Newsletter Issue 4

Kia ora, Nameste, Talofa, Konnichiwa, Guten Tag, Gidday, Vannakkam, ni Hao, Kia orana, Hola, Salam, Sa wat deekha, Dia Dhuit, Goeie Dag, Bonjour, Καλημέρα, Mālō e lelei, Greetings everyone

Last Newsletter - Today - School Closes Tuesday 17 December at 12.30pm

It seems very strange to be writing the last newsletter with so many big events to come but as everything in school accelerates towards Christmas it is a good opportunity for some thanks, celebrations and reminders. Next week will see the Important Dates come out to families with any last minute updates if required. Also a reminder that this newsletter usually extends beyond what you can see in the email - we suggest clicking the page to open the full newsletter in a browser/on your phone so that you do not miss all the good stuff!

Great Things Going On!

The last two weeks have been jam packed with exciting events. Hub 3 have had a couple of visits from a photographer, they have a trip booked to Aku Tangi sports centre and the Royal New Zealand Ballet visiting next week for workshops. Swimming has come to an end for all Hubs (except our Year 0-2 students who have next week too), the Year 6 group have been enjoying Pukehuia Park and an orientation at the intermediate, we had a wonderful morning of ‘giving back’ with the Wellington Breeze ‘Pack the Bus’ visit last Tuesday, our Deputy Principals have been exploring the refreshed Maths curriculum as a foundation for our wider team’s learning in 2025 at the Wellington North Maths Cluster and we have welcomed our new students and families! Last Friday’s opening of Phase 1 of the Senior Playground development was a small but very special event with our Year 3 and 5 students and a slimmed down Kapa Haka group, who with the support of Whaea Jayjay, performed for us, This was a great opportunity also to acknowledge all those wider community members who had been so involved in helping make this happen.

And there is more to come. Today we enjoyed thanking all our helpers who could make it (just a tiny portion of all those who support our school) at our ‘Helpers Morning Tea’ and we are looking forward to burning off the baking at our fun run event on Friday. Next week’s events include our Year 4-6 presentations assembly to thank students for all their leadership across the school, our Three Way Conferences, the Christmas bake sale and the ‘Meet your new Teacher’ visit for the children. Our final event for the term is the final assembly for our Year 4-6 students, which will be held in the school hall on Tuesday 17 December at 10.30. It will be a little ‘cosy’ but a very important time to thank and farewell our Year 6 leaders for 2024 and those families whose children are in their final year with us, many of whom have been connected with the school for many years.

Term 4 Pōwhiri

A wonderful welcome was held for our new students and families to the school last Thursday. We thank Nadine Dechapunya, Jane McCauley, Tessa Finnigan and Whaea Jayjay for all their mahi with our wonderful Kapa Haka group to prepare to greet our new families in style and we look forward to working alongside our new families.

End of Year Report PDF and Class Placement Information - Update & Error Correction

In the last newsletter we outlined the end of year information that would be coming home. This included an error (corrected here in bold) and we also wish to provide an update.

Update: All our families have different priorities in regard to the information they wish to receive about their child’s learning. We also recognise that families may want the flexibility to download or view only their child’s reporting posts at any time during the year, or over several years, not only at the end of the year.

To help with this, rather than send home a PDF of your child’s reporting for the year via email, we include in this newsletter a ‘Cheat Sheet/ Help Sheet’ outlining how you can view or download this for yourselves via the Seesaw family app. You can find this HERE. In the future this will mean that our Year 6 leavers will be able to download their entire reporting journey at Bellevue should they wish to.

This information will also be posted on your child’s Seesaw page next week but we wish to give you advance notice in case you wish to download the reporting (which will be complete by the end of this week) prior to attending the Three way Conferences on 11-12 December. Note that we recommend downloading your child’s portfolio prior to the end of January if you wish to only capture 2025’s posts.

Error correction: On Friday 13 December you will receive your child’s class placement and stationery list but Friday 13 December is also the date of the students visiting their new classes and teachers - NOT Monday 16 December.

Reporting to Families Information Evening - Advance Notice

This year has seen many changes to the way in which we share information that informs learning with our families and, although we will continue with this approach in 2025, there are a few refinements yet to come. To strengthen our learning partnerships with families, we would like to invite you to an information evening outlining the ‘How’ and the ‘Why’ of our reporting processes early in 2025. Please mark Tuesday 18 February at 6pm in your diaries to join us for this event. Reminders will come out early in 2025.

