Year 7 & 8 Team @ Beckenham: Kauri Whānau Update: Term 3 Week 6

So much to celebrate and lots of messages too. Please read these important messages carefully.

We have enjoyed being part of learning conversations with you and your child yesterday and are looking forward to more of this tomorrow, Thursday.

Speech Finals:

A big congratulations to all of the speech finalists who shared their entertaining stories with us on Monday afternoon. We were lucky to have Daniel Pengelly, assistant artistic director from the Court Theatre as our guest judge. Next Monday evening starting at 6:30pm, Jordan and Oskar will represent Beckenham at the South Zone Speech Competition, being held at St Peters School on Fisher Ave. It would be lovely to see some of our children in the audience to support our fine speakers.

Cantamath:

Last Wednesday our Cantamath teams competed against 90 other schools, solving maths problems at Horncastle Arena. Those of us in the audience were worked into a frenzy of enthusiastic support, as we watched the runners put their thumbs up for correct answer after correct answer. The Year 7 team answered every question correctly within the 30 minutes, earning a golden ticket (displaying their 100 points) and coming in sixth place! And then it was Year 8s turn to stun us with their mathematical talent. They also earned a golden ticket and were placed 9th. Wow!

Cultural Festival:

Te Whānau Mahi Tahi take to the stage on Friday evening at Horncastle Arena as part of the cultural festival. We know they will will be stunning and wish them all the best for a fabulous performance.

Year 8 testing at Cashmere High School:

A reminder that due to swimming lessons, our Year 8s who are enrolled at Cashmere High School for 2017, have their testing morning on Thursday September 15th. They are to wear school uniform and return to school for the afternoon.

Swimming:

We are now into the swing of our swimming programme. Some adjustments have been made to groupings so that each child's needs are being met. It is great to see nearly all children making it to school on time to catch their buses. We need to see that 'nearly all' become 100%.

Year 7 Camp 2017 Fundraising:

In term 3 we have the opportunity to run the sausage sizzle on Thursdays from 4:30 - 6:30pm at the touch competition at Waltham Park. We did this last year and raised quite a bit of money for our camp. This will be a good way to fundraise for our 2017 camp, which will be in term 1 of next year at Wainui. We need a small team of parents who would be happy to help with these sausage sizzles. Please let Nicky know if you would be happy to be part of this team.

The next three and a half weeks:

Hopefully you have or will take the opportunity to look at the rebuild display in the hall during learning conferences. On Tuesday we spoke to the children about the current timeframe that we are working towards. The plan is that we will be busing to the Champion Street site from next term. We are in the process of finalising dates for visits to Champion Street this term and an information / question answering evening for parents. We will let you know once these dates have been set in concrete.

Writing movie reviews:

We started our new writing topic this week, with a drama based motivation. Tomorrow we will be watching a short movie and looking at an exemplar to learn about writing a review. On Monday we will be offering a choice of three movies for the children to view and take notes on in preparation for writing their movie review. The movies are:

Remember the Titans - An American football story with a strong focus on leadership. (PG)

Cool Runnings - The story of the Jamaican bobsled team at the winter Olympics, with themes of persistence and overcoming adversity. (PG)

El Dorado - A cartoon movie with messages about what makes a good friend and the importance of friendships. (PG)