Newsletter Issue 2
Term 3 - August 3 2022
Principal’s Update
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
This week is ‘Epetoma o te reo Māori Kūki ‘Āirani – Cook Islands Language Week. For 2022 the theme is ‘Ātuitui’ia au ki te Oneone o tōku ‘Ui Tupuna - Connect me to the soil of my ancestors. This theme reflects on the journey of Cook Islands peoples in New Zealand, as well as the longing of young Cook Islanders to connect with their language, culture, and identity. For more information, including resources please go to the Ministry for Pacific Peoples website. At Bellevue we are always considering ways in which we can connect to the language, culture and identity of our richly diverse student population through our curriculum. You will see examples of this over the course of the year on your child's Seesaw pages.
Community Consultation - Please hold the date
We hope to see you in 3 weeks time, on Tuesday 23 August (6.30 - 7.30pm) for our community consultation - the review of our guiding values. We know that times are busy and sickness is challenging for families at present but we encourage as many families to join us for this as possible. The values of a school underpin almost everything we do; our learning, approach to behaviour, the culture of our school and community. We are asking the question ‘When our students leave Bellevue, who do we want them to be?’ This will help us to identify the values we wish to teach, model and recognise in our school so it is important that these reflect the priorities of our whānau students and staff.
This week the teaching staff conducted an activity to explore the values they believe are important and students will do this in their hubs over the next couple of weeks.
Please consider adding your voice to the values that will guide our school for the coming years - there will also be cheese and wine/refreshments to tempt you and a supervised play space for children who need to come along with their parents/caregivers.
Education Review Office - The Journey Begins
Bellevue has begun to work with their evaluation partner who builds a professional relationship with the school over time. This will be a developmental evaluation that will strengthen the capability of our school through a focus on continuous improvement and strengthening our engagement with, and accountability to, whānau. The image below outlines this approach further and more information can be found on the ERO website. At present the Board has reviewed our policies and procedures for compliance and the leadership team are working with our partner on identifying the focus for our review. We will keep you informed through the newsletter as we progress through this process.
Matariki at Bellevue School Video is here!
We are very excited to let you know that the families of our populare ‘Matariki at Bellevue School’ video which was on display at our community evening last term have given permission for this to be shared with our school community.
We ask that you respect the families of students in this video by enjoying this yourself, but by not sharing any wider.
There is a substantial amount in this newsletter so we encourage you to read on and please do note the new information on managing winter illnesses in the Health and Safety section.
Noho ora mai
Annette
HEALTH & SAFETY UDATE - New Information!
We remain open and averaging 74% of our students still attending school onsite (as at today). Winter illnesses are taking a significant toll on our families, community and staff.
The Ministry of Education no longer requires schools to report positive cases as they can now obtain this data from the Ministry of Health. In light of this, the fact that more than 40% of our staff and students have now had Covid-19 and the escalating impact of other winter illnesses , this will be our last update on Covid-19 cases within the school.
The Ministry of Health has put together a range of information to support schools and their communities to manage the impacts of winter illnesses. You can find the key messages for parents, caregivers and whānau HERE.
There are also useful online resources from the Ministry of Health on staying healthy:
Tips to help keep our tamariki well this winter – YouTube
Ministry of Health: Monitoring illness in children – Facebook
Ministry of Health: Tips on when to keep your child at home – Facebook
Bellevue School is still operating under our 'Open' scenario for our provision of distance learning on our (updated for Orange) Community Plan.
Please do continue to inform us if your child tests positive or is required to isolate so we can code them accurately in the roll as:
- unwell
- self isolating - so accessing distance learning
- at home due to family decision - so accessing distance learning
annette@bellevue-newlands.school.nz and office@bellevue-newlands.school.nz
Thank you.
If you have let us know that your child is self isolating or has tested positive, please also let the office know when they return to school.
Please continue to monitor your child and do not send your child to school if they have any symptoms.
Health and Safety Measures at school
It continues to be a priority to take all measures we can to protect our school community from the spread of illness and infection.
