Newsletter Issue 2

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

Annual Plan 2024 - How Did We Do?

Our Annual Plan for 2024 is HERE. To ‘measure’ how we have gone against our goals we are currently seeking feedback from our students, staff and community on the goals directly related to them. You still have a week and a half (until Friday 15 November) to share your thoughts with us via THIS SHORT FORM. This should take 5-10 minutes maximum.

Thank you to the 15 families who have already done so - this helps inform our planning for 2025.

Additions to Important Dates and Teacher Only Days for 2025

The important dates at the bottom of this newsletter are now updated until the end of the year. There are a few additions - please double check that you haven’t missed any.

Please note the important advance notification of two additional teacher only days for 2025 later in the newsletter and the updated 2025 dates found on the home page of our website or HERE which include these days in February and June.

Senior Playground - Stage 1 Opening - Change of Date

Our senior playground development is well under way (see the photos below), but this has been held up a little by the challenges of two projects operating at once. As a result, we have changed the date for the opening to Friday 29 November. The time is the same - 10.30am. The playground will be finished in plenty of time and this also means that more students will be able to attend.

Northern Zone Athletics

Congratulations to all our tamariki who attended the Northern Zone Athletics on Monday this week. As always the teachers were impressed by the way in which you represented our school. Thanks also to Cassie Woodhouse our Sport Leader, who does all the mahi behind the scenes to make this happen. We are waiting to hear who was successful in making through to the Interzone Competition! Ka rawe!

Teachers at Work!

Thank you to our community for your support of our staff only day on Tuesday 29 October. This was a very valuable time to work together on exploring the English Curriculum changes.

Currently our team are busy 'head down' working through our end of year assessment. This is a great time to reflect on, recognise and celebrate each student’s successes as well as identify next steps. Keep a close eye on Seesaw as we report in an ongoing way this term so you can celebrate with your child.

Reporting - What to Expect in Term 4

Term 3-4:

• One Reading, Writing and Mathematics post giving examples of progress

• One cross curricular learning story - other areas of the curriculum

This Term:

• A Three Way Conference to discuss progress with an indication of overall progress (both discussed face to face and posted on Seesaw - using the Bellevue Poutama (blue ‘stairway’)

• One general comment about your child written by their whānau teacher

• Year 4-6 only - a student reflection on learning posted on Seesaw, including their participation in school events - this will be unedited by the teacher as a genuine reflection of your child’s digital writing

• A PDF copy of all your child’s reporting posts throughout the year sent home via email

Three Way Conferences

These will be held over the evenings of 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.

The purpose of these meetings is:

• For families to hear from/talk with the whānau teacher directly, honestly and in plain language about their child’s progress both academically and socially/emotionally.

• To provide a foundation for school and whānau to work as a partnership to support each student to develop as an active, connected, life-long learner.

This face to face opportunity is focused on giving families the overall picture of their child’s progress / achievement at the end of year in key curriculum areas, rather than the detail around a ‘moment in time’ demonstration of their learning as you will have seen in their Seesaw posts.

This is also an opportunity for families to ask questions or share information about anything specific in relation to their child’s academic or social/emotional progress.

For more information about what to expect from these meeting please follow THIS LINK.

If your child’s attendance is below 90%, in line with our procedures, it is our responsibility to remind you of this. Your child’s teacher will provide you with information about this and a letter outlining the impact of reduced attendance over time.

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.

Preparing for Transition

On Thursday last week, our colleagues from the intermediate visited to run through the Year 6 students that will be joining them from Bellevue - strengths, needs and any other important information so that they have all they need to support our learners from the beginning of the year. These students have an orientation visit to the intermediate on 22 November, but those students who require more time are being taken for regular visits already. Within our school we support students with their transition as needed. Students with additional or diverse learning needs have a 'transition profile' completed to assist them to have the most successful start possible and there is also an opportunity for all children to meet their new teacher for 2025 before the end of the school year.

Diwali Treats for our Team

Although we have reached the end of this special celebration for many of our community, our team was spoiled today with a beautiful Indian meal prepared by one of our wonderful teacher aides whose children have been through the school (with the youngest to finish this year) and who still works tirelessly to support our students and teachers. Thank you to the Sadaye family for this very special acknowledgement and celebration.

Property Update

We are delighted that the library is now open again. You will note that there is still scaffolding and fencing in this area due to the fact that the entrance canopy still requires work. To minimise interruptions to our school operation, this will now be completed in the Christmas holiday.

Nourish at Christmas

Look out for the communications about our Fun Run event on 6 December. This is to raise funds for school and also for the Nourish team. The Nourish team have provided more than 30 boxes for families in our school who need an extra hand at Christmas over the last three years so if you are wanting to support our community at Christmas time this is a great way to do so.

Year 6 camp

Next week our Year 6 team head off to Brookfields Scout camp. We wish them well for a very special time of making memories they can look back on for years to come.

Reminders:

• We are still seeking someone to support our Kapa Haka group with guitar playing in 2025. This is a weekly afternoon session of about 2 hours. If you, or anyone you know of, might be willing to support the school in this way for a koha, please get in touch with Annette: principal@bellevue-newlands.school.nz or Tessa: tessa@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

• FUNdraisers and Principal informal wine and cheese evening to come along and find out more about being a FUNdraiser on Thursday 28 November at 7.15pm in the staffroom.

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.

Our senior playground development coming along!

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

Sreehari - R10

Adam - R9

Antony - R14

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 you may be aware, both the English and Mathematics refreshed curriculum areas were released to schools in the last fortnight.

