Kia ora, Nameste, Talofa, Konnichiwa, Guten Tag, Gidday, Vannakkam, ni Hao, Kia orana, Hola, Salam, Sa wat deekha, Dia Dhuit, Goeie Dag, Bonjour, Καλημέρα, Greetings everyone
Thank you for your consideration of our team in the car park!
Today we have the pohutakawas on the jubilee path being tidied up as well as the ongoing construction project. For today and tomorrow staff have parked in the (closed) middle school playground, but the team have commented on the increased ease of using the limited spaces in the car park since the communications from Kapai Kids and the school a couple of weeks ago. We appreciate our families finding alternative ways or times to drop off their children while the school is under construction.
Winter Blues
It is that time of year where sickness is taking its toll on school staff. We have had a number of our teachers and teacher aides away (some for extended periods) over the last couple of weeks. We are very fortunate to have a few trusted and reliable teachers who we can rely on to cover in these situations, but at times there is a need for more than a few and relievers are hard to come by. Our Bellevue team does their utmost to keep things consistent at school and minimise the impact to learning, but there are times when your child may talk to you about their teacher being away, or we need to offer an alternative programme to allow us to support more students when staffing is short. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through the 'winter blues'!
Disco Fundraiser
The Deep Ocean Disco on 1 June was a huge success and raised $1409.85!
Thank you to the student council and Deeann Daniels for the massive amount of work that went into organsing this and to our staff who all pitch in (and have a wee boogie too!) on the night.
Now the student council will begin deliberations about what they will use this for to improve our school.
We also appreciate our families respecting the need to remain outside the hall so the students have enough space to move. We hope you got to enjoy a cuppa and a biscuit if you stayed.
As always there are some refinements (particularly around connecting children with their parents at the end of the night) that we will work on for next time!
Professional Learning Day 2 June
Our whole staff had a wonderful day at the Te Korowai ō Horokiwi Cluster Professional Learning Day on Friday 2 June. Throughout the day, staff attended a range of workshops where leaders from each school shared examples of best teaching and learning practice. We also enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about the New Zealand curriculum refresh from MoE curriculum leads , along with colleagues who are part of our cluster. These days are so important to ensure our staff continue their professional development, gain new ideas and strengthen professional networks that have a positive impact in their own classrooms. Thank you for your support.
Pohutakawa Removal and Deadwooding
As a result of the removal of three of our very unwell Pohutakawa trees (two by the gate and one from above the car park) and the deadwooding of the remaining trees, from Friday 16 June there will be a stock of firewood to the left of the jubilee path at the Bancroft Street entrance to the school. Families are welcome to help themselves to this, providing the pile is left tidy and clear of the path.
If you do, you may wish to koha the school. Any koha recieved will be used for learning resources for all of our tamariki.
Property Update
Asbestos removal complete, the team from Niche are continuing to forge ahead with the weathertightness and administration block improvement work. A reminder that we anticipate this work will continue throughout Term 3 also, but we hope it will be worth it to greet families in a fresh new space (and not to have rain coming into the office!)
New Dates to Note
There are a couple of new dates to note in the list below:
- The second teacher only day allocated by the Ministry for responding to the refresh of the New Zealand Curriculum will be on Tuesday 24 October. This is the Tuesday directly following the Labour Day weekend with Monday as a holiday and has been coordinated with our cluster schools in the hopes of minimising the impact on our families.
- We also have a tentative date for our hui for our whānau Māori - Thursday 27 July. As our numbers of whānau Māori are not huge, every voice counts. If you are keen to be a part of this, but not able to attend this session, or just want to know more please get in touch with Annette at principal@bellevue-newlands.school.nz (or by popping in!) as soon as possible. An invite will come out to our whānau Māori nearer the time with more details.
Coming up
Over the next two weeks we have a number of exciting events coming up. This Friday I am looking forward to attending the Year 4-6 swimming sports oragnised by our Sports leader Cassie in the morning. On Monday 19 June all hubs are timetabled to visit Pukehuia Park at some point to celebrate reaching 5000 Dojo points (Dojo is our positive behaviour acknowledgment system)! Ka rawe tamariki mā! Then on Tuesday 20 June our Northern Zone Hockey team are off to compete against other schools. We wish all our students competing in these events the best of luck and know they will represent our school with Aroha!
Conversations to Inform Future School Planning
2023 is the final year of our three year strategic plan for Bellevue. This means it is timely to start conversations with our community about how we have gone with our school goals, what is working well, what is not, and what our community would like to see next for their school. All the information gathered will be used to identify key themes which will be shared back with you to check we have understood before informing our next round of strategic planning.
These conversations will begin next week in the form of a digital form sent home to families or available hard copy from the office. It is our aim to provide multiple opportunities, mechanisms and avenues for you to share your thoughts - of which the digital form is just one. For this reason, this process will run throughout July and August, during which time we encourage you to get involved.
You may wish to stop by one of our 'conversation stations' at Matariki or one of our family evenings, have a kōrero with one of our team (please let them know that you wish your thoughts to be captured), complete the online form, catch us in the playground or drop an email. Whatever you choose, we look forward to hearing your thinking!
Advance Notice
As you are aware, 15 September is the date for our annual whole school evacuation and reunification practice. In preparation for this we ask all families to make sure their emergency contacts are up to date. We intend to send your existing emergency contacts home for you to review in the first two weeks of next term. We are letting you know now and will remind you in our final newsletter for the term so you can begin considering this.
Just For Fun
I thought you may also enjoy the photo below from my playground walk today. I came across these students at the bottom of the slide pretending to be unicorns! I promised I would pop this in the newsletter. What a wonderful celebration of the imagination on a damp winters day - really made me smile.
Finally a reminder that our fortnightly newsletters can also be found on our Bellevue Website - scroll down to view 'previous Bellevue Newsletters' - and for more timely updates, you could follow our closed group Bellevue Facebook Page, if you are not already.
Nāku noa, nā
Annette
