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
Welcome back e te whānau to Term 3!
Our term has started well, with many great learning opportunities in full swing already.
Term 3 Learning
Our Year 4-6 Highnotes Choir is furiously practising for their performance at the Michael Fowler Centre on Monday 11 September. Peer Mediators (our volunteer students trained in conflict resolution) are supporting others in the playground, our Hub kaiako are busy with the final stages of designing engaging learning activities under the theme of ‘Telling our Stories’ with our professional learning facilitator Matt Richards. Matt is working with us to build our digital fluency, as well as support us with integrating the new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories learning area. This term’s learning will build on the ‘Turangawaewae’ work in Term 2, exploring the way our place is shaped by the stories, cultures and perspectives of the richly diverse community that has settled here.
Remember to check out your child’s hub Seesaw posts for more information about the learning they are doing.
The planning for this term so far includes exciting opportunities such as; green screening, creating models, using video, planning murals, exploring and finding out more about our local places of historical significance. Of course, our ‘bread and butter’ work of supporting students to achieve their next steps in Literacy and Maths, through small targeted group work, continues alongside (and often integrated with) all of this.
We are also in the process of analysing the student achievement data from the middle of the year (what has been communicated to you through your child’s report) to identify schoolwide what is going well, and where we need to put our focus next. This will be shared with the Board at our next meeting after it is discussed by our team to inform the next two terms of teaching and learning action!
Growing Community Conversations - We need your help!
An enormous thank you to the six families who have already responded to our Google Form that we are using as one part of collecting our community's voice during July and August. It is so important to hear from our families 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.
At the bottom of THIS PAGE (click link) of our website are some PDFs in Te Reo Māori, Tongan, Samoan, Chinese and Hindi that give information from the Ministry of Education about what you can expect from your school in planning and reporting and why your involvement is so important.
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.
Please, please take 15 minutes to complete the form https://forms.gle/5aEorianaYjGtkBf9 (hard copies also available at the school office) before Friday 1 September, OR 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. Whatever you choose, we look forward to hearing your thinking - equally, if there is a better way to seek your voice, please let us know.
New dates to note:
There are a few dates below you may want to add to your diary:
15 September - El Gregoe whole school magic show (unfortunately this has fallen on the same day as the Road Patrol Orange Parade so our students will need to make a choice - though many of our older students have seen this show previously). Please note that this is also the same day as our whole school evacuation and reunification practice.
7 September - Whole School Circus Challenge
4 and 25 August - We invite you to join us in the afternoon for Whakawhanaungatanga Friday
30th August 6.30pm - 7.30pm - Information evening about our Positive Behaviour for Learning work - this will also be the final opportunity to engage face to face with our team/other whānau about our growing community conversations.
Sickness
Unfortunately we are still seeing lots of sickness, both in our staff and our students. Recently we had almost half of a hub of students away!
Thank you for continuing to keep your children at home if they are unwell so that we protect the health of our school community. You might like to take a look at the guidance later in this newsletter from Tu Whatu Ora about monitoring symptoms and wellness indicators to help with decisions about returning to school.
Winning Student
It was a delight to visit Hub 2 for their hui on Tuesday this week as Sarah de Jong was presented with a prize from Heather at Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (WREMO).
Sarah entered their 'Get Ready Challenge' which involved planning for an emergency and won her family an Apple iPad for her considered thinking. We are very proud of Sarah.
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.
Noho ora mai
Annette