Our school has begun exploring these changes alongside our existing learning progressions for Literacy and Mathematics. As you know, we are continuing to establish structured literacy approaches across the school, and we are maintaining good overall results in Mathematics, so we do not anticipate major changes to the way we do things. Our current focus, as identified in our evaluative partnership with ERO, is on updating our existing Literacy learning progressions to align with the refreshed curriculum.

Following last week's confirmation that The Ministry of Education approved two additional 'Curriculum Teacher Only Days' to enable schools to become familiar with the refreshed curriculum, our cluster school Principals and Boards worked at pace to coordinate and confirm these two dates so that we could:

• Provide as much notice to our families as possible.

• Coordinate teacher only days across the primary schools.

• Choose dates that extend a period where public holidays mean school is already closed to minimise the impact on students' learning and on families.

• Maximise the impact of this work on teaching and learning.

The two curriculum teacher only days are set for:

• Friday 7 February (following Waitangi day to provide a four-day weekend for families).

• Monday 23 June (following the Matariki holiday on Friday 20 June to provide a four day weekend for families).

This notification is in advance of the required ten weeks notice because we hope it will give our families a chance to take an extended break over these weekends.

The school will still be open for the required number of half days mandated by the Ministry.

Our cluster schools 'call back' teachers for a teacher only week in January, before school starts and the two previously scheduled teacher only days (in June and October) were excluded from our half day count.

Thank you for supporting our teaching team to engage with the new curriculum so as to continue to provide the best for our students.

Northern Zone Athletics

The Year 4-6 students attended the Northern Zone Athletics event at Newtown Park sports ground on Monday. Although we are still waiting for the official placements, we were blown away by the resilience, sportsmanship and excellent behaviour demonstrated by the Bellevue students. They were encouraging and supportive of their peers and showed great ‘Tuakana Teina’ looking after one another.

Thank you to the parents who supported this event and who also noted the way that our students conducted themselves.

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!!

More information to come home this Friday.

Our 2 yearly stocktake is almost complete.

Thank you to everyone who searched high and low to find books and return them to the Library.

We still have a number of books that we are waiting on, so if you discover one hiding somewhere at home, please return it so we can get it scanned.

A HUGE thankyou to Nita who was a massive help in getting our stocktake done, all 9,259 books so far.

The great news is of course that our Library is back open for all to enjoy!

We are also excited to have new shelving for our ‘graphic books’. A big thankyou to Shona from Hydestor for her ongoing support and ideas for shelving to keep our library looking great!

And lastly, don't forget the Pizza reading challenge is still going!

Year 3-6 tamariki who have completed Aroha Achievements this year need to have shown their completed tasks to their whānau teacher by Friday 29 November. Certificates will be presented at our Presentation Assembly on Wednesday 11 December. Families are welcome to attend!

A friendly reminder that term four (and term one) are sun smart terms and students MUST wear a wide brimmed hat when they are outdoors for activities such as PE and Sport, morning tea and lunchtime. Please ensure your child has a named sunhat ready to go!

New World Newlands are launching a $3 Donation Box in store for Newlands Community House. This will enable our community and customers to

be able to scan a donation box at checkout whereby the $3 cost of the box will be collected

for Newlands Community House.

Their in-store launch will be on Thursday 14th November between 3-6pm .

The idea is that if every customer once a week or even once a month or annually scanned a

box at checkout all funds will be incremental to our local foodbank. It’s also something that

can be done subconsciously giving back as part of your weekly shop. Helping those locally

in need for $3 in your groceries will leave our customers feeling good about what they have

contributed to.

Some of our community; Anneke, Alister, Tessa, Sarah, Mel, Willow, Kooper and Aaron along with The Johnsonville Collective Team spent the afternoon at Alex Moore Park on Monday while many schools participated in the first round of the Total Touch season!

A big thank you to Shannyn at Collective and Bronwyn at Total Touch for all their support.

The Collective team supplied everything for us and with the money raised it will help us buy new sports equipment for the school.

Ngā mihi nui to everyone involved.

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'

How did we get to week 4 of Term 4 already? Well, by being busy I suspect!

We here at FUNdraisers are about bringing the FUN while raising funds for what we want our school to have. Ideally doing this with as little of the hard work as possible, as hard work, while rewarding, is not always FUN! To do this, we need YOU!

On the 28th November at 7.15pm, with support from Annette and staff, we are holding a wine and cheese evening to entice you along to find out more about what we do and why we need you.

Four of our committee have children who are in their final year with Bellevue School and will therefore be moving on. This leaves us with a team of two but no chair of the committee! The roles the committee is seeking include administration for events like sausage sizzles or pizza (mostly online and using a school computer), chairperson - organising meetings, liaising with the Principal, oversight of committee activities, secretary - taking and 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:

Wine and Cheese FUNdraisers information evening.

28th November 2024, 7.15pm, in the staff room.

We really do look forward to seeing you and having you part of our team.

Kids Art Work

We have received the artwork – yay!!

Our team will be distributing this out to the tamariki who have ordered SOON.

End of Term Pizza – 6th December

For Term 4 2024, End of Term Pizza will be a week early, and will be part of the FUNRun day on the 6th December.

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

Time to get your kids practicing their baking skills in preparation for this much anticipated annual event! 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.

New World Newlands: Newlands Community Centre Collab

Keep your eyes peeled for this Newlands community initiative supporting our local community centre. From the 16th November, you will be able to donate directly to the Community Centre during your weekly grocery shop by scanning one of their $3 boxes at checkout.

FUNdraisers Committee Meetings

Next meeting: 28th November 2024. Followed by wine and cheese at 7.15pm.

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