Newsletter Issue 3

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

The past couple of weeks have been busy, with much happening around the school to realise our vision of 'Igniting Learning, Empowering Learners'.

E tipu e ako - Where Learning Grows

Matt Richards (Village Robot) is continuing to work with our hubs on digital ways to 'tell our stories' - the focus of this term's learning. There are hubs working on murals for the school that share student's perspectives about what makes the school special, hubs 'green screening' their presentations and hubs learning about where the animals they will see at the zoo come from.

Our Kapa Haka, Choir and lunchtime Art Club are offering opportunities for students to fulfill their passions and our student leaders are taking care of their peers either through their work in the Library (see Milan with her Bronze Librarian Award), through supporting interactions in the playground at the Peer Mediation Station, through their service to the school as Tech Ninjas, Road Patrollers, Gardeners or deciding where their hard earned funds will go (Student Council).

In the meantime, we have been celebrating our students in the areas in which they excel.

Last Wednesday I was joined for morning tea by our hub leaders from Term 1 and 2 to thank them for the way they set an example to others by demonstrating our school values every day. Although some students missed this due to a miscommunication, we will hold this event termly so the end of the term will see our Term 3 leaders acknowledged, along with any 'catch ups' from this round.

Our academically strong Year 4-6 students have been challenging themselves with the ICAS assessments in Writing, Science, Maths and English (Reading) over the past few weeks and a small group of Hub 5 students have been engaging in the five Otago Mathematical Problem Solving Challenges. These challenges are predominantly aimed at Year 7 and 8, so it is inspiring to see the confidence and resilience demonstrated by our students in tackling them.

On the sporting front, it was exciting to see our 15 swimmers giving their all at the Northern Zone Swimming event in Kilbirnie on Friday. They were confident, gave each race their best and supported each other - we are so proud of our students at events like these. Now we wait in anticipation for the results!

MoE School Planning & Reporting

The learning continues for our staff also!

I attended sessions last week about the 'new' planning and reporting requirements for schools that are in effect from 2024. Our Board has begun looking at these. Although the requirements now make explicit the need to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi and seek whānau and community voice in an ongoing way, it is useful to note that our school (as do many others) already has established practices for many of the requirements. We are now focused on how we can build on these and make sense of them in the way that works best for our unique community. Once again, this is why we encourage you to have your say in our Growing Community Conversations (see below).

Responding to Ākonga Distress - Staff Training

Following on from the Understanding Behaviour Responding Safely training that our team completed last year, this week's staff meeting saw all our teaching and learning staff completing the 'Physical Restraint - Understanding the new rules and guidelines' training module. For more information about this, including access to the new rules and guidelines, follow this link. Our SchoolDocs policies and procedures (accessed using the button below - username bellevue-newlands, password 'grow') have been updated to reflect these - you can find these by searching 'restraint'.

Supporting Our English Language Learners

Over the course of the year with the support of our Deputy Principal/SENCO Deeann Daniels and our Learning Support Coordinator, Sue Campbell, we have refined how we assess and plan for the learning of our students who are learning English, in addition to their own first language. With an increasing number of students joining our school from overseas, providing the best support to these tamariki is a priority for us. Last week's staff meeting gave our kaiako tips, tools, templates and time to plan for the needs of the students in their hub.

Property Update

The weathertightness remediation and staffroom/administration improvement work continues. The good news is that much of the work that impacts our school - water, electrical, transporting a large steel beam onto site - has now been completed. The not so good news is that the timeline has now been extended into the early weeks of Term 4. Our team continue to manage positively in the limited spaces, with portable toilets and with no staffroom, but the completion date is certainly the 'prize' on which we keep our eyes!

Growing Community Conversations - Last week to share your thoughts!

We are excited to say that since last week we have now 23 responses to our Community Conversations online survey. This is still only 8% or our community.

Of course, this is not the only avenue for hearing from you. We are listening in our new parent meetings, our hui, three way conferences, whānau meetings and individual education plan meetings (to name a few), but we are still hoping to hear from more of you - what is working well, what is not, and what our community would like to see next for their school before Friday 1 September.

Please take 15 minutes to complete the form https://forms.gle/5aEorianaYjGtkBf9 (hard copies also available at the school office). If digital is not your preference, we encourage you to have a kōrero with one of our team (please let them know that you wish your thoughts to be captured) OR catch us in the playground or drop an email. Equally, if there is a better way to seek your voice, please let us know.

PB4L Information Evening

A reminder to come along to our Positive Behaviour For Learning (PB4L) community information evening next Wednesday 30 August. This is an opportunity to hear about our journey as a school in supporting positive behaviour and therefore a settled learning environment. This will also be a face to face opportunity to share your thoughts on our school direction before the Board begin to collate the themes in early September.

Newlands Intermediate Enrolments - Final week!

