Newsletter – Week 8, Term 2 2023

Kia ora koutou BDS whānau,                                                                  Week 8, Term 2, 2023

At the beginning of the term our Year 6 students had the opportunity to work alongside students from Howick College Arts Council. We all met on a Wednesday afternoon and the students created artwork for the school. Four of the art pieces were not quite completed and the Howick College students took them back to school and completed them. We created six murals, two sets of tile art, wooden circles showing greetings, and the painting of the garden wall outside Room 15. Once the school has finished being painted these art pieces will be presented on the walls of our kura. Thank you so much to our Year 6 students, Howick College students and Mrs Calder who all worked so enthusiastically and creatively together. Further down in the newsletter, we have provided some photos and we are looking forward to showcasing artworks in further photos.

We would like to say thank you again for the wonderful collaboration opportunity between our schools, we appreciate all the time you have taken to allow us to do this with the wonderful students of Botany Downs. We, as well as the future arts council leaders to come, look forward to more opportunities to build the relationship between our local schools.
Monique Preisig & Julie Kim, Art Council Leaders

This year for the first time we moved our senior school Cross-country to Millhouse Drive. This proved to be very successful and a great initiative. Our Year 4, 5, and 6 students certainly showed their Botany Best with the effort they put into their running. Thank you to Mrs Jeffs, staff, and parents for encouraging and supporting our tamariki with this event. The cross-country certificates will be given out at this week’s assembly.

Ngā mihi nui,
Vicki Parkins, Principal – Tumuaki (vickip@botanydowns.school.nz)

Coming up @ BDS…

Wed June 14 -Year 0-2 Literacy Information session / PTA Jester’s Pie Day
Fri 16 June World Vision 40 Hour Challenge begins
Wed 21 June – No-uniform Day / Year 0-2 Maths information session
Wed 21 June – HPPA Hockey Field Day / Dance Festival (evening)
Fri 23 June – HPPA Rugby Day 
Wed 28 June – Learning Conversations: 3.20 – 7.30pm
Thurs 29 June – Learning Conversations: 3.20 – 5.10pm
Fri 30 June – Matariki celebration
Fri 30 June – Last day of Term 2
Mon 17 July – First day of Term 3

SCHOOL NEWS

Botany Best and Values Award

Botany Best: Damien Davey, Le Zhi Liu, Gabriel Jin, Mac He, Boan Zhang, Bianca Zhang, Zara Watson, Cassia Grisselle, Alyssa Roberts, Jaaveis Iese, Autumn Jacobs, Gus McCrindle, Raymond Palalagi-Waru, Vera Zuo, Matias Guillen, Leo Xie, Mackenzie Scott, Rosie Chin, Ron Du, Kate Henry, Umar Shaheer, Darren Scott, and Aadhityaa Paarthiban.

Values: Selina Mulipola, Jurgens Lewis, Frank Kumar, Ekko Wong, Ezra Goh, Lavinia Chen, Atlas Timpson, Ethan Du, Blake Sills, Arissa Ezra Fesolai, Charlie Pirie, Cordelia Prentice, Cartyr Clifton, Caden Van Niekerk, Cole Redlinghys, Milan Gahunia, Flynn Hodgson, Judi Tbakhi, Yongha Kim, Ayden Sharp, Anisa Tamihana, Simon Huang, and Justin Qiao.

These certificates will be presented at Friday’s assembly.
Assembly begins at 9:10am; please be inside and seated by 9:05am.
This week’s items – Room 25, and Dance groups.

PhotoLife Keycodes

The keycodes to view your child’s photos were emailed out last week.  Free delivery expires on midnight Sunday 18th June.  Please check your trash/spam folder as well.  If you did not receive the keycodes please email with the name of the child and their room number: office@botanydowns.school.nz.

Matariki Celebration

Tēnā koutou e te whānau,

We are thrilled to announce that our school will be hosting a Matariki celebration on June 30th (last day of term), commencing at 10:00 am and concluding at 10:30 am. We extend a warm invitation to all whānau to join us for this special occasion. The festivities will begin with a performance by our Senior and Junior Kapa Haka at 10:00 am, held outside the hall. Following the performance, you will have the opportunity to admire the beautiful artwork crafted by your tamariki in their classrooms. Finally, we will gather for a shared morning tea.

