Newsletter – Week 4, Term 4 2023

Kia ora koutou BDS whānau,                                                                  Week 4, Term 4, 2023

Thank you so much for your support for our Fun Run. Our total is continuing to grow as more and more of our BDS whānau are signing up and sharing their personally created website. 

Our Year 4-6 Athletics Day was a huge success and everyone showed their Botany Best. It was wonderful how our tamariki encouraged each other and gave everything a go. A huge thank you to Mrs Jeffs for her excellent organisation and to all our teachers, teacher aides, and parents who helped on the day. Good luck to all our tamariki who have been selected to represent us in the HPPA Inter-School Athletics Day.

We are very proud of our school and by wearing our school uniform we not only showcase our school and reinforce our positive reputation, we also foster a sense of belonging as a team at BDS.  

We are noticing a variety of socks being worn. Please support your child in wearing the correct school uniform.

Thank you for your feedback regarding school communication. We had a very positive response. The majority of our community (87%) would like us to continue with a weekly newsletter. Our newsletter can be translated when viewed on our school website.

School App 
The app currently doesn’t have a translation feature, however the same information can be accessed on our school website which does have a translation feature.  www.botanydowns.school.nz

The app is available for both Apple and Android, go to the home page of our website (see link above) and click on this app banner at the bottom of the page. It should direct you to either the Apple or Android app store depending on which phone you are using.

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

Class Considerations for 2024

In the coming weeks, we will be starting to organise our classrooms for 2024.

The process of placing children in a class takes a considerable amount of time and needs to be firmly based on trust in our staff. We take into account many factors. As part of this process, we invite you to complete this form if you feel there are significant considerations we need to make  in placing your child for next year.

Please fill in this form for your child for 2024, we do not take into consideration previous requests as these may have changed and we need updated information.   

Parents are often keen to ensure their child has friends and peer group combinations. This is only one factor for consideration and therefore, may not necessarily be regarded as the most important for your child in their class placement. While you may specify individuals that you wish placed with your child, this may not be reciprocated by other parents.

We are still finalising the placement of our teachers for 2024, so please note that not all teachers will be teaching at the same year level as they are this year. This exercise is not regarded as a ‘select your teacher’ opportunity and the final decision will be made by the staff based on their professional knowledge in the best interests of your child.

Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that all requests will be accommodated. However, be assured that we will give due consideration to all information provided, along with the information provided by the teachers and children to select the best class for your child.  

If you wish us to consider information for more than one child please submit a separate form for each.

This form will close on Friday 10 November at 5pm
Class Considerations for 2024 Form

Coming up @ BDS…

Fri 3 Nov – Gumboot Friday
Mon 6 Nov – PTA meeting
Wed 8 Nov – Yr 3&4 Poetry recital
Wed 8 Nov – Howick Int orientation visit: 9.30-10.30am
Thurs 9 Nov – Somerville Int orientation visit: 1.00-.2.45pm
Fri 10 Nov – FUN RUN
Mon 13 Nov – Teacher Only Day
Wed 15 Nov – School Board meeting
Thurs 16 Nov – HPPA Athletics
Fri 17 Nov – School Disco
Fri 24 Nov – Junior Athletics Day
Wed 29 Nov – PTAJester’s Pie Day
Fri 8 Nov – No Uniform Day
** click here to view more of the school calendar **

SCHOOL NEWS

We invite you to attend our school assembly on Friday at 9.10 am. We will be presenting our Botany Best Certificates and Values Bookmarks. This week our item will be from Room 4. We will also have a display from Howick Taekwondo.

Our Capabilities

Congratulations to our following tamariki who have shown their Botany Best by displaying our Capabilities: Ethan Symons, Shangyuan Cao, Naoki Yamagata, Kullum Van Den Berg, Ilaisaane Faletau, Nelson Wang, Luna Lopez Woo, Corwin Zhang, Yasmine Alsharefi, Aliya Christian, Chloe Cooke, Leanna Xu, Leo Cowarin, Lianie Vorster, Allen Wang, Ahaan Harridass, Shrihaan Harridass, Ismail Almayah, Olivia Sun, Stevie Lawrenson, Isla Jones, Ezra Boyter, Isaac Angove, Nature Parsons, Troy Viljoen, Lillias Fisher, Anisa Tamihana, Shana Chen, Simon Huang & Rishaan Kumar.

Our Values

Congratulations to the following tamariki who have displayed our value of  Manaakitanga/Respect: Ozias Su’a, Harper Annan, Azalea Ngo, Luoyi Shen, Hareni Pirapakaran, Baghel Singh, Sujin Yu, Inaeanui Moeauri, Blake Coxen, Wally Wu, Hannah Biddick, Felix Cao, Jaaveis Iese, Braxton Bills, Chloe Morgan, Roxas Eason, Logan Hunter, Akchai Arunchayan, Suzanna Kamakorewa, Liam Andrew, Muhammad Ahmad, Alicia Wang, Archie Barson, Sergio Guillen, Claire Zhou, Dillon Jardine-Trail, Ron Du, Gabriella Venter, Baran Amiri, Rafa Zhao, Marcus Ismail, Ali Moshtagh Askari, Jacob Kong, Tyler Sanders, Avril An & Theo Chuah.

