Newsletter Issue 3

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

Despite the long weekend and teacher only day meaning that it is only seven school days since our last newsletter, we have certainly managed to cram a fair bit in!

Professional Learning Day 3 June

Thank you to our community for supporting our staff only day yesterday. As the Te Korowai ō Horokiwi cluster we gathered at Newlands Intermediate to learn with and from one another. We explored strategies for supporting our students from experts in their field with a mix of informative speakers and hands-on workshops. It was a great day of networking and learning.

Bellevue Out & About

Our students have been making the most of their activity donations and getting out around the city. A group of Year 6 students headed off to the National Young Leaders Day last Thursday at St James’ Theater and had a wonderful time hearing key leadership messages. The Rātā Hub went to see the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on the same day so it was quiet around the school! It was very interesting to hear the children’s perspectives on this event being outside the bounds of what many of them had experienced. They were quite impressed by the range of instruments and inspired of course by the fact that the NZSO had featured on the Minecraft movie soundtrack!

Martin Chatterton - Author Visit Today

I have just come from the school hall, where I was treated to the fabulous Martin Chatterton, storyteller and artist, who was enthralling our students with tales, interspersed with his wonderful caricatures of the brave students who volunteered to be drawn. Such a treat to see, in this age of technology, that the magic of storytelling is still alive and well!

BSLA & Literacy at Bellevue

As mentioned in last week’s newsletter, every one of our teaching staff, including the leadership team is now either trained or training in the Better Start Literacy Approach. This is exciting as we have seen great shifts in progress for our learners with this way of teaching.

On Tuesday 22 July from 6-7pm we will be holding a whānau information session on Literacy at Bellevue. This will cover the Why, What and How of Literacy teaching and learning at Bellevue School, including The Better Start Literacy Approach and provide an opportunity for families to find out why we do things the way we do or ask any questions about how to support their child.

Please mark your calendars with this date as, although we understand that evenings are tricky - particularly in the winter! - we are offering these sessions in response to requests from our community for face to face opportunities to learn about how these key areas of the curriculum operate at Bellevue.

Education Outside The Classroom - Continual Improvement

It is our policy to regularly review what we do to make our Education Outside the Classroom events as safe as possible. When our families are transporting children we ask that you have current registration and warrant of fitness and that children are transported in the back in diagonal seatbelts only. In future, for the safety of our students, we will be asking to sight your WOF and registration if you volunteer to transport children. Please do understand that we value our parent support enormously and that our children’s safety is paramount.

FUNdraisers

Following the moving on of many of our fantastic and committed FUNdraiser committee members, and in recognition of the very busy lives of our families, the decision has been made by the Board to discontinue FUNdraisers as it currently operates.

This does, of course mean that there will be no pizza orders or calendar art this year.

As with the end of everything, however, this provides an opportunity for a new way of working. From now on the school will instigate the organisation of a single, big fundraising event each year. We are hopeful that we will be able to recruit willing helpers to assist with planning and running this event as a one-off, rather than asking families to make an ongoing commitment.

For this year, we are looking at a Basic Fact-a-thon in Term 3 - to both promote the love of Maths learning and get some competition going on the fundraising front. We are very mindful of making this accessible and enjoyable for all so recognise the need for this to be one of the considerations. Watch this space for more information if you would like to get involved.

Home Learning Results

The results of our Home Learning at Bellevue parent survey are HERE (follow link). We are currently using the key themes to guide the development of a consistent home learning ‘offering’ for families to engage with if they choose. This will be released in the second week of Term 3 through this newsletter and on Seesaw.

2024 Annual Financial Statement now available online

The 2024 Bellevue Audited Financial Report has now been published on the school website. This outlines the schools financial position as at the end of 2024.

Please go to the Board page of our website to view these if you are interested.

Kelly Club

Just a reminder that Kelly Club are all set up and operational. Gracie and Max, the team members we have met, are wonderful with the children (and with us!). They have flexible rates, they publicise their activities in advance so you can choose what might suit and, as of Term 3, will take bookings for teacher only days too. Please follow this link to find out more. Please use this wonderful service, as we know now how difficult it is to be without!

