Newsletter – Week 8, Term 3 2023

Kia ora koutou BDS whānau,                                                                  Week 8, Term 3, 2023

Our House Day on Friday was a huge success with our tamariki having so much fun competing in their sporting activities. The weather certainly was perfect.  Thank you Mr Yoon and staff for organising such a wonderful event. We enjoyed seeing so many spectators in our school. 

At the recent HPPA netball day, our netball teams did exceptionally well.  Thank you to Miss Kirtlan for coaching our netball team and to the parents who accompanied our teams on the day. 

Please note, our school is supervised from 8.30 am in the morning and unfortunately, we are having an increasingly large number of students arriving before 8.30 am. Please send your child to school after 8.30 am. Thank you. 

The lock down practice went very well and we thank you for reading the communications around this so that it went smoothly.

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

Coming up @ BDS…

Wed 6 Sept – PTA Jester’s Pie Day
Thurs 7 Sept – HPPA Soccer Day 2
Tues 12 Sept – Kapa Haka Trip / The Kids Sing Choir Trip
Wed 13 Sept – No Uniform Day
Week 9 – Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori
Thurs 14 Sept – HPPA Netball Day 2 / Chinese Speech Competition
Fri 15 Sept – Cultural Dress Day and Shared Lunch
Wed 20 Sept – Cultural Performance Evening Yrs 0-3
Thurs 21 Sept – Cultural Performance Evening Yrs 4-6
Fri 22 Sept – Last Day of Term 3
Mon 9 Oct – First Day of Term 4

Important –
Correction to the Date for TOD in Term 4

We are still having our Teacher Only Day on Monday 13 November as stated in our school calendar. The date advised in last week’s newsletter was incorrect.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

SCHOOL NEWS

School Assembly Friday 9.10am

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 items will be from Room 12 and Room 18.

Our Capabilities

Congratulations to our following tamariki who have shown their Botany Best by displaying our Capabilities: Charlotte Walsh, Zahara Williams, Willow Cox, Vion Lee, Brody Tynan, Jack Berkett, Billie Turner, Ethan Du, Kairav Mahabir, Gemma Brealey, Chloe Morgan, Adalyn Cox, Daisy Huang, Kayde Herbert, Callum Budd, Chloe Walker, Kayla De Lange, Saket Andala, Harley Key, Sebastian Birchler, Tatum Budd, Schyler Daniels, Lycan McCord, Ethan Luo, Caelin Ramiah, Skyla-Lee Kretzmann & Siale Palalagi-Waru. 

Our Values

Congratulations to the following tamariki who have displayed our value of Whanaungatanga, Relationships: Lexi Tsai, Violet Liu, Chloe Jack, Sophia Cheah, Poppy Walker, Oliana Aoelua, Rosie Roberts, Cassia Grisselle, Elizabeth Valentine, Ayla Richards, Braxton Bills, Adam Hamayun, Olivia Huang, Nathan Tan, Liam Goldsmith, Kelso Merton, Lexi Storey, Enoch Liu, Wathsilu Paranagama, Damian Roberts, Zainab Ali, Gloria Wang, Liah Van Wyk, Rowena Luo, Kayla Fegen & Guoshen Ma.

Cultural Performance Evening Timetable

Please keep an eye out for permission forms coming home about our Cultural Performance Evenings. It is very important these are read, filled out, signed, and returned to our teachers!

*Please note: if your child is part of Kapa Haka, Choir, Orchestra, Dance, or Bucket Drummers you may stay in the hall to watch their performance.

Celebrate Tongan Language Week:
Sunday 3 – Saturday 9 September

The theme for Uike Lea Faka-Tonga 2023 is ‘E tu’uloa ‘a e Lea faka-Tongá ‘o ka lea’aki ‘i ‘api, siasí (lotú), mo e nofo-‘a-kāingá, which means the Tongan Language will be sustainable if used at home, church and in the wider community. 

The word TU’ULOA in the theme has a positive and progressive connotation and means to continuously grow, nurture, and sustain a valued idea, practice, event, or memory in an enduring way.

House Competition Day

On a beautiful sunny day, our school celebrated House Competition Day, drawing parents and whānau to witness the excitement. House Leaders, Councillors, and Ambassadors were out at the forefront helping the junior school and middle school games. It was great to see all our learners play hard, play fair, and have fun!

