Pages

Saturday, 12 September 2026

Kahikatea News: Week 8 Term 3 2026

 Kia ora whanau, 

We are thrilled to see the warmer days arriving and, with them, the opportunity to get outside and begin some athletics practice! Our whole-school athletics event will be held early in Term 4, alongside some other exciting activities, including swimming lessons. Keep an eye out for further notices with more information about these events coming your way soon.

While we are enjoying the signs of spring, winter illnesses continue to affect both students and staff. We are working hard to support the health and wellbeing of our school community by maintaining good hygiene practices, including regular handwashing and covering coughs and sneezes. We are also encouraging everyone to keep warm, get outside into the sunshine and fresh air, and take good care of themselves as we head into the warmer months.

Upcoming Event From Our Student Council

On Sept 18th, next Friday, the Student Council has organised a Heritage Day to celebrate our diverse cultures. Children are invited to come to school dressed in something to represent their family's heritage. This could be a costume, something special about the country, or simply wearing the colours from the country's flag. Please bring a gold coin for Big Brothers and Big Sisters.




Life Education Trust Visit


We are excited to welcome Harold the Giraffe and our Life Education teacher back to Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto, from Monday 7th - Thursday 17th of September. Each home group will have two sessions in the mobile classroom for interactive lessons to support our Body Systems learning.
Here are some photos from our first session: 



















Kahikatea Talent Show Auditions 

Congratulations to the very talented tamariki who have practised and prepared for this wonderful event! We had so many fabulous performances, and here are some photos from the auditions, which were held in our theatre space on Friday. 
















Our judges: Lisa, Toto and Sarah

Congratulations to the following students who have made it through to the Beckenham's Got Talent Final: 


Eleanor
Vincent & Max
Sadie, Marnie & Elsa
Elodie & Frankie




Ma te wa, Team Kahikatea: Sarah, Amber, Sarah & Talia 
















 


















Thursday, 27 August 2026

Kahikatea News: Term 3, Week 6.

A Visit from Dr Dan

As part of our Inquiry learning about body systems, we were very lucky to have Dr Dan, Elsie’s dad, come in to chat to us about his amazing job as a neonatologist in the Christchurch Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

The tamariki were super engaged and loved learning about what Dr Dan does to care of babies. He brought along life-size dolls, real medical equipment, photos and videos, which gave us a fantastic insight into his important work.

A huge thank you to Dr Dan for taking the time to come and share his knowledge with us!





Shapes!

We have been learning all about 2D shapes in maths and will be moving on to 3D shapes next week.

We have been exploring the different parts that make up shapes, learning about polygons and non-polygons, and investigating what makes different shapes unique.

We also got to have a go with the geoboards, which were a huge hit! It was so cool to see how many different shapes we could create and how many sides we could give our shapes. We definitely got creative!

Here are some photos of our shape investigations!









Disco Time!

Last Friday, we had our school Disco and what a fun afternoon it was! We loved seeing all the colourful outfits, impressive dance moves and, of course, popcorn all over the floor!

There was lots of dancing, music, a limbo competition and even an outfit parade. Everyone had a fantastic time!














Fairytales!

Lots of our literacy classes have been exploring fairytales, and it has been a super engaging focus.

Talia and Sarah J’s classes even performed their very own role-play of The Three Little Pigs! We were so impressed by how quickly they worked together to put their performance together.

The tamariki did an amazing job showing ‘We Love Challenge’ and being brave enough to perform in front of the class. We didn’t realise we had so many talented actors and actresses in our hub!









Big Buddies

We try to catch up with our Big Buddies every few weeks for some fun activities and a chance to practise tuakana-teina, learning from and supporting one another.

Last Friday, which was also Disco day (hence all the colourful outfits!), we teamed up with our Big Buddies for a scavenger hunt around the school. We had to work together to find lots of different things, such as:

🔎 Something with the letter B
🔎 Something smaller than your hand
🔎 Something older than your Year 2 buddy
🔎 And lots of other tricky challenges!

It was so cool to see everyone working together, thinking carefully and helping each other along the way. There were some very creative answers and lots of great teamwork!






Life Education Van

We are very excited to welcome Harold the Giraffe and our Life Education teacher back to Beckenham from Monday 7 September – Thursday 17 September.

Each home group will have two sessions in the mobile classroom, with both lessons supporting our current Science and Inquiry learning about our bodies and body systems.

Session 1: Why is physical activity good for our bodies?
Session 2: What are body systems and how do they work?

We are looking forward to some fun and interactive learning with Harold!



We hope everyone has a lovely weekend, and fingers crossed we get some more sunshine to enjoy! ☀️

Ngā mihi,
Talia, Sarah S, Amber and Sarah J