Reminder - School Photos 17 June

Ngā mihi nui

Annette

Martin Chatterton's entertaining visit today!

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.

Anh - Room 3

• A huge thank you to everyone who supported Rātā on their recent trip to the Michael Fowler Centre to see the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra perform, especially our helpers; Niamh, Josh, Carl, Caroline, Genevieve, Liz and Anrike. Thank you to Cassie who joined us on this trip. Tēnā rawa atu koe!

• A big thank you to Kimberley Fryer and Sarah Hall who accompanied the group of Year 6's to the National Young Leaders Day!

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.

Matariki evening - Rimu Tōtara are collecting gently-used or new baby items for ‘The Nest Collective’ charity and non-perishable food items for the Wellington City Mission. Please bring any donations to room 14.

Posters made by Rimu Tōtara students Felicity, Dhani, Celine and Matilda in room 14.

And just like that we are at the end of our May family reading month.

Those students who have been working on their Reading Challenge sheets, completed sheets need to be handed in to the Library as soon as possible this week for your chance to go into the draw for some spot prizes.

A big thankyou to all whānau who supported their students with the reading challenge. You rock!

Thank you to all of the people that made the 2025 Bellevue Disco possible. The Students had a wonderful time dancing the night away in their Minecraft costumes.

Thank you to Mānuka and Art Club for the beautiful decorations, Nīkau for the fantastic tickets, Rātā for the cool shop signage, Rimu/Tōtara for the great advertising, Kahikitea for the creative photo booth, Anneke for putting together the minecraft lolly bags, Deeann for your organization and all of the other staff for their work behind the scenes! It was a real team effort.

Last week a group of Year 6 students attended the National Young Leaders Day at the St James Theatre in Wellington. This was a fantastic day out for students who demonstrate leadership qualities and capabilities. NYLD provided students with the opportunity to hear from inspiring speakers who shared their leadership journeys and highlighted the importance of dreaming big and overcoming challenges. They shared key messages about leadership to inspire our learners as they develop their leadership skills further. It was a great experience!

Some key messages were

• "Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini” - We are stronger together!

• Nurturing the four dimensions of health and well-being – tinana (physical), whānau (family and social), wairua (spiritual), and hinengaro (mental and emotional) – is crucial for our overall well-being.

• Resilience in the face of challenges, perseverance, and learning from setbacks are essential qualities.

• It is important to set ambitious goals, rise above limitations and live a life filled with purpose and awesomeness!

Our mid year ‘Learning Conversations’ three way conferences are fast approaching. This is the twice yearly (mid and end of year) face to face part of our reporting to families about their child’s progress and next steps so we strongly encourage all families to attend.

What to expect from this meeting is HERE (click link).

The conferences will be held over two evenings:

Tuesday 24 June (3:15 - 8:30 pm) and

Wednesday 25 June (3:15 - 6:30 pm)

To book for your child’s learning conversation please go to https://www.schoolinterviews.co.nz/code and enter the event code 7smmg

Bellevue School offers interested families of students in Years 4-6 the chance to participate in the ICAS Assessments in:

• English (Reading)

• Writing

• Mathematics

• Science

All of these assessments are online. The cost of each of the assessments is $22.50, EXCEPT Writing which is $28.75.

This competition takes place each year in schools throughout Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, the Pacific region and South Africa. ICAS Assessments are designed to recognise and reward academic excellence. Students are asked to demonstrate a deeper, integrated, and thorough level of learning.

For more information please follow THIS LINK.

The assessments are challenging and provide an opportunity, particularly for students of high academic ability, to gain a measure of their own achievement in an external assessment situation. We would not advise that your child sit these if they are a less confident learner or would become anxious in an exam situation.

If you are uncertain about whether or not your child should participate please talk to their whānau teacher.

The dates for the ICAS Assessments at Bellevue in 2024 are:

• Writing - Thursday 7 August

• English - Thursday 14 August

• Science - Thursday 21 August

• Maths - Wednesday 27 August

A notice has already been emailed to all Rimu, Tōtara and Kahikatea families about registering for these assessments. A reminder that entries and payment must be in no later than 3pm on Monday 14 July (first week back in Term 3). No late registrations can be accepted.

