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, Greetings everyone

First Pōwhiri of the Year

It was very special to hold our first pōwhiri for the year last week to welcome some of our Year 3 students who joined the school at the end of last year as well as all our new students and two new staff for 2023. With the guidance of Rachael and Whaeae Jayjay, with each new opportunity we are strengthening our understanding of tikanga and refining our protocols. We are grateful for the wonderful support we receive from our community on this front.

BSLA Visit

Last week we were visited by three kaiako from Ridgway School who came to look at our Better Start Literacy approach teaching in Hub 1. They are beginning this journey themselves and our team received some great feedback about the routines and teaching approaches they have established. We value being able to work with other schools and share examples of effective practice.

Hui for Whānau Māori

Tēnā koe to our whānau Māori who joined us last Wednesday in the evening for our first (in a long time) hui. It was a great evening exploring ways we can work towards a more bi-cultural kura. It is fair to say we have plenty to think about and lots of work to do! We are hopeful this sets a foundation for future hui that will help the school learn what steps we need to take to ensure our ākonga Māori feel that this is 'their place'. We are priviliged to have community members with much knowledge in this area who have so willingly supported us. If you were not able to make it this time, we hope to see you at the next one!

NZEI Strike Action for Principals and Teachers

THANK YOU, on behalf of all of our team, for the amazing support of our strike action last Thursday.

We had no students arrive at school at all and some of our families, along with their children, joined us to present a united front in our quest for more staffing and learning support in schools. It is highly motivating to know that we are all invested in working for the same thing - better resourcing of schools both for our children right here and now and for the future of education in general.

Property Update

We are all on track for the administration block work (weathertightness) and our staffroom enlargement to begin immediately after Easter weekend.

Things you will notice:

• We already have a storage container in the car park.
• Monday 3 April work site will begin to be set up.

• Portable offices will be dropped on site in the coming week or two outside the hall.
• During the last week of term, the bathroom outside Room 3 will be undergoing some accessibility modifications.
• The office area is looking very bare - please be patient with our team as they try to pack and move around their other daily work.

Things to be aware of once work begins during the term break and into Term 2 (from Good Friday - 7 April) :

• Fencing will go up around the back of Rooms 4 - 6 to prepare the site before the end of term.
• Once term ends additional fencing will be erected along the path behind the staffroom so there will be no access around the back of the staffroom. The only access from the junior area of the school to the middle area will be through the car park (adults only) or around the bottom of the school, past rooms 12 - 15 and the Jubilee Corner.
• Unsupervised students will not be able to move through the car park at any time.
• There will be NO car parking within the school car park. Limited parks will be used for our staff, the remainder of whom will be parking on the street.
• During this time we ask that you consider the health and safety of our children and team and park as far away from the school as you are able, to avoid putting our road patrollers, community or the public at risk.
• During times when children are out doors there will be no site access for deliveries.
• At all other times vehicles will be escorted.
• The middles playground will be closed - students will be free to play in both other spaces.

Working Bee - Thank you!!

On Saturday morning a wonderful group of our families came together to 'tackle' the retaining wall behind our car park which leads into the middles playground and the garden behind Rooms 10/11. And tackle it they did! It has made a huge difference to the feel of our kura when you arrive and will be easier to maintain as a result. Accompanied by tamariki who were working on their Bell Challenge and some who just helped out for fun, it was a great success. Thank you to all of you and especially to Mandy Mackay for making this happen.

Upcoming events -

We are very much looking forward to our Tōku Anō Ao - Cultural Festival on Friday this week - an opt in event where students, led by our skilled kaiko and community members will explore a culture that is of interest to them. The aim is to learn a little more about the rich and diverse cultures we have in our kura. Look out for some photos in our newlsetter in the last week of term.

We are also looking forward to next Tuesday's Cross Country / FUN run event - more information further on in the newsletter. If you are free, please do come along and join the fun - you may even want to dress up!!

