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
We hope all our Mum's, Grandmothers and Caregivers had a special day on Sunday to celebrate Mother's Day.
Te Korowai ō Horokiwi
This week I attended one of our regular principal meetings to plan for our cluster wide events. The first of these for our staff was right at the beginning of the year where we heard the story of our local urban marae and shared our school stories at Ngā Hau e Whā o Paparārangi. Tomorrow the Year 5 and 6 students from all of our local schools will visit Newlands Intermediate where, supported by NIS students, they will enjoy a morning of various sports activities. It is fabulous to be part of a community of schools working in partnership to provide a positive, connected learning pathway for our students.
Welcome To Marie Dobbie
We are fortunate to have Marie Dobbie currently completing a teaching placement with us in Hub 4. She has quickly established good relationships with the Hub 4 tamariki and kaiako, already playing a key part in supporting the hub's learning. It is always a pleasure to support the development of capable and enthusiastic new members of the teaching profession.
Aroha - Our Guiding Concept
After almost a year and a half of talking with our students, staff and families in various contexts we have settled on our guiding concept and values for our learning community.
Aroha is the concept that underpins all that we do. Currently we are working on understanding the breadth and depth of the meaning of aroha. However, one definition that we found helpful is the ‘unpacking’ of the parts of the word given in the image below:
Aroha overarches our four values of:
- Integrity
- Empathy
- Resilience
- Creativity
Like Mason Durie’s Te Whare Tapa Whā model these are interdependent; Aroha gives purpose to our values and our values help us to uphold our guiding principle of Aroha. We cannot enact one without the other, and a weak point in our values will impact our ability to demonstrate Aroha.
Our aim is that you will experience Aroha in your dealings with our kura, our students and staff will understand and enact this, and everyone in our learning community will live this through our four values.
We are still working with our whānau Māori on developing a statement that captures this for our guiding documents, such as our Annual Plan (as you will see in this document when it is published to the community next week), because something of this importance deserves to be given time.
We would like to thank our whānau Māori for working with us as we strive to understand what it means to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi for the benefit of all our ākonga.
Property Update:
Contrary to what it may look like when you visit the school (see also the picture below) the administration block, on which work is well underway, is not going to be two floors high following the weathertightness work! The scaffolding is to support the wrapping of the block so that the roof, windows and doors can be removed and replaced despite the winter weather. Our accessible bathroom outside Room 3 is also very close to completion now.
Northern Zone Cross Country
See the sports update below for our students great achievements at the Northern Zone Cross Country last week. We wish Gauri from Hub 4, as well as Luke and Mickey from Hub 5 the best of luck for the Interzone event on 13 June.
Our thanks goes to all the family members who enable these events to go ahead by volunteering their time, skills and transport, and also to Cassie Woodhouse who does an amazing job of coordinating our Sports events.
Attendance - A Positive Picture
An attendance report shared with the Board this week compares Bellevue attendance with that of other similar schools, Wellington schools and schools across the nation. Although regular attendance needs to be a continued focus, we are pleased to share that Bellevue's attendance is either in line with or significantly higher (year group dependent) than other schools, both regionally and nationally. We want to thank you, our families, for supporting your children's regular attendance at school as we know that this has a huge impact on children's social, emotional and academic wellbeing. Currently our average attendance for the term is at 91%.
More information about attendance in New Zealand schools, and why it is so important to children's learning can be found HERE.
Good Times with the music bus!
There has been a fantastic take up from our families for the Goodtimes Music Academy music bus which has meant they are now visiting our school on Mondays and Tuesdays to cater for our 60 students who have enrolled in lessons.
School Photos
Please note the new date in our dates section for school photos which are Tuesday 20 June.
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.
Hei konā mai
Annette