Staff News

At the end of this term, we farewell our wonderful teacher aide Keegan Harris after four years with the school. Keegan has been a huge support to our team - both adults and students alike and he will be missed. In his ‘other life’ Keegan has been studying Educational Psychology and, having completed his studies he is heading off to explore his ‘what next’ so we thank him for his service to Bellevue and wish him all the best for his next adventure.

New toilets outside Room 5/6

With all the construction projects taking place at school the signage on the new toilets outside Room 5 and 6 has ‘slipped through the cracks’. These new toilets remain boys toilets as they were previously. These are not unisex toilets, although this is what the current signs would indicate. We are clarifying this with the students currently. The junior girls toilets are outside Room 2 and the boys toilets outside Room 5/6.

Thank yous

We recognise how blessed we are as a school community because there are so many people to thank for their contribution to the school!

Our Board:

This is the behind the scenes mahi that, though deeply important, is seldom seen. The Board are all skilled (and therefore busy) people in their own lives who, nevertheless, give up their time every month (at least and frequently in between) to stay up to date with what is going on in the school, monitor progress towards our school goals and make important decisions, always driven by providing the best conditions possible for all our students and their families.

Our Whānau:

You are pivotal to the success of so many of our school events and initiatives. You offer your time as volunteers, to give feedback, to raise funds, tidy up our school, and keep our team going with positive messages or even treats! Thank you for being ‘the village’ behind the success of our children.

We encourage you to continue to engage with your school in whatever way works for you in 2025 as there is great power in partnerships between school, families and community.

To our FUNdraisers:

Thank you for keeping the fun in all our fundraising events, involving the students and all that you have provided the school this year. Every day we see students benefit from the resources, treats or opportunities that you have provided in the school and we want to acknowledge the time, energy and innovative ideas that each of you bring to the table and recognise the commitment it takes to make great things happen around here!

To our school staff:

This year has been a tough year on the sickness front. You have embodied the values of our school as you have relentlessly strived to provide consistency for our students through staffing challenges and the many changes in the educational landscape we are facing. You continue to provide creative innovative learning opportunities for the students that build on their interests and passions. You care deeply about each and every one of our learners, investing your time and energy into changing the environment as needed to cater for their needs. Those of you who are not in the classroom provide the layers of support to those that are - so that everyone is taken care of. Thank you for the Aroha you show in all that you do - it is an honour to work alongside you.

Year 6 Leavers

You have led our school in so many ways this year through our contributions in leadership roles, LOTS of baking, improving the school grounds, being role models for younger students and leaving the legacy of your voice in our new playground. Thank you. We encourage you to make the best of your last week, enjoy your special celebration on Monday 16 December and go on to represent Bellevue fabulously as you continue your learning journey. We are so proud of you!

For those going to Newlands Intermediate, I look forward to seeing you welcomed at the Year 7 Pōwhiri on Monday 3 February.

Property Update - Summer projects

The accessibility ramp between the administration block and Hub 5 will continue over the summer break.

The hall is also undergoing renovations so we thank Linda and the team from Kapai Kidz for relocating their holiday programme to the Junior rooms during this. The interior will be painted and the wooden floors treated and repaired. Following the floors being finished they require time to dry and the doors and windows may be open during this period. Please do not be tempted to enter the hall as the floor will take time to cure and walking on it will damage it.

If you are around the school grounds during the holidays, you and your whānau are welcome to enjoy the playgrounds and fields in our kura. Please do pay attention to any Health and Safety notices that may be in place or any areas that are off limits so that you are safe and let us know if you see anything of concern.

Having our families using the grounds is also a great deterrent for those who may not look after our school in the ways we would like, and offers an additional layer of security.

Medications at School

If we hold medication for your child at school and you wish to take it home for use during the holidays, please collect it from the school office by 12:30pm, Tuesday 17 December. If you are returning next year, don’t forget to update/replace medications at the office should they be due to expire. If it is not collected, medication held for our leaving Year 6 students will be safely disposed of.

Last Day of School— Tuesday 17 December Early finish - 12:30pm

A reminder that school closes at 12.30pm. Please organise for someone to pick up your child. You are most welcome to visit classrooms and say farewell to teachers, and they would also love to wish you all the best for the holidays. We have our staff Christmas lunch at 1.30pm so please ensure that your child is picked up promptly.