Below is information about the upcoming photo day. You don't need to order or pay for portrait or class photos until AFTER photo day, but if you would like a group/sibling photo - please return the sibling/order form BEFORE photo day. The forms will be given to your child this week.

We invite anyone interested in joining the Board to attend our meeting at 6.30pm in the staffroom next Thursday - 11 June.

A reminder that, should you wish to find out more about joining the Bellevue Board you are also welcome to talk with any of our Board, myself or Kelvin our Presiding Member (previously Board Chair) about this - we would be delighted to share what we find rewarding about this role.

This week we are sharing an article written by a member of two school Boards in Ōtautahi, Christchurch describing the role and why it is so important to schools.

In each of our Term 2 newsletters we are including a short piece from the existing members of our Board so you can get a little taste of what makes them tick.

Kia ora! My name is Mary Sleep. I joined the Bellevue board as a parent representative in November 2022. As I work full time out of the home, I am not easily able to be involved during school hours and being a part of the board has enabled me to contribute, in a small way, to the smooth running of Bellevue School. My children both attended Bellevue School - Millie is now year 9 at Newlands College and Milo is year 6.

In my professional life I work as a Teacher of the Deaf so being a member of the board has been a wonderful opportunity for me to see the other side of how schools operate and to understand the ways boards can support both teachers and ākonga (students).

I would be happy to talk with you about my experience as a board member, so please feel free to get in touch. parentrep1@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Facebook Scams – What to Look Out For: Wednesday 18th June @ 7.00pm

This webinar is an introductory session for anyone wanting to feel more confident and informed about online scams on Facebook.

Follow this link for more info and to register (or copy and paste into your browser)

https://netsafe-org-nz.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xGa9dpJuTwWHchbMKqX1GA

Highlights of the Education Budget announced on 22 May include substantial funding for learning support at all levels, 25 new satellite learning support classrooms, funding of ORS students on a demand driven basis, a boost to teacher aide hours, an increase in specialist support, and a substantial increase in the number of Learning Support Coordinators across New Zealand.

While this funding appears to be a huge shift, and is indeed a positive step for education, there are a number of barriers still to overcome:

• The funding streams remain heavily centralised - this is a far cry from accessible and responsive funding.

• Application processes (which are often deficit focused) for funding remain and thus likely delays in the funding reaching our students.

• The funding still falls short of meeting all learning support needs. We hope that this funding increase is the start of a willingness to continue to meet demand.

The Te Korowai ō Horokiwi Principals are working hard to communicate the needs of our Wellington Schools in an effort to see the funding reach those children we know need it most.

Please follow the link to order online: www.lunchonline.co.nz

Username bellevue-newlands, password 'grow'

Thursday 5 June

Hearing and Vision at school

Wednesday 11 June

Board meeting #4

6:30 - 8:30 - Staff room

Friday 13 June

Values Assembly # 3

Year 4-6: 10:40 am in the hall

Year 1-3: 12:50 pm in the hall

Tuesday 17 June

School Photos

Year 6 to NIS Production 12:30pm

Wednesday 18 June

School Matariki Evening - 5:30-7:00 pm

Friday 20 June

Matariki - School Closed

Monday 23 June

Teacher Only Day - School Closed

Tuesday 24 June

Mid Year 3-Way Conferences 3:15 - 8:30pm

Wednesday 25 June

Mid Year 3-Way Conferences 3:15 - 6:30pm

Thursday 26 June

Newlands Intermediate School Open Evening - 6.30-8.00pm in the NIS hall.

Friday 27 June

Final Day of Term 2

Friday 11 July

Call for nominations for School Board Election

Monday 14 July

First Day back of Term 3

Tuesday 15 July

Whānau Māori Hui 6pm - 7:30pm

Tuesday 22 July

Whānau information session on Literacy. 6:00pm-7:00pm at School

Thursday 24 July

Newlands Intermediate School in Action morning 9.00 - 10.30am.

Wednesday 30 July

Nominations close at 12 noon for School Board Election

Wednesday 3 September

School Board Election

Tuesday 9 September

Votes counted and results declared - School Board Election

Wednesday 10 September

School board takes office