Newsletter Issue 1

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

Teaching staff planning for Matariki 2025

The collaborations do not stop at the school gates either. We were privileged to be invited to have a small group of 19 keen Year 6 dancers join Whaea Brie and her students at the Intermediate on Monday afternoon for a student led dance workshop with Rewa Rewa school. It was wonderful to see the creativity and confidence of our tamariki as they created short compositions inspired by their older peers.

On Wednesday next week a small group of our students who have been working to improve our school grounds on a regular basis by tidying the garden area by papa tākaro rua (outside R7-9) have been invited to plant at Seton Nossiter Park through our connections with Enviro schools and NHEWOP Marae. This is very exciting.

Our Annual Plan goals 1.3.1 and 1.3.5 are:

• ​​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.

AND

• Support students to take pride in their school through planting, waste education, recycling, composting and strengthening each hub’s environmental focus.

Coming Up

Next Friday (16 May) we celebrate both Pink Shirt Day and the wonderful, often unsung heroes of any school - our support staff. You will be aware that teachers, principals and support staff are always advocating for more learning support in schools. When we meet with families seeking additional support for their children, they are often surprised to find that a diagnosis or identification of need does not lead to funding for additional support for their child. This is an area of education that needs urgent, significant and sustained investment by our Government. At Bellevue we are fortunate to have a supportive, proactive and forward thinking school Board who prioritise the needs of our children, and an incredible team of support staff who go over and above every day to take the best care of all of our students, regardless of how we ‘make ends meet’. This is why it is so important that we acknowledge the incredible work they do on support staff day.

Relationships & Sexuality Education

The draft framework for the RSE (Relationships & Sexuality Education) Learning Area of the Health and PE Curriculum has been released from the MoE and is naturally an area of high public interest.

The Ministry is consulting currently on this document. If you wish to view this and have your say, you can do so here.

In light of this it seemed timely to revisit Bellevue’s approach to Relationships & Sexuality Education.

Navigating the Journey - Bellevue’s Key Resource

At Bellevue we use the Navigating the Journey Relationship & Sexuality Programme.

All classes are involved in a series of sessions per term using the ‘Navigating the Journey’ resource that is supported by NZ Family Planning. It is a learning programme resource about building relationships and sexuality education.

The school has been using this resource since 2019 because:

• It supports the New Zealand and Bellevue School Curriculum – especially in the learning area of Health and PE.

• It supports the development of Key Competencies (ie: Managing Self, Relating to Others and Participating Contributing, Thinking, Using Language, Symbols, and Texts) that people use “to live, learn, work, and contribute as active members of their communities. (NZ Curriculum).

• The 2024 Health and PE Community Survey where 80% of parents said sexuality education was very important or important.

• It encourages our children to continue to build and improve interpersonal relationships – building the skills to work and live with each other in increasingly diverse communities.

• It supports students to feel empowered to be themselves, feel confident in their identity and see diversity as a strength.

Each class/hub has 4-5 sessions per term, which may look quite different across the school as teachers will select the relevant focus based on the needs and level of their children from the five themes:

• Establishing a positive learning environment/Te whakariete i tētahi ao ako huapai

• Who am I?/Ko wai au?

• Relationships/Ngā whanaungatanga

• Growing and changing/Te tipu me te huri o te tangata

• Staying safe/Ten oho haumaru

Teachers keep you informed through Seesaw of the focus for your child/ren’s learning programme and the timeframe for when the sessions will take place next term. Some example lessons are:

• My personal qualities

• Helping my whānau

• Caring for my body

• Standing up for others

• Managing relationships

• Recognising media influences

We recognise how important it is to families for this learning to be transparent, so we share what we will be covering through Seesaw in advance of every session. You have the option to remove your child from any learning sessions that you do not feel align with your family values, or speak to them about the content that is coming up prior in the context of your home and family values.

If you would like to see what is covered in the programme at your child’s level, please pop in to the office where you can view the entire resource in booklets. We are not able to share these digitally due to copyright, but teachers adhere to this when teaching so, if you are interested in what your child is learning in more detail than what is provided in the update on Seesaw, it is worth a look.

Answering Student Questions

While teachers follow the programme very closely when teaching the sessions to honour what has been shared with families, as with any learning area, there is an opportunity for children to ask questions. Teachers take great care to consider their own knowledge, or make time before answering to seek advice so that they can do so factually, honestly, respectfully and in line with our school policies. Teachers are legally entitled to answer any question asked. They do not share their opinion or explore ideologies.

If at any time you have feedback, concerns or questions about this programme we encourage you to talk with your child’s teacher.

Attendance - Holidays in Term Time

We are proud of our highly multicultural school and we recognise that, with this privilege, comes the understanding that there are times in the year of great cultural significance to our families which do not always align to our school terms. We also appreciate the need to connect with family as an important part of young people being secure in their identity. It is with this in mind that we ask our families to avoid taking holidays during term time where possible.

The image below, direct from our school’s Term 1 attendance report highlights the impact on attendance of, specifically, holidays in term time (dark orange). There is also a direct correlation with how student achievement tracks over time for those students who have higher levels of absence over the school year

Kelly Club at Bellevue

We are delighted to be able to offer our families Kelly Club out of school care from Monday 26th May. More information is included below, will be coming up in future newsletter and heading home soon in physical flyers so watch this space!

