Newsletter – Week 1, Term 2 2024 – Botany Downs Primary School

Week 1, Term 2, 2024

Kia ora koutou Parents and BDS Whānau,

Welcome back to school for Term 2, and a very warm welcome to our new families that have joined our Botany Downs School community. We hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday.

It has been busy in the holidays with many things happening with our school property. We are finally able to have all three Year 6 classes on the top floor of our new building. Two of our portacoms have gone and we have fully renovated Room 14, Room 15, the ESOL room and the staffroom. Our haul road and two concrete paths will be worked on during the first week of the term.

This has provided us with an opportunity to renumber our classrooms so that they are in numerical order and also to include Room 5 which we have never had.

All teachers and students are in the same room as at the start of Term 2 but their room numbers may have changed. The new room numbers will be sent out in a separate email.

Please ensure that you continue to look out for all communication from us as we have an exciting and busy term ahead.

School Communication:

Newsletters are emailed out each Tuesday and uploaded to our website for use with Google Translate.
Newsletters are uploaded to our school app.
Year group (Team) newsletters are emailed to you in the first week of each term.
Reminders will be sent out on our school app.
The School calendar is on our website and is continually updated.
WeChat is available for our Mandarin speakers.
BDS Facebook page for celebrating success.

Attendance:

Attendance has been identified as one of the greatest influences on students’ achievement, engagement and well-being. During Term 1 we met Ministry target and had 90% overall attendance at BDS.

Well done to our community for valuing attendance and education so highly.

Please continue to let us know if your child will be absent by:

Emailing absences@botanydowns.school.nz.
Phoning (09) 534 9848 and leaving a message.
Using the school app.
Please state your name, your child’s name, their room number and the reason for their absence.

This table from the MoE represents the impact of non-attendance during your child’s time at school.

1 or 2 Days a week doesn’t seem like much but….

If your child misses…	Over their 13 years of schooling, that’s…
1 day every 2 weeks	Nearly 1.5 years
1 day per week	Over 2.5 years of school missed
2 days per week	Over 5 years of schooling missed
3 days per week	Nearly 8 years of schooling missed

I look forward to connecting with you all at the various events that we are planning this term.

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

Coming up @ BDS…

Week 2 – Book Week
Fri 10 May – Book Character Dress-Up Day
Tues 21 May – HPPA Netball Day
Wed 22 May – PhotoLife Class & Individual Photos
Thurs 23 May – PhotoLife Sibling Photos
Fri 24 May – HPPA Rugby Day 1
Sun 26 May – PTA Bricks, Books and Bake Sale
Tues 28 – HPPA Netball Day 2
Wed 29 May – HPPA Girls Soccer Day 1
Fri 31 May – Teacher Only 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. This week our items will be our Year 3-6 Dance group, our Year 5 Camp Video, and Swimming Certificates will also be presented. There are no Botany Best or Values awards this week.

Botany Values and Capabilities

Our BDS Values: at Botany Downs School we “live” by these four Values.
Our focus value for the first half of Term 2 is:

Our Capabilities: these capabilities represent the skills and knowledge for our ākonga to achieve success as they grow. These capabilities weave through all our learning areas.

Winter School Uniform – Reminders…

Please name all uniform items.
Bring a named drink bottle.
Lost Property is outside Room 1.

Find more information about our winter uniform on the school website here.

New uniform items can be purchased from John Russell Schoolwear, 9 Moore Street, Howick: BDS Uniform at John Russell Schoolwear

Book Week – Next Week!

Special Guest Authors – We are excited to welcome two award-winning New Zealand children’s authors to our school for Book Week:

Heather Haylock – special guest for Years 1-3

Anne Kayes – special guest for Years 4-6

Book Character Dress-up Day – The last day of Book Week is a celebration of our favourite book characters. Get your thinking hats on – who will you dress up as this year? Please remember that a costume doesn’t have to be expensive or bought from the store – get creative! The following links might give you just the inspiration you are looking for:

30 Last Minute World Book Day costumes to make without a needle:
www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/30-last-minute-world-book-10976213

82 Last minute easy World Book costumes: www.madeformums.com/toddler-and-preschool/last-minute-easy-world-book-day-costumes/

38 Best Book Character Costumes That Are Easy to DIY:
www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/halloween-ideas/g22127013/book-character-costumes/

Scholastic Book Fair – A ‘pop-up book store’ in the library with a wide range of exciting books and stationery for all ages and interests.

Open Mon-Fri morning 8.30-9.00am.
Open Mon-Thurs afternoon 2.30-3.30pm.
Payment by EFTPOS or cash.
Every purchase made helps to provide the school with books and resources for the library and classrooms – thank you for your support!

PLUS: Te Hikoi Korero Storywalk, fun lunchtime activities, competitions, and classroom activities!

Help!

Does anyone have a suitable drone and could come to school to operate it to take a very cool photo during Book Week? Please contact Joanne Hughson joanneh@botanydowns.school.nz if you can help. Thank you!

A Peek Inside Our New Classrooms!

Lego ‘Mini Figure’ Donations Request

Miss Heath, our Learning Support Coordinator, is requesting that if there are whānau with Lego ‘mini-figures’ that are no longer needed at home, we would be very grateful for any donations.

Please send them to the school office or directly to the LSC office. Thank you.

Susan Heath, Learning Support Coordinator (susanh@botanydowns.school.nz)

Road Patrol Supervisors Needed

Road Patrol is a valuable asset to our school community and we appreciate the Year 6 students and supervisors who currently help us.

However, we need more adult volunteers! If you are available from 8.15-9.00am in the mornings and/or 2.50-3.15pm in the afternoons we would love your help. You don’t have to be a parent of a Road Patroller (we currently have 2 adults who don’t have Year 6 children and a grandparent of a Road Patroller).

Please consider helping our school community by emailing Kylee Holmes (Room 4): kyleeh@botanydowns.school.nz with your availability. We have spaces needing to be filled on Tuesday and Friday mornings and Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Thank you.

PTA Notices…

Friday 3rd May – Second Hand Uniform Sale, 2.45pm – 3.30pm

This will be held under the junior canopy.
If you have any uniforms to donate please drop them into the pink box in the school office before this date.

Bricks Show, Books and Baking Fundraiser: Sunday 26th May, 10am – 3pm

A notice will be coming home this week. Please return the slip to your class teacher, if you have not already done so, by Tuesday 7th May if you are able to help on the day, or would like to provide baking.
Book and raffle donations will continue to be accepted daily outside the hall until Friday 17th May.
Tickets are now available to pre-purchase via Kindo.
Find the event on Facebook here.

ANZAC Assembly

On Thursday 11th April, we held our own special ANZAC assembly. As House Leaders Aarvi and Ian led the assembly so confidently and Ella from Year 3 read the Ode poem beautifully. Mr Dean Clisby from the Howick RSA also said a few words to our tamariki and Evelyn and Megan from Howick Intermediate read their amazing ANZAC stories to us. Mr Bruce Hughson played the Last Post and Reveille on his cornet and then wreaths made by each class were laid around the flagpole.

Lest We Forget.

Wacky Wednesday No Uniform Day

Fun & Learning @ BDS

Year 3, Room 22: Room 22 has been investigating what life would have been like for the ANZAC soldiers living in the Gallipoli trenches. We used our five senses (see, smell, touch, taste, and hear) to unpack how we would have felt if we were one of the soldiers. We then took our ideas and turned them into letters, as though we were writing them in the trenches ourselves.

After we had finished writing, we used cold coffee to dye our letters so that they looked old and worn.

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.