Please note the following plan to manage critical staffing levels due to sickness (this works in conjunction with our Community Plan scenarios):
Step 1 - Students and teachers work collaboratively in buddy hubs (Hubs 1&2, 3&4, 5) to cover staff shortage. Please be aware this will mean some aspects of classes may not operate as usual and we will run alternative programmes.
Step 2 - If we are unable to cover staff shortage due to having more than one teacher away with no relievers or being unable to rearrange existing cover in school we will need to close a hub. In this scenario our leadership team will provide cover for classes to enable us to provide a day’s notice to the affected hub families.
Step 3 - In the case of a hub closure, to minimise the spread of covid-19 we will return to operating in our 'bubble zones' (separate play and working areas) and compulsory mask wearing for all adults and students from Year 4 up. Again you will have a day’s notice of this.
Though we are hopeful we will not be required to use these measures, we will continue to keep our families informed of the situation as required.
Staff Car Park - Damage to one of our team's car
At present, although our staff car park is closed for our students’ safety between 8.30 and 3.15, it remains open for drop offs and pick ups for Kapai Kidz before and after school.
Unfortunately, on Monday between 8-8.30am, one of our staff members cars was significantly damaged by someone in the car park - please see photo. Sadly, the person who damaged this car did not leave a note, contact number or even contact the school to let us know. If you know anything about this damage, please, please get in touch with the school office so that we can put the owner in contact with you to resolve this positively.
Thank you:
Thank you to the parents who are helping with Hub 5 swimming over the next two weeks - Monique, Jane, Amy, Rachael, Nik, Cheryl, Charmaine, Simon, Dan, Teresa, Nicola, Nita, Edwin, Rebecca, Mica, Kirsty, Hester, Harriet and Erin. Your support is greatly appreciated.
Bellevue School Board Election Results
Parent Election Results Declaration:
At the close of nominations as the number of valid nominations was fewer than the number of vacancies (five) required to be filled, I hereby declare the following duly elected:
Names:
Erin Bellhouse
Feta Laulau
Mandy Mackay
Kelvin Russell
The vacant parent representative role will be filled by following the casual vacancy process once the new Board takes office.
Signed
Amanda Beauchamp
Returning Officer
Contacting School Staff
We encourage families to get in touch with our team to discuss their child's learning, wellbeing or anything else school related!
Please do so through any of the following channels:
- email - staff contact emails are on our website. Please see the 'Staff Contact Information' button at the bottom of the newsletter
- via Seesaw messages - this also sends an alert to a staff members email inbox
- via a call to the school office - number at the bottom of the newsletter
We have a handful of staff who willingly use their personal Facebook log in to provide updates to our community on school life through our school Facebook page. Please do not use this to search for and contact staff via Facebook Messenger. Staff are not expected to check this platform for school communication and your message, which is important to us, may be missed. We ask that you use the communication channels provided above to respect the privacy of our team.
Positive Behaviour for Learning
Bellevue school has coconstructured our ‘why’ for embarking on the PB4L journey. While it may evolve as we continue to learn and discuss ideas as a team, our current purpose statement is; “Together we will create a safe, settled and supportive environment at Bellevue school. This will encourage positive and successful relationships with our school wide hapori (students, staff and whānau) that engage and empower our learners (ākonga) emotionally and academically.”
Trading Cards
Trading cards, such as the Pokemon cards shown in the image are not something we encourage at Bellevue School. Although we are aware these can be played with in constructive ways, they often lead to difficulties in student play and interactions.
This has been communicated with all of our students and we ask that you support us with this so that our students can all enjoy positive playtimes. If they are brought to school by accident, we request that they are left with the teacher until the end of the day. Thank you for your support.
SHOTS TO MAKE YOU SMILE
Hub 1 - Discovery time last Friday
They were very creative setting up and playing in the campsite outside. They also enjoyed painting and playing with the "waterbead marble run".
Peer Mediators
Congratulations to this year’s Peer Mediators (including Levi and Pyper who are not pictured), who have graduated their training! They are now out on duty each week in the playground to support tamariki with any issues they may have during this time. Throughout the training, the group have shown an abundance of takohanga/responsibility and whakaute/respect towards the role they now embody in our school community. Kino kē koutou, tamariki mā!
Hub 2
Room 5 had a visit from Annette last week to see their amazing maths work.