For our families with children in Year 6 a final reminder that the enrolments close next week on 31st August.

Daffodil Day This Friday (25 August) - Support the Cancer Society

Although Bellevue is not doing a specific event for Daffodil Day this year, if you would like to donate to this worthy cause you can do so here - https://daffodilday.org.nz/donate

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.

Ngā mihi mui

Annette

Haere mai ki te kura o Bellevue. Welcome to the following student and their whānau. It is great to have you in our Bellevue Learning Community.

Jackson in Room 3.

Thank you to the incredible families who continue to brave the winter weather to support our Road Patrol team. We appreciate the way that you model our school values of Empathy, Integrity and Resilience - especially the latter! - as you support our team rain or shine.

Thank you to Vaughn and the building team for keeping aside all the ‘valuable materials’ that we can use in our hubs. Hub 1 made lovely creations using the off cut pieces of treated wood.

It is less than a month until this important school event.

Following the newsletter today, the first of two letters outlining what you need to know for our whole school emergency evacuation and reunification practice will come home. An image is included below.

Please read this carefully and, if required, be sure to check in with the office about your emergency contacts (which you have recently had home for updates) before Friday 1 September.

You will understand that there is a great deal of preparation that goes into making this practice as safe and streamlined as possible so we appreciate your assistance with timely contact.

Finally, we do understand that this practice creates an interruption in the busy lives of our community and so we thank you for your support and understanding.

There are occasions for all of us when our children ask to view something, talk about something in the media, or wish to have access to a platform we may not be too familiar with. Common Sense Media (click text for link) is designed just for this purpose. They provide reviews of games, movies, apps, etc that your child may be talking about in a 'no nonsense' quick-to-read format that balances the pros and cons , providing useful information to guide decisions you may need to make about your child's online activity. Well worth a look.

Parent By-Election Results Declaration

Parent representative votes:

Name Votes

Silverwood, Jeff 42

Tiwari, Raj 6

Invalid Votes 0

I hereby declare the following duly elected:

Name: Silverwood, Jeff

Signed, Amanda Beauchamp, Returning Officer

We encourage you to enrol your preschoolers as soon as they turn 4. This assists with future planning for our kura and classes. Out of zone enrolment applications close approximately six months prior to commencement date so it is important to submit these early to ensure you are in the ballot. We accept up to five out of zone new entrant applications per term.

Important information about the Bellevue School enrolment scheme (zone)

If you have preschoolers at home that you are planning to enrol at Bellevue School in the future, here are a few important things to know and put into action:

1. If you are living outside of the Bellevue School enrolment zone, then your preschooler(s) will need to be processed as an out of zone application. Please let us know, if you haven’t already, of any future enrolments at Bellevue School from your family. It helps greatly with our planning to know well in advance. And if we know then we can also prompt you as to when you need to get your out of zone application in.

2. It is very important that out of zone applications are received by the application deadline of Friday 22 September 2023, for enrolment for term 1 2024, from Saturday 16 December 2023 to Friday 12 April 2024. We cannot accept any out of zone applications if they are not received by the deadline advertised for the enrolment period your child is due to start school in. The deadline can sometimes be up to six months prior to your child actually starting school.

3. Even if your preschooler(s) are in zone, please get your enrolment in to us as soon as possible to enable us to plan ahead. We need this information to be able to work out how many out of zone applications we can accept in each enrolment period.

If you have any questions or are unsure about anything, please call the school office and talk to Amanda.

You are invited to our PB4L Whānau Evening - Please RSVP using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/2Ruf58iuaHgrMDdKA

A big THANK YOU to our student council for organising this event and to our community for supporting our Term 2 Wacky Hair Day.

Oscar is working to complete his librarian's Silver Award. One of the tasks is to plan some activities to encourage students to come into the library during their break times.

On Tuesday he organised activities to highlight 'International Left Handers Day' which is acknowledged every year on August 13th.

It was funny to see all the 'righties' tackling tasks as a 'leftie'.

We even did 'High 5's' leftie style.

Mission accomplished Oscar. Ka pai!

The Navigating the Journey resource which our school uses to guide our Health and Sexuality learning is created by Family Planning. When we are working in our usual office situation, this is available to all families in hard copy to take a look at in the office. (We are unable to put this online due to copyright). During the construction work, if you wish to view this, please get in touch and we will make hard copy material available.

Family Planning provided the following helpful information to address some of the misinformation that has been circulating:

Relationships and sexuality education has been in the news a bit lately, and there seems to be some misunderstanding about what it is and isn’t, how parents are involved in teaching these issues, and why this is important learning for young people.

Family Planning is the largest provider of resources and support to teachers and schools to teach relationships and sexuality education, so we know the issues well. We’ve created some resources about relationships and sexuality education that may be helpful.

Relationships and sexuality education – what is it, really?