Reminders:

• 2024 Term Dates - A reminder that our 2025 dates are HERE on our school website.

• A reminder with reporting all online now that Seesaw post captions can be translated. If a note, caption, comment, announcement, or message is written in a language that is different from the language of a family's device, a 'Translate with Google' option appears below the post. If you are a family who would find this useful and need some assistance, please get in touch with our e-Learning lead teacher nic@bellevue-newlands.school.nz, or with your child's whānau class teacher.

• Three Way Conferences - Wednesday 11 (3.15 - 8.15pm) and Thursday 12 December (3.15 - 6.15pm). A reminder that these meetings, together with the Reading, Writing and Mathematics posts, replace our end of year written report, so we encourage all families to attend.

• For more information about what to expect from these meeting please follow THIS LINK. To book a time to speak with your child’s teacher please follow this link to School Interviews look for the ‘Make a Booking’ button top right, and enter the code wg8zf.

We wish all of you a wonderful summer break and look forward to reconnecting in 2025 at our Whānau/Meet the Teacher Event - Friday 31 January.

Ngā manaakitanga & Meri Kirimete!

Ngā mihi nui,

Annette

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.

To assist our families with locating our Attendance Procedures, please note that the below link now takes you to a 'quick link' on our website to the Attendance Procedures in PDF form.

Please do always contact the office (office@bellevue-newlands.school.nz), or call and leave a message for absences. Do not reply to this newsletter as your message may not be seen.

As this has been a great success in previous years, we would like to begin 2025 with a community connection event before school starts for our children on Monday 3 February. The aim of this event is to provide an informal opportunity for families to come along and connect with all the teaching team at Bellevue, as well as with your child's whānau class teacher.

When you receive the link, you will be able to immediately go online to book a time for you and your child to talk with their new teacher on Friday 31 January (11:00 – 3:30pm).

On Friday 31 January from 4.30pm - 6.30pm our school field will be open for a BYO picnic afternoon tea/early dinner with sports and games available for those who wish to participate. All of the teaching staff will attend and are excited about this opportunity to get to know the new learners in their hubs and their whānau.

We understand, however, that there may still be some families who would appreciate a more formal conversation, or three way conference with their child's whānau class teacher. To accommodate this, we will be offering 16 bookable conferences for each whānau class teacher between 11am - 1pm and 1.30pm - 3.30pm.

There is no expectation that you attend one of these if you are happy to talk with your child's whānau teacher in the informal part of the day.

However, if you do wish to book one of these slots, bookings can be made on the following website. To avoid clashing with our end of year three way conferences, the website and code will be shared with you via email/Seesaw prior to the end of term. As last year, we will still gather information from families such as emergency contact updates, cybersafe and image use permissions, your aspirations for your child and how you might like to be involved in the life of our school, but we will do this digitally to free up the event time for connecting.

We look forward to beginning our year by strengthening the connections between our school and home and supporting our learners to feel more confident to start their learning on the first day having met their teacher and reconnected with their peers already.

Weet-Bix TRYathlon 2025

The 2025 Weet-Bix TRYathlon is coming to Wellington on Sunday March 16, 2025! If your child is interested, they can register as part of the Bellevue School Team by following this link. If you would like to know more information about the event, please head to:

https://tryathlon.co.nz/locations/wellington/

Whole School FUNrun!

Friday 6th December (pp Friday 13 Dec)

Walk, jog or run. Dress up encouraged!!

And lastly, remember the Pizza reading challenge is still going!

The treasurer's role on the Board is to work closely with the Principal to set the annual budgets, review the monthly expense reports, and to advise on financial matters that are tabled for the Board meetings.

Budgets are set in November/December for the next calendar year, and they are reviewed in July at half year. A key part of the role is also to help the rest of the board with their understanding of budgets and financial decisions, factoring in the impact to students and the school community.

For example, at our last meeting as a board we reviewed the school donations and activity fees and made a decision to keep them unchanged for 2025.

Other decisions made have been to fund additional staffing for this year and the next, funding new connecting doors in the recent upgrade of rooms 4-6, instead of delaying them 1-2 years and having further interruption of classroom learning time.

