What a great first week we have had back at school. After a rather chatty Monday, the children quickly settled into the new routines. Yes, new routines. Following five weeks of learning at home, both teachers and children reflected on what we liked about the learning at home way of doing things and what we could change about our programme. One of the main changes is that we start each day with 40 minutes of self-directed learning. This gives the children greater agency, allows us to check in with individuals about their learning more frequently than before, and helps the children develop their self-management skills. With this new approach, it is really important for all children who BYOD to remember their device every day.
Headphones / Earbuds
All children need to have headphones or earbuds. These were on the stationery list at the start of the year. Not many of the children have these at school and they all need them.
Sport this term
Cross Country: We start training for cross country next week, with our cross country event taking place in the last week of term.
Winter Sport: Our winter sport competition will get underway in a couple of weeks. Children can opt to be in a competitive team or a development team. We need parent helpers to make this possible; please click here to see if you can help.
Competitive teams develop their technical skill and have a competition focus. They play games against other teams from our zone on a Thursday afternoon.
Development teams develop their technical skill and have a focus on fun. This option allows for increased variety and trying out new sports and activities on a Thursday afternoon.
Technology
We are off to tech again from this coming Tuesday. Remember that children need to be at school before 8:30. Buses will be running as usual and sanitising practises at South Intermediate are the same as here at school. At this stage, the canteen is not open. The children will be finishing projects from last term before switching to a new technology.
40 Hour Famine
We are starting to fundraise for the World Vision 40 Hour Famine. The dates for the Famine are 5-7 June. This will be a paperless fundraiser this year so you can donate online by going to the link below. The World Vision Leaders this year are Zoe-A, Zara M and Emma. They are organising a short presentation that will be videoed and put on Tuesday's daily notices for the students to view. Start thinking of ways your family can get involved. There's only 2 weeks to go! Thank you in advance for your support! https://my.worldvision.org.nz/ss/0W9KVd/beckenham-te-kura-o-puroto
High School Information: Cashmere High
Like other high schools, due to Covid-19 restrictions, Cashmere High School will not be holding an Open Night this year.
Level 2 information for students. Please view this with your child before Monday.
Level 2 information for parents:
High School Information:
At this time of each year, we start to get information from high schools for our Year 8 students and their families. We will pass this information on to you as we receive it.
Hagley College
Please note that due to the Covid-19 crisis, and in line with all Christchurch secondary schools, we will be unable to hold an open evening for prospective Year 9 students in Term 2.
We are still very happy to provide information about Hagley for 2021 to all interested parents, caregivers and students.
Our 2021 Junior College Lookbook is now available on our website at https://www.hagley.school.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2021_Junior_Prospectus-web.pdf.
Families are also welcome to contact Suzanne Waters (Director of Students) with any questions about learning in Year 9 at suzanne.waters@staff.hagley.school.nz.
To request an enrolment pack, or for any other enquiries, parents/caregivers should contact lisa.amer@staff.hagley.school.nz.
This week has seen a greater uptake with video-conferencing across our Kauri learners.
It was fabulous to see so may faces at our 'camp concert' yesterday afternoon. Despite a few tech issues, with lagging, there was a great vibe during the concert and we loved watching so much talent on show.
Our daily social Zooms will now always be at 11am. The numbers are growing and we are enjoying a variety of games.
Writing and maths Zooms are also growing. It was interesting reading the children's feedback from the survey we put out today and hearing that video-conferencing can bring so much clarity and understanding when previously there may have been some confusion.
In order to join one of these Zooms, the process is: 1. Watch the daily video to see what Zooms are happening that day, there are also listed on the Learning at Home page. 2 Email a teacher - Nicky, Hannah or Megan and say you would like to join a Zoom meeting. 3. We will sign you up to the Zoom and you will get an email with the code, just before the meeting is scheduled to start. 4. At the start time, click on the code and you are in.
Each day we are in and out of children's work checking on progress. Today we noticed a number of children had yet to start their writing. After sending out a quick email to those learners, copied in to parents, there was a flurry of activity! We will keep sending out these prompts when we see the need.
We are keen to see more children interact with our maths problem solving and hotspots. Attending a maths Zoom meeting might be helpful for a number of children. If you think this would help your child, please encourage them to attend on Monday.
There has been a lot of impressive work happening and we are thrilled to see the progress that a large number of children are making. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you need some support with your child's learning or motivation.
Assembly
Here is our welcome assembly for term 2 in a slightly different format than usual. Please go to full screen to watch it.
Cyber Safety (when using school Google Logins)
As you may be aware from the school cyber safety agreement, Beckenham te Kura o Pūroto has various cyber safety systems in place in order to keep students safe. We have one system called “Highlights” that we would like you to be particularly mindful of during lockdown.
This system allows teachers to see Chromebook screens and/or Chrome browser tabs whenever that device or browser is signed into a school Google account during school hours. This is an important tool that teachers use to keep students safe and to offer support while students are learning. It also has privacy implications and is one of the main reasons we always ask and remind students to only use their school account for learning purposes. If you want your child to use their personal device/browser for other purposes or without the school cyber safety systems in place, then it is important that students sign out of their school account and sign into a personal account created by you. If your child has borrowed a school Chromebook, they should only be using this with their school login and for learning purposes.
We also utilise a specialised web filtering system to help keep our students safe online. This filter automatically alerts staff whenever a student account is potentially being used to access unsafe content on the internet. Like Highlights, this filter system is active whenever a student is signed into their school account, even if they are at home. If we receive a concerning filter alert during lockdown, we will contact you via email.
It is important to note that teachers never rely on just the filtering system. We work hard to actively monitor students’ screens and always ask students to work in a place where their screens are visible. We strongly encourage you to adopt a similar approach at home by making sure children only use devices in a family area where they can be easily seen. We also encourage you to actively check that your child/children are using the device in a safe and positive manner.
Junior Neighbourhood Support Canterbury challenges you to… Make a Stop Motion Lego Movie!
You can use lego or other toys to share one part of your Covid-19 isolation time. Some ideas for experience to share include (but are not limited to):
Keeping 2m away
Going to the supermarket
Staying at home
Leaving the house for exercise
Easter or ANZAC Day 2020
Send your entries to jns@canterburyns.net before Level 2 ends and we’ll put them into a movie that everyone can watch.
Stop Motion Studio is a popular Apple and Android app to use to film and you should only need the free version. If you are using a Chromebook, you may like to try Stop Motion Animator (from the Chrome Web Store).