Ngā manaakitanga

Annette

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

Zachariah in Room 14

• Thank you to the parents who came along on Saturday to help at the working bee to tidy up the school grounds.
• Thank you to those families who volunteered to support our students either with transport, or supervision, or both yesterday for the Northern Zone Football Tournament. Apologies for the confusion that resulted from a miscommunication.

As you will be aware, our Hub 2 (year 2) teachers and students are embarking on their Better Start Literacy journey. This is an exciting time of learning for both the teachers and students. It is also a time where lots of resource making is required:

• Laminating
• Cutting
• Bagging and boxing resources

If you are able to spare a couple of hours in your week to help with this task the Hub 2 team would be enormously grateful.

Please contact Anne Gullen - anne@bellevue-newlands.school.nz to find out more.

Thank you!

If your child is going to be absent from school please let us know by phoning the school (04 4787037) between 8:30am and 9:00am, stating your child's name, their whānau class number and the reason for their absence. All absences are reported to the office and followed up. The Ministry of Education requires the school to state the reason for any absences from school as well as to note patterns of unexplained absence. We may request to sight a copy of the appointment details if your child needs to be away from school for a medical appointment during school time. To assist us with this, please text or email proof of your appointment time to the office as verification for MOE attendance records. Thank you for understanding and helping us with these requirements.

Increasingly we have students picked up early from school with no reason given. If this is the case, this is noted on our student management system and we may follow up with patterns of unexplained absence. Please always inform our office of the reason for collecting your child from school to assist our reporting of attendance to the Ministry.

Please note that the Education Act (see images below) requires that the principal approve requests to leave school early for tuition or other good reason. We request that you email Annette principal@bellevue-newlands.school.nz if your child will be picked up early as a one off or regular event (for tuition for example) a week in advance as per our Student Attendance policy: https://bellevue-newlands.schooldocs.co.nz/ (username: bellevue-newlands, password ‘grow’ - search Student Attendance).

We keep a record of these requests on the child’s file.

We do, however, understand that there may be times where early pick up is required for a family emergency. In this situation, please just notify our office staff on pick up. Thank you for your support.

Three Way Conferences are coming up in two weeks!

On Tuesday 4 April and Wednesday 5 April bookings will be available from 3.15 until 8.15pm (Tuesday) and until 6.15pm (Wednesday).

A letter has come home via email to families on Wednesday 15 March with booking information. If you haven't already, please visit School Interviews and enter the event code c82d8.

If you are unable to use the online booking, please contact the school office to book your time for these important meetings. The teachers and your child are looking forward to meeting with you to celebrate their learning progress.

Repeat information for those who may have missed last times -

What is the format?

As we report on academic achievement in our written reports twice a year, the conferences have a dispositional lens. The Bellevue Learning dispositions (pictured below) are central to our local curriculum as they ignite an interest in learning and empower students to continue to be life long learners as described by our school vision. Students will be encouraged to share the ways in which they have demonstrated their 'learner toolbox', their successes and their next steps.

What if I want to know more about academic progress or how I can help at home?

Please note that, as per our motto, 'E tipu e ako' our learning conversations are growth focused. For this reason, we talk about 'next steps', areas of learning that we are working on or things that we cannot do YET. We understand the importance of a growth mindset in facilitating learning and building students' self esteem so they have the confidence to tackle challenging tasks and take risks in their learning. With this in mind, if you wish to know more about specific areas of the curriculum (progress in writing for example), or how you can help at home, we would encourage you to ask the teacher about this during your visit. If you have specific concerns better voiced without your child present, it is also an option to set up a time to talk to the teacher separately to this event (as at any time during the year).

This term, as part of our PB4L journey, we have been learning about integrity. Kaiako have been teaching lessons around what integrity means and looks like at Bellevue school. This week, teachers shared their lessons and resources with each other! This was a fantastic opportunity to learn from one another and to celebrate the learning that has taken place.

