Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 2

Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome to our 2026 blog! We have had a fantastic start to the year in the Kōwhai hub. Everyone is settling in well and becoming familiar with new routines in our new learning space. This year, each child has their own cubby for bags, and after a few early teething problems, we are all remembering where our spots are!

Over the first few weeks, we are focusing on getting to know one another within our homegroups and establishing our daily routines. This time is important for helping the children build a strong sense of security and belonging in their learning environment.

Girls Smash Cricket

Yesterday, all of the girls in the Kōwhai team had the opportunity to take part in a cricket session to encourage them to give the sport a go. They practised their bowling and batting skills through a range of fun games and activities, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

If your child is interested in joining a cricket club, they were given a leaflet with further information. The closest club is based in Beckenham, making it a very convenient option.

Top Team

This is a friendly reminder about our Top Team event next week. Weather permitting, it will be held on Wednesday 18th February in the afternoon at the park and will feature a variety of fun team-building activities.

As some water activities are planned, please ensure your child brings a change of clothes (including shoes) and a towel in their bag to use afterwards.

A big thank you to the parent helpers who have kindly offered their support — we truly couldn’t run events like this without you!

Construction

During Discovery time, many of our children love getting creative and building all sorts of things using cardboard boxes. At the moment, our supply is running low, so we would greatly appreciate any donations of small to medium cardboard boxes or containers.

Thank you for your support!

Water Play

Last week, we managed to squeeze in 2 sessions of water play with the weather not being altogether reliable! The children had lots of fun using their water blasters and sliding on the water slides with washing up liquid added for extra speed!

Discovery

Over the first couple of weeks, we have enjoyed plenty of Discovery time, giving our tamariki the opportunity to explore a wide range of activities while getting to know one another. Outdoor options have included giant checkers, four square, hula hooping, and chalk art. Indoors, children have been busy with marble runs and magnets, construction and Lego building, card making, and Zendoodle art. It has been wonderful to see everyone exploring the choices available and giving new things a go!

Hats

Thank you for ensuring your children bring their hats to school, we really appreciate your support. As you know, staying sun smart is important. Any children who forget their hat will need to remain under the hall verandah during break times, with duty teachers supporting and reminding students as needed.

Cyber Safety

Staying Safe Online

As our tamariki spend more time online, it’s important parents and whānau help them stay safe. Now is a great time to talk to them about how we use the internet and digital technology.

Netsafe has created an Online Safety Parent Toolkit so parents, families and whānau have all the information they need to talk about online safety.

If you or anyone in your whānau needs support, you can contact Netsafe.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Kōwhai News Term 4 Week 10

Kia ora e te whānau,

Wow, it is so hard to believe we are at the end of the year and this is our final blog post for 2025! What an incredible and busy year it has been with lots of achievements, positive moments and exciting adventures. 

Highlights of 2025

Term 1 was an awesome introduction to our 2025 year. We started our year with water play, getting to know everyone, activities, an awesome Top Team event, exciting science experiments, house games, a special visit from Police Officer Jo, and the wonderful Kōwhai Service Club began. 

Term 2 was a shorter term, filled with lots of fun events. We began our special Pizza Fridays, went to a performance from Strike percussion group, had a Book Character Day, participated in the school cross country, created Miro sculptures, began our technology inquiry unit, followed recipes and instructions during our procedural writing topic, performed at our school Matariki evening, and went on an amazing trip to Ferrymead. 

Term 3 started with a hiss and a roar. We welcomed Jordan into the Kōwhai team, celebrated Maths Week, began learning about Keeping Ourselves Safe (a unit taught in collaboration with Constable Meg from the New Zealand Police), there was a whole school four square tournament, gymnastics sessions at the School of Gymnastics, and we finished the term with Beckenham's Got Talent.

Term 4 has been another busy and fun term. We began the term with a new event, the Scooter-athlon, started hip-hop dance and ukulele sessions, competed in our whole school athletics, took part in our whole school colour run, worked really hard in production groups, leading to a stellar performance, and finished off the term with the school chicks spending time in our hub. 

As you can see, it has been an action-packed year full of wonderful memories being made and some awesome adventures being had. 

Production

On Thursday 4th December, our Kōwhai tamariki shone on stage as they showcased their talents in our Kōwhai Jukebox Journey. It was wonderful to see all their hard work come together in such a vibrant performance, and it was extra special to be able to share this moment with our school community and whānau. We had a special "Production Screening" on Thursday this week to show the tamariki their magical performance! We just want to say thank you to all the whānau for your support, and a massive congratulations to our tamariki for showing 'We Love Challenge' for being brave and giving the performance a go!

End-of-Year Admin

• Books: Please make sure all literacy books and library books are brought back into school. This is really important as we need these resources for our tamariki to use next year. Thank you for your support with this. 
• Transition: On Thursday, we had The Great Migration across the school, where each team moved into a new location. We are now where Pōhutukawa was, to the right-hand side of our school hall. We will be in this space from now on.
• Meet the Teacher: On the last day of school, Wednesday 17th December, our tamariki will meet their new teacher for 2026. A form will come home with the tamariki that has their teacher's name, the stationery list for next year, and questions to consider for our start of year learning conferences next year. 

We hope you have all enjoyed being a part of this year with us. We wish you a and safe and happy holidays, and look forward to seeing you all in the New Year!

Noho ora mai rā (Take care and stay well),

The Kōwhai Team

Kōwhai News Term 4 Week 8

Kia ora whānau!

This week has been a busy week getting ourselves ready for production. The children have been working together and sharing ideas. It has been great to see the collaboration. 

