LETTER FOR OUR COMMUNITY

21 August 2021

The Prime Minister advised that we remain at Alert Level 4 until at least 11.59pm on 24 August 2021. We will learn more on Monday about what will happen next. I wanted to reassure you that our school staff and board will continue to be available to support your child’s learning and wellbeing in the coming days. We are pleased to let you know that we have over 65% of our students indicating they are accessing learning at home. This is due to the support and proactive organization whanau, in liaison with our dedicated teachers have achieved. Thank you everyone for your determination … and students – for your hard work online already.

We also hope you are doing OK at the moment – but it is also OK if you aren’t. As the Mental Health Foundation of NZ says, “it’s all right to feel a range of emotions right now. Going into a Level 4 lockdown is a big deal and it brings all sorts of different feelings to the surface, including frustration, worry and even gratitude. However you are feeling, know that you’re not alone – we’re all going through this together.”

If you need to talk, check in with a friend or whānau member, or free call/text 1737 to chat with a trained counsellor. It’s free and confidential. There are also a lot of other supports available to you, your whānau and your community if needed.

You will also understand the importance of routine for your family. If your routine has been shaken up, it’s good to structure your time. Routines are reassuring and promote health and physical wellbeing.

For our Pacific families, if you are not aware the Ministry for Pacific Peoples’ has been working to ensure useful information is available to Pacific peoples in nine different languages. A big thank you to all of you for taking the lockdown so seriously – we’ve seen before that staying at home will break the chain of transmission and save lives. Breaking the rules could risk someone close to you and if the rules are not complied with, this could risk the lock down period being extended or could risk the virus being spread to thousands.

Please keep checking the locations of interest and get tested if you were at that location at the specified time, or if you have symptoms which could be COVID-19.

The Ministry of Education has informed us that we can prepare and distribute chromebooks, to students who do not have a device they can use at home. Chromebooks will be ready for you to pick up on Monday 23rd August, but you must keep to the time schedule below.

To ensure everyone’s safety we need to limit the numbers of people coming onsite and ask that you support our small administration team (we are limited to the number of people we can have working on site) by keeping to the requested times – as follows:

Waiti – Rooms 2, 3, 4, 23, 24, 25 Monday 9am – 10.30am

Waita – Rooms 1, 12,13, 15,16 Monday 10.30am – 12.00pm

Ururangi – Rooms 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 Monday 12.30 – 2pm

Tupu a rangi – Rooms 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Monday 2pm – 3.30pm

If you cannot attend at the time allocated you will be able to come on Tuesday from 10am – 12pm.

If you cannot pick up your child’s device, please contact your child’s classroom teacher and we will arrange to have it delivered.

Thanks, stay home, wear a mask, get vaccinated, be safe…

Pauline Cornwell
Principal