School Magazine

At BDS we celebrate the year at our kura with photos and stories in our school magazine. This is a wonderful summary of the school year and we know many of our whānau treasure this magazine. 

Purchase your 2023 Botany Downs School Magazine NOW!
Deadline December 1 (Week 8 Friday).

Order now:
Pay via Kindo OR BDS bank account number 12-3089-0059300-00 OR
pay at the school office by EFTPOS

School Magazine – $20

Teacher Only Day

A reminder that we have a Teacher Only Day coming up on Monday 13 November. Please note: sKids will be open on this day, please contact them if you require supervision for your child on that day.

Botany Downs sKids

Year 0-2 Curriculum Information session

On Wednesday 1 November(tomorrow), we will be holding a Junior Maths session.

This session does run alongside our current Bright Sparks programme and is held from 9:15 am – 10:15 am in the staffroom.

Please RSVP to Joanne at joanneh@botanydowns.school.nz if you are interested in attending tomorrow’s curriculum information session.

BDS Fun Run 

Room 2 enjoyed their free ice blocks last week to celebrate raising over $1000 as a class for our Fun Run Fundraiser. Rooms 23, 6, 17, 4, 13, and 10 are very close and will hopefully get free ice blocks this week. We hope every class can reach this target so let’s keep fundraising! 

If you haven’t signed up yet, please click on the link below:

Sign up for the Fun Run!

Senior School Athletics Day

On Thursday last week we held the senior school athletics for all our 8-11 year old students. We had a different format this year but everyone still took part in all the events and we had a great day. The results are as follows. From these results we will be choosing our team to take part in the HPPA athletics competition later this term.

Gumboot Friday – 3rd November

Gumboot Friday is an annual event that raises money for free youth counselling. The event also serves as a platform to raise awareness about mental health and provide support to those who may be struggling with their mental well-being.

To support Gumboot Friday, our Botany Downs School Councillors will be collecting gold coin donations on the hall deck from 8.30-9am on Friday 3rd November. It would be awesome to see as many children wearing their gumboots as possible to support this worthy cause. Our councillors are also running a colouring in competition with a prize for the best colouring for each year level. 

Gumboot Friday – 3rd November, Gold coin donation, wear your gumboots!

ICAS Results – MATHS

Congratulations to all the Year 5 and 6 students who took part in the ICAS Maths Assessment exam. We now have the results and certificates. These certificates will be handed out at the Year 5 and 6 team assemblies. Please see below for students who achieved some excellent results.

Year 5:
Merit (top 45% of participants): Shana Chen, April Clements-Goh, Gurpaveen Singh
Credit (top 35% of participants): Avril An, Felix Cao, Khrish Ranchhod, Harkirat Gill, Young Xu
High Distinction (top 1% of participants): Justin Qiao, Jay Kim

Year 6:
Merit (top 45% of participants): Rishi Biju, Chloe He, Cooper Jiang, Alicia Wang, Mollie Zhang, Vera Zuo
Credit (top 35% of participants): Muhammad Ahmad, Ruby Chen, Nathan Chiang, Dion Choi, Eric Guo, Ken Hoang, Jonathan Huang, Joseph Nong, Nathan Tan, Maxwell Yang
Distinction (top 10% of participants): Amelia Dellow, Duncan Luo, Victor Zhang

Children Turning Five – Enrolment 

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)

Fun and Learning @ BDS

Year 3 – Room 13 Inquiry: Animals and Their Habitats: In Room 13, we are loving learning about animals and how they adapt to survive in their habitats. We have been developing our research skills, and wrote information reports about our specific animals:

Sea Turtles
Sea turtles live in the Earth’s coldest oceans.

They eat jellyfish, plankton and fish.

They can hold their breath for 5 hours! They can lay 150 eggs at a time. They can weigh up to 181kgs! They have flippers and a shell and also a particle called magnetite. It is like a GPS but tracks food! It swims around with its flippers and even crdawls. 

Sea turtles are interesting creatures to look at.
By Dongju

Arctic Foxes
Arctic foxes are mammals. Arctic foxes have a thick coat, fur on their paws, and a thick tail. They can be white, brown or bluish grey. They stand one foot tall.

Arctic Foxes eat small animals from the snow, and wolves eat Arctic foxes.

They’re active all day long and do not hibernate.

Arctic foxes live in burrows.

Arctic foxes are warm blooded mammals.
By Sebastian

We are also creating an art piece inspired by our topic of Animals and their Habitats. We are focusing on blending pastels and will create a Camouflage Critter. Here are some finished ones – can you spot our camouflaged critters?

LIBRARY NEWS

COMMUNITY NOTICES

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