Erin Bellhouse - Bellevue Board Treasurer

This year we have had fantastic and dedicated parents supervise the Road Patrols before and after school. Sadly some of our parents will not be continuing next year and we are looking for new volunteers to support with Road Patrol.

It is a legal requirement for schools to have an adult stand with the Road Patrols when they are on duty. It is important that our children are able to safely cross the road.

When: Mondays - Friday before or after school

Times: Mornings - 8:25 am to 9:00 am; Afternoons - 2:50 – 3:15pm

Who: Any parent, grandparent or caregiver is welcome. Your child DOES NOT have to be a road patrol in order for you to volunteer.

Please email Beverley at beverley@bellevue-newlands.school.nz or contact the school office if you are able to volunteer.

A huge thank you to Pete and the team at Packaworld who reached out to us last week after they’d seen on facebook that our football goals had disappeared from the school grounds. They have very kindly gifted us two brand new inflatable Packagoals! These are gratefully received and we appreciate it.

A little more about Packaworld - they are a Wellington based company (Churton Park in fact) and are focused on the Disability Sports sector. Special Olympics is one of their largest customers and most of our business is done in the US. That said, they also distribute throughout the world and work closely with Paralympics Sports organisations. Packaworld are big supporters of unified and inclusive sports where those with and without intellectual disability can play together. For more information on this awesome local company you can visit their website: www.packaworld.com

Thanks again Packaworld for reaching out to us and your generous donation.

Term 4 and Term 1 is a sun-smart term - please bring hat and water bottles every day.

A reminder that, due to allergies, school cannot provide sunscreen for our students so please do pop a named sunscreen in your child’s bag so that we can remind them to apply this when they go outside.

If you would like to nominate our school to win $10,000 worth of sports equipment, please click on the link below. The more nominations we get the greater the chance of us winning!

https://www.aainsurance.co.nz/big-little

Username bellevue-newlands, password 'grow'

Gosh, here it is, the end of the school year for 2024 in less than two weeks.

But the FUN hasn’t stopped for the FUNdraisers team, with 3 events coming up!

Please know, the opportunities for these FUN events may be limited in the new year. Our committee when we start the 2025 year will consist of just two members. That is just simply not enough people to run the events we like to bring to the kids. So, we still need YOU… yes YOU! You who has perhaps being too shy, or perhaps You, who thinks it’s too tricky of a task. You just come talk to Rebecca and she’ll tell you all about how easy it can be for you to participate and bring some FUN to your kids time at Bellevue School. The roles the committee is seeking include administration for events like sausage sizzles or pizza (mostly online and using a school computer), a chairperson - organising meetings, liaising with the Principal, oversight of committee activities, a secretary - taking / distributing meeting minutes and communications.

If you can offer your time to attend two meetings a term and support in these roles on the committee it would make a big difference to the school both now and for the future.

Currently we are fundraising for playground markings. The students have a wonderful range of ideas we have gathered to improve the markings in 2025, but the cost for this work is around $15,000. Raising these funds will take a team working with the school.

The update on our events is below:

End of Term Pizza – 6th December – Orders are closed

The order is in with Dominos and we look forward to dishing out these treats to the kids on Friday!

FUNRun – 6th December

You will have seen the school notice about the FUNRun, and further information is coming home with your children this week. Our contribution to the FUN for this event is at the finish line! Where we will be giving away one FREE Ice block to all of the children partaking in the event of the day. The ice blocks have been kindly donated to our school by Kristen and Marcus of New World Newlands – THANK YOU to you both for your support of our cool wee school!

End of Year BAKE SALE! – 13th December

Next Friday, please send your child to school with COINS for the bake sale. If they turn up with notes, they might be ‘heavily encouraged’ to take more baking than they initially desired as we might not have the change.

For those new to Bellevue School, the annual Bake Sale is supported by families providing a ‘plate’ of

baking. The FUNdraisers set up stalls ready for 3pm, then the kids spill out of their classrooms with their pocket money in a great rush to buy the delectable treats we have available to sell.

It’s a bit chaotic, and it is amazingly good fun! A real highlight to the end of year for our tamariki.

FUNdraisers Committee Meetings

Next meeting: TBA

Meetings are currently held at 6.15pm (in the school staff room when possible) in week 2 and also week 7 of each term.

If you have any questions, you can contact Rebecca (the FUNdraisers Committee Chair) by email for

information at fundraisers@bellevue-newlands.school.nz