Newsletter Issue 5

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

It is hard to believe this is the final week of the term already. We are certainly not slowing down yet though, with our production tonight and many fabulous learning opportunities to celebrate from the last couple of weeks!

We would like to take this opportunity, however, to wish our families some quality time together over the term break. We hope it is a chance to mix up the routine or take things a little slower. Our students and teachers will certainly be ready for a rest after this week!

Year 5/6 Netball Tournament

Last Tuesday our Year 5/6 netballers took part in a wonderful Netball Tournament at Ākau Tangi Sports Center. This event, though organised by Rene Senekal, was totally managed by our families. It was thoroughly enjoyed by the Bellevue Totara and Kauri teams who made us proud by exhibiting great ‘sportswomanship’ and our school values throughout the day. Thank you to Teresa Kennedy and Tracey Lines for their organisation and willingness to support our young players to attend. I also thoroughly enjoyed seeing our players in action, being umpired by several ex-students who have also coached our teams and who are part of the ‘Kiwi Whistlers’ - a group of ‘up and coming’ referees.

Book Week

We owe a big thank you to Sarah, Megan Walters and the Student Council who ran the most wonderful book week last week with story reading in the library, bookmark or book cover designs and buddy reading across the school. This culminated in a very windy but enjoyable parade of all the book character dress ups. Such a fun way to end a busy week!

El Gregoe Magic Show

I heard great things from Hub 1 students about our whole school magic show on Friday. El Gregoe has been visiting Bellevue for years and for the last couple we have thought it may be his last - so fingers crossed for 2025! The children across the school (though some may be too big to admit it) are really engaged in this show which teaches values and has strong anti bullying messages. The highlight is often the colourful Macaw parrot, but there are some impressive tricks too.

Annual Emergency Evacuation & Reunification Practice

We want to thank our community for the amazing support with this practice last Friday. We recognise that this is an interruption to your working days and takes some organisation. To evacuate 258 of our 286 students within an hour is no small feat and we appreciated the positive patient attitude of our families to facilitate this. Holding this annually is important to us as a school so that even our newest learners and their families are familiar with the process we would use to connect children with parents in the event of any major emergency, even if damage to buildings or outside areas meant that the location was a little different. Practices such as this give our students, staff (and we hope our families) a familiarity with the process that will assist them to be more calm and confident in the case of an emergency. It was also fortuitous that the weather was kind to us until the huge downpour at 2pm!!

Production

Thank you to our community for the terrific response to this event - both in supporting it (we have sold 600 tickets over the two nights), and for your patience with the last minute changes to manage an additional date. The school is fizzing with excitement and we cannot wait to see our tamariki in action tonight and tomorrow night! After two nights of production and an action packed term, we recognise that the students will be very tired on Friday (our last day of the term) so classes will be managing this with an alternative, low key programme. The teaching team will keep you informed as necessary but please feel free to let your young people have a slower start on this day if you feel this is needed.

Hub 3/4 Science

I was fortunate to spend a bit of time in Hub 4 this week enjoying the creepy crawlies (in perspex fortunately) that Martin Langdon had kindly brought in to teach our students about classifying systems in Science, including how these vary according to different world views - for example in Te Ao Māori. The students were all heavily engaged in closely observing and drawing the features of a range of molluscs, arachnids and other invertebrates, but the highlight was an enormous sperm whale vertebrae which certainly drew some gasps! Thank you to Martin who enriched both Hub 3 and 4’s learning programme with these wonderful resources and his wealth of expertise.

Swimming Costs for 2024

For 2024, the cost of swimming lessons across the entire school will be the same.

