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
Nau Mai, Haere Mai, Welcome to Term Four
We hope our families had an enjoyable term break. The students have settled quickly into their Term Four routines and are looking forward to the fun events that we can hold as the weather improves. A special acknowledgement to our Year 6 students and their families, for whom it may be their last term with us before new adventures begin at Intermediate school.
Exciting Term Ahead!
We have many engaging activities and events planned for this term! From our ‘business as usual’ learning through play and student led inquiries to swimming, cricket sessions, trips and school spirit events like the Family Fun Run and Year 6 Camp there’s something for everyone. Keep an eye on the dates in the newsletter below and the facebook page so you don’t miss out!
Swimming
Our water safety programme has got off to a great start this week with all hubs swimming weekly. Thanks to all the whānau who have given up their time to assist with these. Offering annual swimming lessons is something we continue to include in our Health curriculum in response to our biannual Health & PE consultation - where it continues to be identified as important to our families. It is an expectation of the New Zealand curriculum that all students have had the chance to learn basic aquatic skills by the end of Year 6.
Te Korowai ō Horokiwi Kapa Haka Festival
This Friday our amazing Year 5 and 6 students are off to Newlands Intermediate to represent Bellevue at our cluster schools’ Kapa Haka festival. The Korowai ō Horokiwi (Cloak of Horokiwi) Cluster includes the four local primary schools and intermediate and every year the schools all look forward to this event as a way to bring our students together for a day of kotahitanga (unity) and whanaungatanga (kinship). Again, we are supported by a fabulous team of parents to make this happen.
Seeking a Musician
Much of what we achieve in Kapa Haka is through the hard work and talent of our kaiāwhina Māori Whaea Jayjay. Unfortunately, for personal reasons, Whaea has to head back up North to her family in 2025 so she will not be able to support our weekly Kapa Haka in the way she has. The wonderful news is that she is not leaving us! Whaea will support our Kapa Haka lead teachers on a weekly basis remotely and intends to come down to Wellington on a regular basis when we will be able to benefit from her expertise. This does mean, however, that we are seeking someone to support our Kapa Haka group with guitar playing. 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
Staff Professional Development
A large group of teachers, teacher aides and office staff attended first aid training last week during the term break to refresh their first aid certificates. A trainer from Hato Hone St John retrained staff to use CPR and respond to a wide range of injuries, including the ones we commonly treat at school such as fractures, bleeding noses, stings, sprains and strains.
FUNdraisers
We have been very fortunate to have an amazingly dedicated team of 5-6 volunteers who make up our FUNdraising team (with several family members who jump in to help with events when needed) for the last couple of years. They have achieved a great deal in regard to resourcing the things that our students really enjoy and which support their physical development - see the images below - while being aware of the financial challenges facing families over the past few years.
However, four of these people have children who are in their final year and will therefore be moving on. This leaves us with a team of two and 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.
This is a plea for help!
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.
If you are able to offer your time to attend two meetings a term and support with these events or roles it would make a big difference to the school both now and for the future.
The existing FUNdraisers and myself are holding an informal wine and cheese evening to come along and find out more on Thursday 28 November at 7.15pm in the staffroom so do please come along if you are able to support our school in this way.
Senior Playground - Stage 1 Opening
Excitingly our senior playground development is due to start this week. We anticipate this to take up to two weeks and so we are hoping to hold a low key opening for the playground at 10.30am on Friday 8 November. If you find yourself at a loose end at this time and would like to join us, please do! Although some of our students will be at swimming at this time, this is unavoidable in a term as jam packed as Term Four. Everyone will get plenty of opportunities to play on the equipment following this.
Property Update
In other property news, our Junior classrooms are now complete (except for painting touch ups which will be done over Christmas) and the Year 1s and 2s are enjoying their new more flexible spaces. The accessible walkway is due to continue into early next year so we will need to be ‘living in a building site’ a wee while longer.
The windows at the South end of the senior block are currently being replaced and cladding and re roofing work is underway above the Library and around the senior block.
The Board is exploring the possibility of internal improvements (flooring, walls etc) to the hall over the Christmas period too. Ultimately we wish to increase the capacity of the hall so that it can accommodate our whole community but budget means that we will need to find creative ways to get our community together in the interim. One of these will be through the reinstatement of Whakawhanaungatanga Fridays in 2025. This has been ‘parked’ for the remainder of this year due to the extent of the construction operations around the school and the short timeframe available in this term.
Library
Thanks for the swift return of library books that were taken home for the break - the library stock take is almost complete. The re-roofing work on the library will be completed by the end of the week, but there is unanticipated work to do still on the entrance. As a result, although the library will reopen from 30 October to the 8 November, entrance will be through Room 7 during this time. This will mean scheduled library time for hubs at breaks.
Teacher Only Day focus
Following the Labour Day Public holiday on Monday, school is closed for instruction on Tuesday next week. We look forward to seeing our students back at school on Wednesday 30 October.
This teacher only day is the second of two Ministry approved days for our teaching team to engage with the New Zealand Curriculum Draft documents. On this day we will be exploring the English curriculum area as part of our ongoing focus this year on Effective Literacy Practices at Bellevue. We will be especially focusing on any adaptations we need to make to our existing Literacy progressions to align with the refreshed curriculum area. We will also be revisiting last year’s work on supporting students with behaviour challenges in ways that keep all the students safe, learning new waiata and exploring resources aligned with the new curriculum. It will be a full day and we are grateful for our community's support of these precious learning days to build on and refine what we do in response to the fast paced shifts that are currently facing schools.
Year 6 camp
Preparations for our Year 6 camp are well underway and the students are getting excited. From 13-15 November our Year 6 students head off to Brookfields Scout camp with a team of wonderful parent volunteers to demonstrate our school values through experiences including: Confidence building, Kayaking, Archery and this year for the first time even Abseiling. This is always a wonderful celebration of the learning, friendships and memories built in their time at Bellevue and a very special time for all.
Reminders:
Reporting to Families - Rest of 2024 and beyond - A reminder that you can find an outline of what to expect for 2024, including a hard copy of your child’s reporting coming home at the end of the year, in our first newsletter for the term - the fourth item after the Principal update.
Our FUNdraisers committee are recruiting. Please consider getting involved for 2025. See their update at the end of the newsletter.
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.
