Newsletter Issue 4

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

We would like to express our thanks to our school community for your wonderful support of our team’s attendance at the Paid Union Meetings the week before last.

There is so much divisive messaging in the media currently around education, that it is important that we continue to strengthen and leverage our community partnerships to make a difference for every Bellevue child.

We thank you for your encouragement to do so. The story that educators are fighting purely for more pay is a simplistic and incorrect portrayal of the important educational outcomes that are, in fact, on the bargaining table. We thought it may be helpful for families to know (broadly) what it is teachers, principals and learning support staff are bargaining for - notably an investment in the resources that support children directly.

Please see the image below this section which also has a QR code to take you to a petition to sign should you wish to show your support.

Chinese Language Week

This week is Chinese Language Week. Our Heritage Language Group students have been working on this presentation to share their language with their peers. During this week, students are able to share the activity they worked on in class either on their own or with an older buddy to help.

A couple of examples of what they have created are included below.

Contrary to what we may be led to believe by the removal of Māori words from texts, research shows that young children who learn multiple languages benefit from enhanced cognitive flexibility, problem-solving, and executive functioning skills, as well as improved communication and cultural understanding. Bilingualism strengthens neural pathways, helps children connect with their cultural heritage, and can lead to better academic performance and broader opportunities later in life. Exposure to different languages also fosters empathy and tolerance by exposing children to various cultures and viewpoints.

Student Council - Book Week & Onesie Day

The student council has been very busy this term - the week before last they, and the librarians, helped coordinate a very successful Book Week. Next on their radar is the organisation for Onesie Day on Friday 12th September - fundraising for Wellington Free Ambulance - look out for the posters and reminders around school and on Seesaw!

Mathathon Update

A huge thanks to all our tamariki and community members for the way you supported our big fundraiser for this year - the Maths week Basic-Fact-A-Thon! To date we have raised a whopping $6,022.15 to support the school in resourcing. Well done to our students for their resilience and perseverance in learning their basic facts too!

Artsplash

Last Monday I had the privilege of enjoying the Highnotes Choir performance at the Michael Fowler Center. It was fantastic to see so many of you there also in support of our 82 student strong choir! I did not count, but looking so smart in the front rows of the stage I thought perhaps we had the largest number of students. The children performed with such joy and enthusiasm that it was impossible not to be super proud. Thanks for supporting this by getting your child to and from the event if they were involved and being so patient with the ‘connecting’ at the end of the evening which is always a challenge with the crowds.

Taking Care of Our Place

Zero Waste Education has kicked off for our Mānuka, Nikau and Rātā hubs and it is lovely to see the planning and action that is coming out of these sessions. I watched a number of students picking up rubbish they have noticed around the school today. Mānuka are headed to Pukehuia park this Friday to do a bit of a clean up (please offer to support them if you can - we need more parent help!) and some of our older students are involved in the beginnings of a planting project for our accessible walkway at the end of next week.

It is great to see these measures of how our school is achieving against our annual plan goal 1.3 - Facilitate learning experiences that are relevant to the lives of ākonga and the wider world, including opportunities for students to contribute to the wider community, or connect with experts beyond the school.

Community Voice

The Bellevue Board’s online community voice survey is now closed. We were delighted to receive 50 responses which included the thoughts of families with children right across the school and from a diverse range of cultures that reflect well the diversity in our school.

The responses will be very helpful in discerning what the priorities are for our community in the coming 2-3 years.

The next step is for the Board to collate these into themes that will feed into either the strategic plan (for long term goals) or the 2026 Annual Plan. We will share the themes back to our community in a coming newsletter.

Website Update

We have made the move to a managed website to improve the user experience and make it easier for the school team to update this. We are happy with the result which you can see HERE . Access to the website and the content remains largely the same. We are always open to your feedback about how we can further improve this for our families - if you have suggestions, please contact office@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Attendance - Good News!

As part of the government's focus on attendance, schools are required to set an attendance target for 2026 and develop a school specific attendance management plan. We are currently working on this and will share it with the community in Term 4. It is pleasing to note that our attendance is tracking steadily upward - we are headed in the right direction! Thank you for the way in which you are working with us to improve this further.

Kelly Club

Our new site supervisor is named Tom and has made a very positive start. Tom has a wealth of experience already in out of school care provision and took last week to learn the ropes and get to know the team. We look forward to working alongside Tom. Due to this staff transition, there won’t be a holiday programme running at Bellevue during Sept/Oct Holidays, however there will be alternative programmes at West Park and also Churton Park.

Te Wiki o te reo Māori: 15 - 19 September

The students are currently learning a selection of waiata to celebrate this week in song! Each hub has chosen a waiata they wish to share and are practising for a whole ‘sing off’ where we will enjoy all these waiata and finish with one we have learned through our Kura Ahurea work with Te Āti Awa.

Dates to Note:

We would like to draw your attention to a couple of important dates you may have missed:

• Emergency Evacuation & Reunification - End of the first week of Term 4 - Friday 10 October. More information is included later in the newsletter and also will come home via email.

• The Te Korowai ō Horokiwi Kapa Haka Festival at Newlands Intermediate that our Kapa Haka group is participating in has been confirmed for Friday 24 October.