Kāhui Ako Professional Development Day

On Thursday our seven schools from the Howick Coast Kāhui Ako came together to learn from Dr Jana Benson. The focus of the day was student agency and learning design. It was a great day of professional development and connection.

A Kāhu Ako is: “A Community of Learning… a group of education and training providers that form around children and young people’s learning pathways, and work together to help them achieve their full potential.”(www.education.govt.nz).

The schools in our Kāhui Ako are: Howick College, Maraetai Beach School, Howick Intermediate, Clevedon School, Howick Primary, and Brookby Primary. You can find out more here: Howick Coast Kāhui Ako

Year 0-2 Curriculum Information Sessions

On Wednesday 6 September (tomorrow) we are presenting a Junior Literacy session for our Year 0-2 whānau.

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. There will also be time for discussion, and lots of questions of course!

On Wednesday 13 September we will be holding a Junior Maths session.

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

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

HPPA Netball

On Thursday 31 August,  we had two netball teams attend the HPPA Netball competition at Lloyd Elsmore Courts in Pakuranga. All of our students displayed great enthusiasm and sportsmanship. A big thank you to the parents who assisted with supervision and transportation. Another special mention to Kayla and Adi from Howick College for umpiring our two teams. It was definitely an amazing day!

Sophie Kirtlan, Netball Coordinator (sophiek@botanydowns.school.nz)

Student Success…

Congratulations to Mighael and Wiandre Nel who participated in the Kiwi Junior League Festival in Christchurch recently, playing for the Howick Hornets. Wiandre won MVP for the tournament match with Mighael being named in the Festival team and best and fairest player.

Congratulations boys! Thank you Mrs Nel for sharing the boys’ success with us.

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 24 created some amazing art on the Matariki stars and also learned information on each star.

ESOL: Students have been learning to share basic information about themselves, including information about their family and where they come from.  In our ESOL groups we read Ko Wai Au? Who Am I? which is a New Zealand book that has been created to promote unity, diversity, and inclusion.  Then we brainstormed key words about ourselves and our cultures.  We wrote sentences or paragraphs and edited them before designing our own posters to proudly answer the question Ko Wai Au? Who Am I?  Thank you to the parents who supported this project by sending in photos.

Kate Keenan, ESOL Teacher (katek@botanydowns.school.nz)

Rex, Year 3

Leo, Year 3

LIBRARY NEWS

The Rugby World Cup kicks off this weekend in France. Go the mighty All Blacks!

Wally has been found at the library!

COMMUNITY NOTICES

Skids Botany is now also offering Active sessions.
Please fill in and return the attached survey form below to book in. 

Jazz School, School Holiday Big Band workshop

This will be an exciting three-day school holiday workshop where Year 6, 7, and 8 students will learn to play in a Jazz Big Band and then perform a concert for family and friends on the final afternoon.

The Big Band is for Saxophone, Trumpet, Trombone, and Clarinet players plus Electric Guitar, Piano, Bass, and Drums. The music we play will range from jazz standards to modern pop classics with an emphasis on having fun while producing music at a high standard. This workshop will be run by Drew Hutchinson.

Students must be playing at grade 2 level or higher, or have had two years of lessons. The workshop is on October 4, 5 and 6 from 9am – 3pm at Remuera Primary School, 25 Dromorne Road, Remuera. 

To register for the workshop please visit jazzschool.co.nz or email jnrjazzschool@gmail.com for more information.

Feedback from previous workshops: “I cannot tell how much we enjoyed your workshop on so many levels; watching our child’s confidence grow, making new friends, the location and of course the music was fantastic”.

Love Tennis Open Day –

Bucklands Beach Tennis Club

Tennis NZ’s annual Love Tennis event sees tennis clubs around the country open their doors and courts for members of their community to come along and give tennis a go… for FREE!!

Sunday 10 September

With activities for all ages including coaching sessions and court play, mini-games, giveaways, BBQs and much, much more, there’s so many reasons to come along and give tennis a go!

Colour in and take along the below pic to collect a prize:

Love Tennis Info – 10 Sept / Bucklands Beach Tennis Club 

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