We have also reached our next Class Dojo reward by earning over 12,000 points as a school. The children have chosen an outdoor play/sports afternoon. Stay tuned for pictures to come!

If you have pre-schoolers at home that you are planning to enrol at Bellevue School in the future, here are a few important things to know and put into action:

1. If you are living outside of the Bellevue School enrolment zone, then your pre-schooler(s) will need to be processed as an out of zone application. Please let us know, if you haven’t already, of any future enrolments at Bellevue School from your family. It helps greatly with our planning to know well in advance. And if we know then we can also prompt you as to when you need to get your out of zone application in

2. It is very important that out of zone applications are received by the application deadline of 9am Friday 31 March 2023, for enrolment from Saturday 1 July 2023 to Friday 22 September 2023. We cannot accept any out of zone applications if they are not received by the deadline advertised for the enrolment period your child is due to start school in. The deadline can sometimes be up to six months prior to your child actually starting school.

3. Even if your pre-schooler(s) are in zone, please get your enrolment in to us as soon as possible to enable us to plan ahead. We need this information to be able to work out how many out of zone applications we can accept in each enrolment period.

If you have any questions or are unsure about anything, please call the school office and talk to Amanda.

At the end of last year we asked our families if they would be interested in their children having music lessons during school time with the Good Time Music Bus Coming to do this. There was high interest, so we have gone ahead with this. To kick off interest with our students The Good Time Music Academy (Bus ) is coming to our school on 31 March to do a show for our whole school. The students will be given brochures to take home so the parents that are interested can enroll online. In the meantime here is information from the Good Time Music Academy for you to look at.

Goodtime Music Academy is now offering lessons at Bellevue School and is taking enrolments for Term 2 in-school music lessons now. If you want your child to be a part of these award winning music lessons, and may not want to commit to taking your child anywhere after school, then in-school lessons may be the solution for you. Learn in a group setting, and choose between Drums, Guitar, Keyboard, Ukulele. Or try their 'Intro to Music' course. Please visit www.goodtimemusicacademy.co.nz/learn-at-school to enrol and enquire. You can also call them on 04 568 2237. Spaces are limited so get in quick!

Movin’ March - Let’s Keep Stamping!

It has been amazing to see so many children walking or wheeling to school for the start of Movin’ March! Don’t forget to bring your passports for stamping every day you walk or wheel to school over the next 2 weeks. Walking or wheeling to school is a great way to get active, kick start learning for the day, and take care of the environment. If you live further afield why not try ‘Park and Stride’? Children can be dropped off on Link Road (by Bellevue Kindy) or the bottom of Bancroft Terrace and walk from there to get their stamp. Once your child has completed their first WOW passport, they can claim their prize and then ask their whānau teacher for another passport. At the end of March we’ll be sending all passports off to the Movin’ March team to be entered into a Prize Draw!

Athletics Day

The weather was kind to us on Wednesday 8 March as the whole school participated in Athletics Day. The children showed fantastic resilience and risk taking as they gave all of the activities a go. Thank you to the whānau who volunteered some of their time to help time sprints or rake the long jump pit. It was lovely to see those of you who came to spectate as well!

Also, a huge congratulations to the Year 4-6 pupils who have qualified for Northern Zone Athletics in Term 4!

Weet-Bix TRYathlon

Congratulations to all of the children who took part in the Weet-Bix TRYathlon on Sunday 19 March, you would have been well and truly living the value of resilience!

Netball

Netball registrations are now open for all year groups. Registrations are due on Friday 31 March and communication will go out by the end of term.

There are 3 separate forms to complete, depending on your child/ren’s year level (the underlined text below is a link):

Yr 1/2

Yr 3/4

Yr 5/6

FUNRun

Our FUNRun is next week on Tuesday 28 March! Come along and join the FUN by dressing up and walking/running with your whānau.

We invite hubs (and their whānau) to dress in the following colours, the more FUN the better:

Hub 1 - Red

Hub 2 - White

Hub 3 - Blue

Hub 4 - Green

Hub 5 - Yellow

If you have children in more than one hub feel free to pick a colour, mix and match, or come dressed as your best impression of a rainbow!