Parent Portal – From The Ministry of Education

A new webspace is available that provides practical videos, activities, and resources to support learning aimed at empowering whānau to support their child’s education.

The webspace includes a ‘parent-friendly’ version of The Refreshed New Zealand Curriculum. A flyer with information about this portal is HERE.

You can explore the new webspace and view the available resources HERE

Also potentially helpful is the School Shorts podcasts where Melissa Chan-Green (Mum & Journalist) aims to support families with interpreting some of the changes in schools. This has some interesting information in bite size chunks to support families:

https://www.schoolshorts.com/about

https://www.schoolshorts.com/podcast

Ngā mihi

Annette

Celeberations in Mānuka for International Harry Potter day!

Innovative students in Kahikatea making the most of a situation with a light that needed repairing, by building fortresses and cars with fairy lights!

Sree Ram - Room 3

Sharvarish - Room 12

Noah - Room 2

Jewel - Room 12

Sarah - Room 14

Hrishav - Room 3

• Thank you to Linda from Kapai Kidz who has donated valuable equipment to our classrooms. It is so appreciated and we are very grateful.

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.

The Bellevue Board elections are coming up. The election date is 3 September, but if you are interested now is a good time to begin finding out more. The link below takes you to more information. 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.

https://www.schoolboardelections.org.nz/becoming-a-board-member/

In each of our coming newsletters we will include a short piece from the existing members of our Board so you can get a little taste of what makes them tick.

Kelvin Russell - Presiding Member

Kia ora, my name is Kelvin Russell, and I am proud to serve on the Bellevue School Board. I have been a member since July 2010 and have enjoyed learning more about Bellevue School and how education works in New Zealand.

Professionally, I lead a team of consultants in the IT sector. I joined the board to gain a deeper understanding of our school and to contribute my skills to support the school’s success. My goal has always been to help ensure our children receive the education and care they deserve.

Being part of the board has been an enriching experience, giving me valuable insights into the school’s operations and the wider education system. I’m grateful for the opportunity to work alongside dedicated individuals who share a passion for supporting our school.

If you have any questions about joining the board or would like to know more about what’s involved, I’d be more than happy to chat. Please feel free to contact me at boardchair@bellevue-newlands.school.nz

Information for parents and caregivers

Kelly Club is excited to be bringing our before and after-school care programme to Bellevue School from Monday 26th May.

Kelly Club has been operating throughout NZ for over 15 years, and our motto is “Kids Home Away from Home”.

Kids who attend our programme get to do a wonderful array of different things in a fun, safe and caring environment. Things like sports and games, arts and crafts, baking and cooking, science and discovery, along with structured free play after a long day at school.

We will have more information next week, including how to book into our programme.

We're looking forward to seeing you at Kelly Club soon!

The annual Bellevue School Disco will be held on Thursday 29th May 2025. This year the theme is Minecraft! Students in Year 1-3 will have their disco from 6.30 - 7.15pm and students in Years 4 - 6 will be from 7.30 - 8.30pm. Please keep an eye out for more information on how to purchase tickets.

With the colder weather setting in, we've noticed some children are finishing their lunch by morning tea time. Please have a chat with your child about whether they have enough food in their lunchbox for the whole day.

Scholastic Bookclub brochures came home via classroom teachers last week. Orders are due in by Thursday 15 May. Payment options are either cash or credit card, details are on the order form in the brochure.

This week is New Zealand Sign Language Week - a chance to recognise and celebrate one of our three official languages.

We are very excited that this year one of our wonderful parents, Rosie, is a NZSL Week Hero! You will see Rosie as one of the faces of NZSL (pictured below) and she has been travelling the country working hard to promote NZSL week.

To check out these fantastic resources available please visit the website - https://nzslweek.org.nz There is also a NZSL online dictionary: https://www.nzsl.nz/ - a great place to challenge yourself and try with your children.

We're looking forward to celebrating Pink Shirt Day as part of Friendship Week from 12–16 May!

Pink Shirt Day is a global movement that celebrates diversity and promotes school environments where all students and staff feel safe, valued, and respected. It started in Canada over 14 years ago, when two students stood up for a classmate who was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. Their simple act of kindness sparked a worldwide campaign to stand against bullying. At Bellevue School, we’re proud to be joining other schools across Aotearoa to take a stand against bullying and spread a message of kindness and inclusion.

It's easy to take part: Tamariki are invited to come to school wearing something pink on FRIDAY 16 MAY– a shirt, scarf, socks, hat, ribbon, badge, or any other pink item you wish!

Let’s turn the school pink and celebrate Friendship Week together!

Netsafe are expanding their programme in Term 2, please see below for details of the latest of the parent webinars.

Understanding Cyberbullying and Online Safety for Tweens and Teens: Wednesday 14th May @ 7.30pm

For parents and whānau of children aged 12-16; this webinar will provide practical ideas to support your child to have safer, more positive online experiences (and manage issues if they happen).

Follow this link for more info and to register (or copy & paste into your browser):https://netsafe-org-nz.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-w4O4H-eSD-zHYNtybjeJg

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

Username bellevue-newlands, password 'grow'