Newsletter – Week 10, Term 2 2024 – Botany Downs Primary School

Week 10, Term 2, 2024

Kia ora koutou Parents and BDS Whānau,

Last week, our kura celebrated Matariki. The morning began with a special performance by our amazing Kapa Haka group, with the front of the hall filled with our tamariki, whānau, and BDS staff. After the performance, our whānau explored the school to see the wonderful learning our tamariki have been doing over the last few weeks. The classrooms were vibrant and filled with incredible creations reflecting Māori culture. We sang waiata and ended the day with shared kai. We thank our dedicated staff and extend our thanks to our whānau for sharing this special occasion with us; and to our dedicated and talented kapa haka teacher Mrs Takaiti.

From all of us at BDS, we hope you had a wonderful long weekend, remembering the past and those who have passed on, celebrating the present, and enjoying time with whānau.

Ngā mihi o Matariki, te tau hou Māori!

Term 2 has been such a successful term. Our calendar has been full and our tamariki have been fully engaged in their learning and happily playing with their friends.

We wish you all a relaxing, happy time with your whānau during the school holidays.

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

Coming up @ BDS…

Wed 3 July – Learning Conversations: 3.20-7.40pm
Thurs 4 July – Learning Conversations: 3.20-5.10pm
Fri 5 July – Last Day of Term 2
Mon 22 July – First Day of Term 3

** click here to view more of the school calendar **

Holiday School Hours

School will close on Friday 5^th July and will
reopen Monday 22^nd July 2024.

During the holidays the office will be open for new enrolments from 9.00am until 01.00 pm on the following days, or email office@botanydowns.school.nz for an appointment or enrolment pack.

Thursday 18^th July 2024
Friday 19^th July 2024

SCHOOL NEWS

East Auckland Chess Championship

Well done to these amazing students for representing Botany Downs School in the East Auckland Primary Interschool Chess Championship this year. They showed great resilience and sportsmanship and had a wonderful time playing against their competitors.

Inspiring Our Students

The Year 5 and 6 students recently had a great talk from our own Wayne Johnson. He spoke to the students about the importance of being someone’s hero and the power of gratitude. The connection to our Mitey and mental health programmes was amazing. It was such a great message and our students loved the experience.

Basketball

Congratulations to the Botany Bears – for coming 7th out of 18 teams! Awesome work by the team and a special thanks to Coach Xu for the extra training sessions in the mornings and in the weekends!

If you would like to volunteer to coach a Girls’ Team and a Junior Basketball team, please get in touch with Mr Yoon (sojungy@botanydowns.school.nz). We are looking to grow our basketball community at BDS.

End-of-Term Certificates

Certificates will be presented at assembly on Friday morning.

Congratulations to: Anyi Wong, Hannah Binning, Finn Rossenbrand, Demi Tseng, Christiaan Meyer, Sachie Ogura, Remi Atrushi, Renee Li, Flynn Hodgson, Joy-Ellen Tokai, Angela Chen, Caelin Ramiah, Henil Tailor, Wynand Bloem, Isaac Sua, Hasrat Dhillon, Jay Kim, Aadhityaa Parthiban, Ruby Turner, Lily Hodgson, Wickus Botha, Chloe Jack & Jaiden Wang.

Fun & Learning @ BDS

Room 27, Year 3: Room 27 has completed beautiful peacock art.

We looked carefully at how to draw parts of a peacock and then planned them out on our paper with a pencil. From here we used black Sharpie to draw over the pencil and then we used pastel to colour the body and the feathers. Finally, we sprayed on green dye to give the effect of the peacock opening his feathers.

We love them!

Room 23, Year 5: Room 23 Blasts Off with Michael, Our Wonder Project Ambassador.

Michael has been working with us this term to build and fly our rockets for our Rocket Challenge. We learned about force, aerodynamics, and thrust. The rockets were made from soft drink bottles with water as fuel and we used a bike pump to build pressure. Thank you, Michael!

Year 3 ESOL Learning: After experiencing flying a kite to celebrate Matariki, students who attend ESOL did some fantastic descriptive writing. Check out the captions Curtis from Room 28 wrote:

Aryan’s magnificent pink kite is flying up in the sky.

My purple jellyfish kite is flying higher!

My friend’s pink jellyfish kite is gliding through the air.

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.