Cantamath design or research project to work on at home. We will be introducing this project to the children tomorrow, Thursday. They are most welcome to put in some time on this over the holidays. A Cantamath project requires the generation of an idea, planning and creating. It would be expected that at least 5 hours of work would be required. Projects will be due at school on Monday the 13th of September, however these can come to school if they are finished earlier. Work that is of an exceptional standard will be entered in the Cantamath Competition in Week 5, and will earn points towards the 'We Love Learning' Kete Badge. 

Speeches coming up next term:

Next term the first writing topic is for our speech competition, which takes place in the middle of the term. This year the children will write story-telling speeches. They will be able to retell a personal story, or take an existing story and either re-tell it, tell it from a different perspective or create a fractured fairytale. Over the holidays it would be great to brainstorm ideas at home; please don't encourage your child to start writing yet. Speech time brings on anxiety for a number of children. To alleviate this, there will be two options for presenting, either presenting live to their home-group or videoing their speech. A live presentation will be needed to be considered for our hub final. Thanks for your support with discussing ideas with your child. 

Blogging:

We have been thrilled to see a number of students in Kauri Hub earning their Kete Badges! In order to earn one of these badges, tamariki have to complete 60 points worth of actions and write about what they have done on their blogs. Please ask your child to have a look at their blog to see what they have been up to.

Many students have been putting fantastic effort into their posts. At the moment, the blogs are all set to private, with only invited readers being able to read posts (and invitations limited to the Kauri teachers). We are wanting to make these blogs public so that others are able to see the awesome actions that are being carried out. If you have any concerns about your child's blog being made public, please contact Hannah on hannah.elliott@beckenham.school.nz.

Prior to any blog going public, we will be going through all posts to check that there are no posts that provide information that could lead to safety concerns. Students will also be doing some learning around what sorts of things should be left out of future posts. It is unlikely that children will get large numbers of views; all this should do is make it easier for you to see what your child is posting and share it with other family members. In the extremely unlikely event that any issue arises, we can very easily revert the blog back to being private.

Winter Tournament:

On the second Monday of next term, we have our Winter Tournament. This is where our Friday Winter Sport team battle in out against other teams in our zone in a morning full of fast and furious games. It's a fun and action packed morning at Hagley Park. A number of our Friday Winter Sport Coaches are already on board to support our teams, which we greatly appreciate. We are in need of a few more parents to support teams in getting around to each of their games and to umpire/referee. We will be in particular need for football managers as each team gets split in half as the football games are 5-a-side. Please email Jenny asap if you are able to help out. You will be need to be available until 12:30. 

Congratulations:

We are extremely proud of Tilly, who has been selected for the Canterbury Primary Schools Netball Metro Representative team. This was after a number of trials and to be selected from such a huge number of players is absolutely fabulous!