When organising the swimming there are many contributing factors to the cost - the prices of buses, the number required, the number of lessons and how much this is offset by grants we are successful in securing to offset the cost for our families. In previous years this was done by areas of the school - Senior or Junior, or hubs which meant that sometimes some areas were better subsidised than others. We have decided that it is more equitable to spread the entire cost of swimming for all students, as well as the funds secured in grants, across the entire school so that everyone benefits equally from the grant assistance. Although some hubs may have one or two fewer lessons, this can also be balanced by different sized hubs needing additional buses. There may be some communications this year that are a little inconsistent as a result of this change. Please be patient as we are working on these to provide more consistency for 2025.

Property Update

The establishment of phase one of our new playground in the Senior area of the school is scheduled for 21 October - 1 November (the second and third week of the term), with a low key opening on the 8 November. The accessibility ramp, roofing work for the library, Rooms 7-9 and interior work on Rooms 3-4 will continue through the break. You are welcome to use our school grounds during the break. Please adhere to any safety signage and keep an eye out that children are safe around the multiple construction zones.

Library

The library is part of the re-roofing work scheduled for the break. It will be open until the end of this week and students are welcome to take books home for reading over the holiday. For the first two weeks of Term 4, however, it will be closed for the annual stocktake. It would help hugely if your child has borrowed books over the break, if these could be returned on the first day back to school. Thank you.

Eating Again!

As Tuesday was South Africa’s Heritage Day, we were spoiled at morning tea with South African pancakes from Anneke Mclean as well as delicious bacon and egg sandwiches cooked up by one of our Hub 5 students. A real treat and much needed in a production week!

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.

• School Organisation for 2025 - school planning for 2024 is underway. We would like to draw your attention to the ‘School Organisation’ section of this newsletter in case you wish us to consider anything for your child’s class placement for 2025.

Friday is the last day of term 3. We look forward to seeing you all back at school on Monday 14th October.

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.

Term 4 Touch Rugby at Alex Moore Park (Johnsonville).

Starting Monday 4th November - Monday 9th December (for 6 Mondays). Games will start from 3.30pm. If we don't get enough players per year groups, or coaches and managers for each team, we won't be able to enter teams. Fees will be $35 per player.

This needs to be paid into the school bank account 12-3223-0048283-00. Please add their name and touch as reference. Regos will close on the 4th of October or when teams are full.

Please fill out this Touch Google form if you are interested.

Contact Mel or Rene if you have any questions.

mel@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

rene@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Futsal Festival

Some of our Hub 5 students participated in the Primary School Futsal Tournament earlier this month. They had a fantastic day and did Bellevue proud with their efforts and positivity.

We received the following wonderful feedback from one of our parent helpers;

"I just wanted to share what a positive experience I had at the futsal festival with some of the hub five students.

I had the pleasure of spending the day with an awesome group of tamariki. They were polite, respectful and listened and responded to the parents when we gave instructions. They supported each other during and between the games, and they played some amazing futsal!

I was very proud of them all and how well they represented Bellevue school"

Yummy stickers

Just a reminder that this is the last week for collecting Yummy stickers to get sports gear for our school.

Please send all stickers to your whānau teacher.

Often families ask about how they can help students with Mathematics at home, especially given that the way that this is taught is so different from when we were at school!

Over the next few newsletters we will be sharing a sequence of articles that may help families to understand the research behind the way we teach basic number facts in particular, as well as outlining activities that can support this.

As we all know, for mastering anything the key is practice, practice, practice and these articles include ideas for simple, fun activities that can be done with the bare minimum of equipment for those who are keen to try them at home.

This week - The connection between addition and subtraction

Copy of Copy of Linking addition and subtraction.pdf

FUNdraising achievements:

Term 2 Pizza: $243.90

Entertainment Book: $28

Student artwork: $2,527.90 (invoice still to be received/paid)

FUNdraising targets include: Sandpit equipment $500; Rebuild of little house $9,000; Fence around elevated garden in the Middle block $600.

School Production 25th and 26th of September

FUNdraisers are supporting the Year 6 tamariki to fundraise toward Year 6 school camp on production nights. There will be chippies and lolly bags for sale for $2 at the entrance to the school production. Wilson's Barbeque have also sponsored a LOLLIES IN THE JAR raffle - this will be on display at the school production - take a guess, only $2 and drawn on Friday for closest guess. Will it be you?