Production

We have had two full rehearsals and it has been excellent to see all our hard work put together. Next week, we have 2 dress rehearsals before performing for the whole school on Wednesday and then we look forward to performing for whānau on Thursday at 11:30am in the hall. The children are all so excited! 

Please can you make sure that your child/children bring their costumes on Monday, ready for the dress rehearsals. If your child is not sure what their costume is, you can either email your homegroup teacher or the dance group teacher. Thank you for your support with this!

Pizza Friday 

Our Pizza Friday has continued to be a highlight for many children. We are so proud of our students for all their hard work in earning this great experience. 

Moving Spaces 

As you may have read from the school newsletter, our hub is moving to Parenga. While this may feel like a big change, we have been drawing similarities between Parenga and the current Kōwhai hub. We are excited to be alongside the Pōhutukawa team next year! The move will be taking place on Thursday 11th December after school hours. This will mean that we will be in our new hub from Friday 12th onwards until the end of term.

Transitions 

We have begun transitioning our students in preparation for next year. The students have had the chance to reconnect and build new connections with the younger/older students who will be in their learning space. Yesterday afternoon, our Year 3's stayed in Kōwhai and the Year 6 children came to join them for a session of Discovery. Meanwhile, the Year 4 children went over to the Pōhutukawa hub to spend time with the Year 5 children whom they will be joining next year. We will have one more session like this in Week 10. On Monday next week, the Year 2 children will be coming to join in a Discovery session with the Year 3's so they can reconnect. Again, there will be one more session like this in Week 10. The children have really been looking forward to this and are embracing the opportunity.

Colour Run 

The colour run last Friday was a highlight for many. It generated such a community feel that was great to see and the children had such a lot of fun! It was also fantastic the way the Kōwhai children also ran with the younger children and helped them round the obstacle course. Congratulations to the PTA for running such a successful event and raising so much money!

Have a wonderful weeekend!

From the Kōwhai team.

Kōwhai News Term 4 Week 6

Kia ora everyone!

Welcome to the Kōwhai blog for Term 4, Week 6! The term is rapidly disappearing and while we have achieved so much already, there is still much to do.

Production

Over the next few weeks, we will be very focused on putting our production together. We have been busy rehearsing our dances and preparing props and costumes and it is now time to put it all together into one big extravaganza!

This is a reminder that you are all invited to come and see our performance on Thursday 4th December at 11:30am in the hall.

Ukulele

Everyone is continuing to enjoy their dance and ukulele lessons every Tuesday. In our ukulele sessions, the children have been helping to make up a song about the school, contributing lots of great ideas. We look forward to hearing the end result!

Chicks Hatching

As you may have already heard, we have some chick eggs incubating in our very own school office! They have been carefully guarded by Sue, Jo and Cade over the last weeks. We have all had the opportunity to visit and see the eggs and Sue has been telling us all about the kind of chickens that will hatch and what we are going to do with them. Thank you, Sue! 

And now the chicks have started hatching and it is very exciting! We have starting thinking about names for them all. What do you think? Can you think of any good ones?

Colour Run

The PTA have organised a Colour Run event to take place next Friday afternoon. So far, the PTA have raised around $9,000 which is absolutely amazing! If you would like to help raise money for this fundraising event, just click on the following link and hit the red “Set Up a Fundraising Page” tab: 

https://beckenhamschoolcolourrun.raiseit.co.nz/.

In order to drum up some more support for this event, we are also sliming teachers, one teacher per $1,000 raised. Yesterday, at the end of the school day, we slimed 8 teachers in total with Chris getting slimed twice! The children absoltuely loved witnessing this and are looking forward to seeing more teachers get slimed next Wednesday. We will have to see if any Kōwhai teachers get included next time round! 

Have a great long weekend!

From the Kōwhai team

Kōwhai News Term 4 Week 4

Kia ora e te Whānau, 

Welcome to the Week 4 Kōwhai blog.

Production 

We have been busy over the last few weeks, continuing to prepare for our upcoming production, 'Jukebox Journey: History's Greatest Hits'. A reminder that tamariki are in a group with one of the Kōwhai teachers doing either Ragtime, Disco, Rock 'n' Roll, Futuristic, Ancient Egypt, or Michael Jackson. Students have been working hard to learn choreography, design props, organise costumes, and rehearse lines. It has been very exciting watching this start to come together, and we are looking forward to having the opportunity to share this with whānau later in the term. 

The date and time for this will be: Thursday 4th December, 11:30am.

Athletics Day 

On Thursday, our students had an action-packed Athletics Day. Students rotated through 5 different events, which included sprints, shot put, long jump, high jump, and discus. It was fantastic to see students showing resilience, celebrating success, and demonstrating great sportsmanship throughout the day. What wonderful examples of embracing the ‘We Get There Together’ and ‘We Love Challenge’ kete values. A huge thank you to our staff, whānau, and awesome ākonga for helping make the day such a positive and successful event!

Dance and Ukulele 

Over the last 4 weeks, students have been attending weekly hip hop dance and ukulele sessions. It has been wonderful to see the way students have been engaging during these classes and subsequently developing confidence when learning the dance routine and playing the chords. We certainly have some very talented Kōwhai kids who are really making the most of this awesome learning opportunity!

Here is the link to the audio that students are dancing to!

Hats

We are now well into term four and as we get closer to summer, it is important that we stay sun smart. Could you please support your tamariki to make sure they are wearing their hat when they are outside. If they have forgotten their hat, they need to go under the hall verandah at break times. Duty teachers will be supporting with reminders. 

Headlice

Unfortunately, we have had more cases of headlice reported in Kōwhai Hub. Can you please check your child's head for eggs and live lice regularly and treat accordingly if detected. The link below has very helpful information about headlice and how to treat it.

https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/head-lice#main-content