Hub 2 has been experimenting with mixing colours this week. They have looked at what has happened to colours when they touch other colours and when they are mixed together.
Scooter missing - your help please
The scooter below was left behind on school grounds towards the end of last term when a student unexpectedly had to go home. It is still missing. If anyone recognises this or is able to help with its whereabouts, please contact the school office.
Sports News
Miniball Results:
Storm lost against the Johnsonville All Stars, 44:22. Players of the day: Han and Ayva
Hurricanes lost against Amesbury Kereru , 48:14. Player of the day: Molly
Lightning won against Johnsonville Stormers, 50:12. Player of the day: Benji and Xavier
Thunder lost against Westpark Rockets, 32:16. Players of the day: Caleb
Swimming - Hub 5
This week has seen the first of the Hub 5 swimming lessons at Tawa pool.
The reports from the team have been excellent. The instructors are working in small groups with students targeting specific skills from 'getting comfortable with my face in the water' through to refining complex strokes.
To reduce the cost for families Hub 5 elected to take all the students on one bus, which does mean a longer time at the pool. During this time a rotation is operated so that students are either swimming, doing their normal morning curriculum learning in an adjoining area, or having their morning tea break.
We understand that many schools have not offered swimming lessons this term due to the difficulties that we also experienced with timetabling at our local pools and conflicting other demands. It was very important to us at Bellevue to continue to offer this to our families as our Health & PE consultation overwhelmingly indicated families wished their children to have this opportunity annually.
We wish to extend a huge thank you to our Hub 5 families for supporting us with this aspect of the curriculum. We have more than 80% of our Hub 5 families who have paid already and some who have provided a donation to support the swimming lessons overall. Thank you. We appreciate that the current times are not easy on families.
Scholastic Book Club Orders
The latest brochure was sent home last week. Orders are due by Thursday 11 August. Payment is by cash or credit card (details on the bookclub form). Please place your order in the locked money box in the Office foyer, in a sealed envelope with your child's name, room number and Scholastic book club written on the outside of the envelope.
Welcome to Term 3 2022 Bellevue Whanau!
Your child’s Art Work masterpieces were completed in Term 2, with orders available this term. Please see our newsletter further down for detailed information about ordering Calendars, Cards, Diaries, Sketch Pads and Mouse Pads!
Our next FUNdraisers committee meeting is coming up in week 3, 11 August 2022.
All are welcome! We will be setting dates for upcoming events including the Book Fair.
Kids Art Work (Calendar Art)
Here at FUNdraisers, we thought ‘WoW-Wow-Wow’ at the awesome artwork done by our tamariki! Most works were displayed at the Matariki Evening in Term 2, and hopefully you have all since received a link from your child’s teacher via Seesaw!
Via Kids Art Works, we can get your child’s pieces of art turned into some pretty neat products for purchase, making fantastic gifts for family and friends!
Orders close 12th August, and forms came home with your child at the end of Term 2.
Online orders are also available this year: https://forms.gle/GsTYb3FFo6NYuDvz8
While the manufacturing prices have increased, the FUNdraiser prices to our families for the items remain as at 2021...
Calendar, $13. Cards, $14. Diaries, $17. Sketch Pads, $13. Mouse Pads, $15.
Important Dates
Thursday 11 August
ICAS Writing (Y4-6 Only)
FUNdraisers Meeting 7pm Staffroom
Friday 12 August
Kids Art Work orders close
Thursday 18 August
ICAS English (Y4-6 Only)
Board Meeting
Tuesday 23 August
PB4L Community Values Consultation 6.30 - 7.30
Wednesday 24 August
ICAS Science (Y4-6 Only)
Thursday 1 September
ICAS Maths (Y4-6 Only)
Monday 5 September
Board Election Day
Wednesday 21 September
Learning celebration - open evening
Thursday 22 September
Board meeting
Friday 30 September
Term 3 ends
Monday 17 October
Term 4 begins
Friday 21 October
Teacher Only Day - School Closed
Wednesday 23 - Friday 25 November
Hub 5 Camp
Email: office@bellevue-newlands.school.nz
Phone: 04 4787037