FUNdraisers Membership

Our FUNdraisers committee mostly have students finishing at Bellevue School at the end of 2024 and so we are doing an urgent plea for new members. If you are interested in supporting Bellevue School and our amazing tamariki to maximise the FUN at school; brighten the environment and support our school to reach its fundraising targets then please get in contact with the team at fundraisers@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Meetings are currently held at 6:15pm (in the school staff room when possible) in week 2 and week 7 of each term. The FUNdraisers are such a fantastic bunch of people and the positive vibes you get from contributing to Bellevue tamariki, the school community and Newlands community is an added bonus - and you can add to your CV. I have been a part of The FUNdraisers for the past 10 years and can say I have made some wonderful friends and had a load of laughs with the crew. Once your tamariki move on to Intermediate and College, the need for school fundraising groups diminish so take the opportunity to be part of your child's school environment while you can.

Term four is just around the corner, along with the warmer weather - well here’s hoping! 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!

A final reminder that there is a large pile of lost property in the first aid room. Please pop in to check if you are missing any items. Anything that is still there at the end of term will be donated during the holidays.

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'

It’s an exciting week for our Bellevue Whanau! Production is on tonight, and school holidays are

here next week.

Have you signed up to our Facebook Group? If not, Rebecca looks forward to approving a flood of

your joining requests! https://www.facebook.com/groups/FUNdraisersBellevueNewlands

The update on our events is below:

School Production – 25th and 26th September

Wow – two sold out nights of production… colour me excited!

Our FUNdraisers team will see you there as we are supporting our Year 6 tamariki to fundraise

toward school camp at this event. What this means is that there will be sales of chippies and sweets as you arrive in the evening to watch the production. Don’t forget the LOLLIES IN THE JAR Raffle!

All purchases will be $2, so please bring your coin cash (change for notes will be limited) and keep

an eye out for us as you enter for the evening!

Lollies in the Jar Raffle

Wilsons Barbecue have sponsored the schools Lollies in the Jar raffle.

If you want to size up this jar, it will be on display at both of the school production nights.

End of Term Pizza – 27th September

Orders have closed and have been placed with Domino’s. We look forward to distributing these out to the tamariki on Friday!

Kids Art Work

We don’t yet have a delivery date on the artwork which is currently being processed.

An update will come via this newsletter when we do have more information.

Term 4 FUNdraising events

We have on our plan for term 4 the following events:

- A Wine fundraiser. This one is very much just for the adults.

- The annual end of year Bake Sale! (Such a student favourite!)

- We are also collaborating with the school for the FUNRun which is coming up.

- PIZZA!

FUNdraisers Committee Meetings

Next meeting: 24th October 2024

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 capacity to take on being an incredibly valued member of our community and

committee, please join us! You can contact Rebecca by email for information at

fundraisers@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

We will be operating from the school hall from 30 September - 11 October. All enquiries to linda@kapaikidz.co.nz or 021 409641 Register via our website www.kapaikidz.co.nz

Wednesday 25 September and Thursday 26 September

School Production - Doors open 6pm for 6:30pm start

Newlands Intermediate School Hall

Friday 27 September

Last day of Term 3

Monday 14 October

First day of Term 4

Monday 14 October

Hub 3 Swimming begins

Tuesday 15 October pp 22 October

Wellington Cricket in Schools sessions Year 2-5

Wednesday 16 October

Hub 4 & 5 Swimming begins

Wednesday 23 October

New Entrant - Year 2 Swimming begins

Hub 3 Trip - Dowse Museum

Thursday 24 October

6:15pm FUNdraiser meeting - staffroom

Friday 25 October

Year 4-6 Kapa Haka Festival NIS

Monday 28 October

Labour Day - School closed

Tuesday 29 October

Teachers Only Day - School closed