• Term 4 Teacher only day - school is closed on Tuesday 29 October (the day after Labour Day) for a Staff Development day. Teachers will be taking part in Mathematics professional development as part of the NZ curriculum refresh.

Reminders Only -

School Organisation for 2026

Finally, as we approach the final weeks of Term 3, school planning for 2026 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.

Term Dates for 2026

The Term Dates for 2026 have now been approved by the Bellevue Board and can be found HERE and on our website. You may wish to print this document to refer to. These dates have been coordinated with our cluster primary schools with the aim of minimising disruption to families in our community.

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.

Chinese Language Week

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.

Maahi - Room 3

Thank you for the following parents/caregivers who helped supervise at Rimu Tōtara’s swimming lessons this term. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Room 12:

• Sue Campbell

• Manikumar Subramanian

• Sarita Swamy

• Felicity Langdon

• Sarah Lamb

Room 13

• Monique Lepine

• Sarab Sehra

• Paige McClintock

• Ash Hills

• Sarah Melton

• Dharmishtha Patel

• Bruce Jones

• Matt Jones

Room 14

• Nadiene Van Dyk

• Gordon Van Dyk

• Erin Bellhouse

• Dan Bellhouse

• Samantha Cameron

• Cara Worboys-Clark

• Sam Mason

• Chloe Williams

Thank you to Mrs Anne Smith & Megan Walters for their hard work to prepare the High Notes choir for their Artsplash performance and also to the members of the teaching team who went along to support their students, and provided the additional manpower to help things run smoothly on the night.

It is now just over a month until this important school event.

Following the newsletter today, the first of two letters outlining what you need to know for our whole school emergency evacuation and reunification practice will be emailed home. An image is included below.

Please read this carefully and, if required, be sure to check in with the office about your emergency contacts (which will be sent home this week) before Tuesday 7th October.

You will understand that there is a great deal of preparation that goes into making this practice as safe and streamlined as possible so we appreciate your assistance with timely contact.

Finally, we do understand that this practice creates an interruption in the busy lives of our community and so we thank you for your support and understanding.

Please follow this link to a copy of our advance warning letter that will be emailed home as a PDF also.

Weet-Bix Kids TRYathlon 2026

Entries for the 2026 Weet-Bix Kids TRYathlon open on Wednesday 10th September. The Wellington TRYathlon will be held at Kilbirnie Park on Sunday 15th March 2026 at 7am.

If your child is interested in taking part, please register them as part of our school group by following this link. More information about the event can be found here.

On Monday the twenty fifth of August 2025 Bellevue High Notes Choir went on an ADVENTURE! During the day we went to the Michael Fowler Center for a rehearsal to practice our songs. First we figured out where we were going to stand on stage. Then we ran through the songs and practiced all the bits we weren't sure of. Soon after that we took a bus back to school, packed our bags then went back home. In the evening around 7:00pm we showed up to the Michael Fowler Center in our High Notes T-shirts and our colorful accessories. It was really busy with a lot of schools and Whānau gathering around to see all the schools perform. Then we sang the songs in order including Paradise, Aroha Mai, We’re Back, Go the Distance, and Celebration. For our last song everybody put on their shiny or colourful accessories and started dancing to the music. Once everything was complete we went home and we were EXHAUSTED! We had such a great time singing and so did our families.

By Harvie and Gauri!

Term 4 is always busy! At this time of year we begin looking at the number of students we anticipate in each year level to make decisions about class organisation and placement for the following year.

At Bellevue, providing the best environment for learning is at the forefront of our decisions. The number of classes we start the year with is dependent on the staffing entitlement received from the Ministry of Education. This is based on the number of students in the school.

Our teachers are capable of teaching at all levels of the school and so we can allocate teachers to classes no matter the structure of the school or where they were teaching the previous year.

When looking at class composition, we aim to meet each child's needs regardless of the whānau class or mix of year groups. Our team of skilled educators takes the following factors into account when considering class placement for students:

• Individual needs and achievement

• Peer relationships

• Learning groups and friendship groups

• Age and year group

• Gender balance and number of students

• Siblings in other classes and year groups

Students are asked for the people they work/play well with. We are committed to making the most appropriate placement, considering all the information.

If there are any factors we may not be aware of that you believe are important for us to take into account please contact the school over the coming month - by Friday 10 October (end of the first week of Term 4) at the latest. There will be another reminder in the last newsletter before the term break.

You can talk with your child's teacher or a member of the leadership team or email us at:

Anne Smith (Deputy Principal Year 0-3) annes@bellevue-newlands.school.nz,

Cassie Woodhouse (Hub Coach Year 4/5) cassie@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Megan Walters (Hub Coach Year 3) megan@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Deeann Daniels (Deputy Principal Year 4-6) deeann@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Annette Borgonje (Principal) annette@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Once again, please make sure that you have contacted us before 10 October so we can take this into consideration when planning classes early next term.

Despite regular reminders about driving and parking on Bancroft Terrace, unfortunately there are still regular instances of poor driving and parking, one of which has recently resulted in a resident’s car being damaged.

Please be patient and considerate of our community, especially during peak times.

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!

In small groups of 6–8 children, and supported by three experienced counsellors, tamariki are guided through a range of activities to explore and express their feelings in a safe, supportive environment.

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