Relationships and sexuality education – FAQs

Parents and caregivers may like to discuss these documents together at home.

The Writing Corner on the school website has been updated with some amazing writing from across the school. Check it out to see what amazing writers we have here at Bellevue!

Our Peer Mediators have been busy supporting tamariki during lunch time play this term. Whilst on duty, they also look for children living our school's values and award them 'Values Vouchers' that go into a draw. Every so often throughout the term a voucher from each hub is drawn and the lucky student gets to visit Annette for a prize to acknowledge their mahi!

Congratulations to the following students:

Hub 1 - Evita

Hub 2 - Willow

Hub 3 - Lara

Hub 4 - Issy

Hub 5 - Charlotte K

Northern Zone Swim Sports

Congratulations to all of the Year 4-6 swimmers who took part in Northern Zone Swim Sports on Friday 18 August. You all lived our school values of Integrity and Resilience, as well as giving it your absolute all! Thank you to all of the whānau who came along and supported on the day as well, you helped the event run smoothly and efficiently!

Miniball Results

14 -15 August:

Thunder won 38-19 against Westpark Rockets. Player of the Day - Caleb

Hurricanes won 22-13 against Crofton downs Tora. Players of the Day - Theo & Bryce

Lightnings lost 28-63 against Paparangi Pitbulls. Player of the Day - Ethan

Storm lost 60-8 against Johnsonville Tigers. Players of the Day - Ayva & Molly

21 - 22 August:

Thunder won 38-19 against Crofton Downs Toroa. Player of the Day - Milo

Hurricanes lost 19-39 against Cashmere Clippers. Players of the Day - Omkar & Lara

Lightnings won 54-13 against Redwood Celtics. Player of the Day - Benji

Storm won 42-24 against Ngaio Sharks. Players of the Day - Jett & Benji

The Bee Healthy Dental Van was due to visit our school in Term 4, but due to a number of School Events happening in Term 4 this has been postponed until Term 1 2024. A date has yet to be confirmed. If you have any concerns about your child's dental health or need to make an appointment please contact the Dental Hub on 0800 825583.

Next week is the last week of collecting Yummy apple stickers or bag labels. We will be sending them in to claim our share of $200,000 worth of sports gear! If you have any lying around at home please make sure your child hands them to their whānau teacher by Friday 1 September.

Kia Ora Bellevue Whanau!

A short and sweet update from your FUNdraisers Committee this week.

Our meeting is scheduled now for this Thursday, 24 August at 7pm, via Google Meet.

We will update on all our initiatives in the next newsletter, or if anything more pressing needs

communicating, then via the Facebook group!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FUNdraisersBellevueNewlands/

Can you help us? FUNdraisers Committee Meetings

Our little team of 5 need more support – WE NEED YOU!

Gosh do we LOVE to bring the FUN to our kids with events through the year, and we have some really interesting ideas we would like to bring to the school. We however don’t have quite enough resources to make it all work. Do you have some of that elusive ‘spare time’ and would you like to give back to our cool school? If so…

Our next committee meeting is scheduled for 7pm on 24 August 2023, via Google Meet. Please email for invite information to join the meeting. We hope to see you there! Or get in touch with Rebecca:

fundraisers@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Goodtime Music Academy at Bellevue School - Enrol Now!

Goodtime Music Academy are taking enrolments for in-school music lessons now. If you want your child to be a part of these award winning music lessons, and want to be a part of their new curriculum and performing opportunities, then in-school lessons may be the solution for you. Learn in a group setting, and choose between Drums, Guitar, Keyboard, Ukulele. Or try their 'Intro to Music' course. Please visit www.goodtimemusicacademy.co.nz/learn-at-school to enrol and enquire. You can also call them on 04 568 2237. Spaces are limited so get in quick!

Please follow this link to find information in your language - https://vote.nz/

Thursday 24 August

ICAS Science Assessment

FUNdraisers Meeting, 7.00pm - Google meet

Friday 25 August

Hearing /Vision Technician visiting school

Whakawhanaungatanga Friday 1.30-2.45pm

Wednesday 30 August

Positive Behaviour for Learning Information Evening 6.30pm - 7.30pm

Thursday 31 August

ICAS Maths Assessment

Newlands Intermediate enrolments close for 2024

Wednesday 6 September

BOT Meeting - 6.30pm - 8.30pm

Thursday 7 September

Whole School Circus Challenge

Monday 11 September

Highnotes Choir performance at the Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 14 September

Pōwhiri to welcome new students - 10.40am

Friday 15 September

Road Patrol Orange Day Parade

El Gregoe School Show

Whole School Emergency Evacuation Practice

Friday 22 September

Last day of Term 3

Monday 9 October

First day of Term 4

Monday 23 October

Labour Day - School closed

Tuesday 24 October

Teacher Only Day for NZC Refresh - School closed