Help us raise money for new outdoor play equipment by sponsoring your child/ren’s run! If you need new forms, you can find them here on the school website. Please do not send in sponsorship money until AFTER the FUNRun.

Let the FUN commence!

We are always looking to strengthen our partnerships and relationships with those in our local community, If you work for a company that may be interested in supporting our school, please get in touch with annette@bellevue-newlands.school.nz.

Thank you.

Keep It Real Online is a New Zealand Government public awareness campaign to support our tamariki and rangatahi to be safe online. It is led by the Department of Internal Affairs.

They have created a website with tools and advice to help you keep children and young people safe from online harms like grooming, pornography and bullying.

For more information follow this link - https://www.keepitrealonline.govt.nz/

Kia Ora Bellevue Community!

Today, 22 March is ‘As Young As You Feel Day’, which coincides nicely with ‘National Goof Off Day’!

Also ‘World Water Day’ and the beginning of Ramadan for 2023.

The holidays and Easter are fast upon us, are we ready? Nooooo.... We have some fun to get on with before we get to that!! Now on with the news -

Pizza and Juicies for the FUNRun

The FUNRun is planned for the 28 March.

Orders are now closed for the ‘end of term’ pizza at lunch time and also Juicies at the end of this event. There are just under 200 pizzas and also nearly 200 Juicies ordered! We are looking forward to getting these to your kids on the day!

A reminder, FUNRun sponsorship funds are due by 3 April, though we are already seeing some

pledges come through for our students!!

Can you help us?

On the 28 March, we would really appreciate some extra help to distribute the Juicies to the students! The Juicies will be available when the children have completed the FUNRun, which starts from 1.40pm.

If you are free between 1.30 - 3pm to assist with handing out would be so great!

Please get in touch with Rebecca if you can help: fundraisers@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

FUNdraisers Committee Meetings

Our little team of 5 need more support – WE NEED YOU!

Gosh do we LOVE to bring the FUN to our kids with events through the year, and we have some really interesting ideas we would like to bring to the school. We however don’t have quite enough resources to make it all work. Do you have some of that elusive ‘spare time’ and would you like to give back to our cool school? If so…

Our next committee meeting is scheduled for 7pm on 27 April 2023, location TBC.

We hope to see you there! Or get in touch with Rebecca: fundraisers@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

What’s all this fun and FUNdraising for you ask?

What are we fundraising for? What have we spent our funds raised on?

May your questions be answered below -

Our current targets are based on smaller, but fantastic, things for our students!

For 2022, we worked towards the cost of supplies for the Green Fingers Garden Project (the small grassy area to the left-hand side of the drive of the main entry to school).

We also raised funds for wet weather games for all the classrooms! Let me tell you, if you could capture in a bottle the excitement and appreciation of both the teachers and students, well that bottle would be glowing warm and bright for a VERY long time.

For 2023, we are starting with Sandpit Covers. We’ve found a design that we’re looking for, so we are

ready to purchase when we have the funds!

We are also contributing to the playground outdoor equipment for the hubs through our FUNRun day pizzas and Juicies. What does this equipment look like? Well, actually, we don’t know EXACTLY!

Once we have the funds raised, and therefore know how much we can dream about… The teachers and students will be asked to put together a wishlist which we imagine might include ie. PE gear like balls, hula hoops, skipping ropes, etc. When the purchases have been made (circa Term 2) we will share the details of the purchases with you all via the newsletters and website.

Below is a snap of where we are currently with the 2022/2023 Fundraising Wishlist.

This list is updated often, and is linked via our FUNdraisers webpage:

https://www.bellevue-newlands.school.nz/fundraisers

If you work for a company that may be interested in supporting our school with any of these targets, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our principal Annette with details :)

Upcoming Events or Activities for Term 2

In no particular order:

End of Term Pizzas! A Matariki Celebration! Kids Art Work!