Matariki, also known as the Māori new year, symbolises a time of celebration, growth, and rejuvenation. It offers us a chance to come together as a community, honouring our whānau, sharing kai (food), exchanging stories, and singing waiata (songs).

In preparation for this special event, we kindly request that our tamariki contribute to the shared morning tea by bringing either a packet of store-bought biscuits or whole fruit during the last week of school.

We look forward to celebrating another successful term with you all.

Michelle Takaiti (michellet@botanydowns.school.nz)

Learning Conversations – Week 10

Bookings for Learning Conversations are made online; please see the following for more information. Bookings will open Wednesday 14 June at 8.00am.

Art with Howick College

Year 0-2 Curriculum Information sessions

On Wednesday 14 June (tomorrow) we are presenting a Junior Literacy session for our Year 0-2 families. If you would like to find out more about our Structured Literacy programme, including reading, writing, and spelling,  and how you can further support at home please come along! Mrs Shirley Johnston our Year 0-1 Team Leader will be presenting this session.

On Wednesday 21 June we will be holding a Junior Maths session taken by Mrs Joanne Hughson.

Both sessions run alongside our current Bright Sparks sessions and are from 9:15-10:15am in the staffroom.

Please RSVP Joanne on joanneh@botanydowns.school.nz if you are interested in attending either or both of these curriculum information sessions.

Senior School Cross-country

This year we took the senior school over to Millhouse Reserve to run the cross-country. It was an awesome day with the sun shining and students giving it their best. A huge thank you to the staff and parents who helped make the event so successful. Certificates for the first three place getters for each race will be given out at assembly this Friday. 

HPPA Football Tournament Days

This year our girls’ football team were fortunate to attend one and a half days of games held at William Green against girls’ teams from other schools in our area. Unfortunately our mixed Year 5-6 team were not so lucky, and their football fun day was canceled due to the rain! Fortunately there will be more opportunities to play some football games in Term 3! 

On Wednesday 31 May and 7 June our Year 4-6 girls’ team had the opportunity to grow their football skills and enjoy some great football games against other girls’ teams. Our girls displayed fantastic enthusiasm, represented their school proudly and definitely displayed their Botany Best!

Thank you to our wonderful parents for their great support,  transporting our players and helping out on these days, and also to our coach and referee, Thomas!

Joanne Hughson (joanneh@botanydowns.school.nz)

A Olympian Visits Botany Downs School

On Thursday 8th June Samantha Charlton came to Botany Downs to talk to the Year 3, 4, 5, and 6 students. She shared with us her journey as an Olympian hockey player. She talked to us about how she went to the Tokyo Olympics to play hockey and also about the Olympic Village where all the athletes stay for the 14 days that they are there for. Samantha said that even though she has never won an Olympic medal, she has never given up. She keeps trying and trying. Eventually, she got a gold medal and a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games!

Samantha talked about her siblings, she used to play hockey with her sister and her brother loves to play golf. 

Samantha was such an inspiration, she showed a lot of manawanui (resilience) and I hope I get to see her again. 

Cindy Zhang, Room 18 

Children Turning Five 

If your child is turning five in the next six (6) months please ensure you enrol them as soon as possible. Our roll is steadily growing and we need to plan for classes and teachers during the year.

Please collect your enrolment pack from the office, or email office@botanydowns.school.nz 

Joanne Hughson DP/SENCo – Year 0-3 (joanneh@botanydowns.school.nz)

Learning and Fun @ BDS

Year 6, Room 18 – Room 18 visits the library 
Every Thursday morning Room 18 visits the school library, this is one of the highlights of our week! We love listening to stories, talking with Mrs Hatley-Owen about the new books and practicing our researching skills. It is a great time to talk about the books we have been reading and recommend them to our classmates. During Term 2, we have been learning how to find non-fiction books using the Dewey Decimal system and we have been using these skills to help us find out new information for our kitchen science inquiry. We are so lucky to have such an awesome library at Botany Downs School!

LIBRARY NEWS

New Zealand Book Awards for
Children and Young Adults – Finalists for 2023

Congratulations to all the authors, illustrators, and publishers who are finalists for this year’s New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults – an amazing lineup of wonderful books for our tamariki and rangatahi.

The winning books for each category will be announced on Thursday 10 August.

COMMUNITY NOTICES

Pay the kindo way: https://botanydowns.school.nz/kindo/