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
Welcome back to Term 2! We hope you had the opportunity to enjoy the lovely weather through the term break and enjoyed some time together away from the school routine. It is great to see all our tamariki so well settled back into their learning programmes after enjoying connecting with their friends and teachers.
New Zealand Sign Language Week
This week is New Zealand Sign Language Week - a chance to recognise and celebrate one of our three official languages. If you haven’t already, you may like to check out the website resources - https://nzslweek.org.nz/
Or take a look at the NZSL online dictionary: https://www.nzsl.nz/ to challenge yourself to try a little with your children.
Staff Update
We are delighted to welcome Alice Potts, our new Office Manager from the start of this term. Lots of you have popped in to introduce yourself and Alice has just slotted effortlessly into the role. We feel very lucky to have her as part of our team.
In other staff news we are thrilled to share that Cassie Woodhouse and her husband have welcomed a beautiful baby boy to their family. We are all looking forward to meeting him when Cassie comes to visit.
A reminder that Rene Senekal, has taken on the role of Sports Leadership in Cassie’s absence and our Deputy Principals have the overview of Hubs 3 and 4. If your child is in Hub 4 and you have concerns during Term 2-3 that you are unable to resolve with your child’s whānau teacher, then please contact Deeann (DP Year 4-6) for year 4 students and Anne Smith (DP Year 0-3) for Year 3 students.
Student Learning
This week there has been great excitement about our long awaited visit from Harold the Giraffe and the Life Education Van. There is more information about the focus for each hub later in the newsletter.
It is also exciting to see the increased use of te reo and tikanga Māori across the school after a term’s engagement with the Te Puna Reo (previously Te Reo Tuatahi) programme (more information below). The children (and teachers!) are taking more risks with their use of the language and there are some exciting displays supporting this.
Do remember to take a look at your child’s Seesaw page for more information about the learning taking place in Hubs across the school this term and remember that this is our main channel of communication for ‘all things learning’ between teachers and families.
A reminder that Term 2 marks the second term of our trial of a new way of reporting to families. For this to be effective, it is essential that each family is connected to their child’s learning portfolio. If you need help with this, please contact your child's whānau teacher. At the end of this term, you will have a picture of the reporting you can expect from our team in EACH term for Term 3, 4 and beyond. As indicated in the outline of our new reporting processes, in the final week of this term we will hold our Three Way Conferences - an opportunity to hear from your child’s teacher about their progress against the New Zealand Curriculum, their next steps and how you can help at home.
Keep an eye out for more information about the structure of these meetings in our coming newsletters as well as our request for your feedback on the six month reporting trial. This will be used to inform our approach to reporting for the remainder of the year.
A note about Seesaw
We would like to thank all those families who have posted feedback to their child on their Seesaw posts. This is hugely motivating for our students and the opportunity for students to receive timely responses from families on their learning is one of the main advantages of this type of online portfolio.
As collaboration is one of our Bellevue Learning Dispositions and something we see great value in, there are times when photographs of your child may be of them working as part of a group, meaning that your child may be in posts visible to other families. This makes safe and responsible engagement with the Seesaw platform imperative for the safety of our learners. We have two requests:
Please consider the safety and privacy of other children/families and do not download or share photographs of any child other than your own.
If you do not wish for your child to be in posts visible to other families, please contact your child’s whānau teacher to let them know.
Thank you for your assistance with this.
Staff Professional Learning
On Wednesday last week we were joined by Anita Gill (director of the Te Reo Tuatahi Programme) and the staff from Cashmere Avenue School for a joint professional learning session to prepare us for the teaching and learning we will be doing leading up to Matariki. Our Matariki Community Celebration is on Wednesday 26 June and you will be able to see what the children have been up to. This is always a special time to connect, reflect and look to the future so we hope you will be able to join us. You will note that this event is scheduled earlier in the term this year. This is to allow time for our Three Way Conferences (part of our new processes as described above) in the last week of term.
No doubt you will have seen in the news the Minister of Education identifying structured literacy as a priority for schools. We continue to establish the Better Start Literacy approach, underpinned by the Science of Reading at Bellevue so we were excited to hear that there are resources allocated to support this. Today, all of our Year 0-2 kaiako are attending a BSLA session focused on supporting our learners for whom Literacy is more of a struggle. For our Year 3-6 teachers we are working through a series of modules about the Science of Reading - the approach to literacy acquisition that underpins the BSLA.
Several of our teachers and teacher aides have also attended learning sessions around how to support our increasing number of students for whom English is a second language.
Evaluation Review Office (ERO) - Work in Progress
This week our leadership team had the first in depth meeting with our Evaluation Partner - one of several steps towards our Bellevue School Evaluation Report being published. This process begins with a checking of the school’s processes, policies and compliance before moving into a specific focus on evaluating a key priority for the school’s teaching and learning. We intend to focus on effective practice in Literacy as per the actions outlined in initiatives 2.2 and 2.3 of our Annual Plan. The exact evaluation question is currently being defined.
Property Update
After a quiet Term 1 on the property front, there is lots going on for Bellevue! This week we installed additional blinds across all our Hub 3-6 classrooms both to improve the learning environment on sunny days and for student safety should we need to have an invacuation/lockdown. This is as a result of our termly emergency drills and the review process we work through with staff to ensure our school continues to be a safe place for our children.
During the term break, major improvement work began on our accessible bathroom in Hub 5, this includes increasing the size to provide for equipment required to assist students with mobility difficulties.
We have two major projects about to begin. The first of these will improve the internal environment of our junior classrooms, which will involve some workshops being taught in the school hall for a (we hope) short period. This will be followed by roofing and cladding work to all blocks of the school which will be carefully staged to minimise the impact to our students. During this children should be able to remain in their classes.
Also due to start in the next month or so is the excavation work on the steep bank between the main school and the senior block to prepare for the installation of a long accessible walkway which should significantly open up our school.
During all the upcoming work some of our car parks will be taken by contractors, so please consider our staff and safety in the car park and try to drop off/pick up from school or Kapai Kidz from outside the school gate where possible between the hours of 7.30 - 5pm.
We will keep you informed of the stages of these projects through the newsletter as usual.
Hei konā mai
Annette
Remember to take a look at the Bellevue Website for longer term information (Parent Portal) or follow our closed group Facebook Page for quick updates or reminders.