More information to come as and when it is available.

KidzStuff Theatre for Children are presenting Jessica Bo Peep, Written by Amalia Calder

Tickets: $13.50pp, Family pass (4 tickets) $50.00, Children under 2 Free

Bookings: www.kidzstufftheatre.co.nz

Drama Classes

Wonderplay has places available for kids drama in Churton Park on Tuesdays at Churton Park Community Centre; 4-5pm: Star Players (7-13yrs), 5-6.30pm: Wellington Young Actors class for teens. First lesson is free to try. Please contact Debs debs@wonderplay.co.nz 021-172-2836, www.wonderplay.co.nz

CodeCamp April School Holidays

CodeCamp allows children from the ages of 7-12 to develop 21st century skills in a fun and action packed environment. Develop confidence & initiative through design, creativity, solving problems, presenting & collaboration. Create games, apps.

Location - Thorndon School: 11th - 14th April & 17th - 20th April.

Book Now at https://codecamp.co.nz

Kelly Club Holiday Programmes focus on giving children aged between 5 and 13 the opportunity to do things they enjoy in a safe, supportive, and encouraging environment.

The April Holiday Programme is full of exciting activities and trips that will guarantee your children have a great time including:
Superhero Fun Day, Enchanted Forest Day, Seriously Silly Science Day, Colour me Crazy, The Wizards Cup, Building Masters Day plus, trips to: Swimming at Te Rauparaha Arena,

The Police Museum, Avalon Park

Click on the link to see the Activity Planner:
Kelly Club Amesbury

Kelly Club Churton Park

Kelly Club Kelburn

Kelly Club West Park

Kelly Club Island Bay

To Enrol go to www.kellyclub.co.nz

APRIL FOOTBALL HOLIDAY PROGRAMME – GREEN ROOM, WESTS RUGBY CLUBROOMS, IAN GALLOWAY PARK, WILTON

Week 1 – Tues, Weds, Thurs 9.30am-12.30pm

Week 2 – Tues, Weds, Thurs 9.30am-12.30pm

For children aged 5-12 years

Perfect for "Beginner's" and those just wanting to have fun. Come along and improve technique, knowledge and skills.

We will focus on the core skills of control, dribbling, passing, tackling and shooting but MOST importantly having as much FUN as possible!

FOOTBALL SKILLS – TERM 2 **FRIDAY’S 3.30PM-4.30PM***

Aimed for beginners, an 8 week football skills programme at Wests Rugby Club Rooms on Fridays (3.30PM-4.30pm). Come and learn all about Football!

This programme covers both individual and team skills including Game rules, Ball control, Dribbling, Passing, Tackling, Defence, Team work, Goalkeeping, practice and warm up drills for players and teams. It is ideal to improve skills and confidence.

To Enrol to any programme go to www.kellysports.co.nz

Wednesday 22 March

BOT Meeting

Friday 24 March

Tōku Anō Au - ‘Our Space / Our Place’ - Cultural Festival

Tuesday 28 March

School Cross Country pp Thursday 30 March

Northern Zone Football

Pizza Lunch and Juicies FUNdraiser

Tuesday 4 & Wednesday 5 April

Learning Celebration - Three Way Conferences

Thursday 6 April

Last day of Term 1

Friday 7 April

Good Friday

Monday 24 April

Teacher Only Day - school closed

Tuesday 25 April

ANZAC Day - School closed

Wednesday 26 April

First day of term 2

Thursday 27 April

FUNdraisers Meeting - 7pm

Tuesday 2 May

Whacky Hair Day

(Fundraising for flood affected schools)

Tuesday 9 May

NZ Cross Country

Friday 19 May

Pink Shirt Day

Thursday 1 June

School Disco

Friday 2 June

Teacher Only day - school closed

Monday 5 June

King's birthday - school closed

Thursday 29 June

Matariki Celebration

Friday 30 June

Last day of term 2