Kia ora Koutou,

Hi all,

A huge thank you and pat on the back to all homeschoolers that is you, parents and caregivers, to every child that has worked on their Google slides and activities at home, and every staff member, teacher and support staff for once again adapting programmes, connecting with you all and moving learning to home. Its now time to welcome you all back.  Today we have ensured the classes are clean and will be ready for you.

We are looking forward to welcoming all our students and staff back to school on Monday following the return to Alert Level 2. Our Health and Safety plan is in place as it has been under every alert level, and you can be assured we will continue doing everything we can to keep children safe. These have been summarised below to help you as a family/s whanau prepare to return to school to follow our good practices to keep ourselves, family and whānau safe including:

At home, please continue with good hand hygiene, cough and sneeze etiquette, appropriate physical distancing when out and about and keeping your child home if they are sick.

Requirements at Alert Level 2

Who can return to school?

All children and staff can attend school at this level. Schools must be open. Learning will be onsite with distance learning provided for those required to self-isolate, those individuals who health authorities have asked to stay away while waiting for a test result, or those choosing to remain at home because they are vulnerable to illness. Please inform the school if you require distance learning to continue.

Children at higher risk of severe illness

Children are encouraged to take additional precautions when leaving home. Parents, caregivers, and students will need to work with the school to develop a plan to manage a safe return to school. 

Washing and drying hands

Hand sanitiser will be at the entry to classrooms and in shared spaces.  Soap, water, and the ability to dry hands must be provided in bathrooms. If hand sanitiser is in short supply, washing and drying hands with soap is still the most effective hygiene measure.

Physical distancing

Children and staff should be far enough away from each other so that they are not breathing on or touching each other, coupled with good hygiene practices and regular cleaning of commonly touched surfaces. There does not need to be a specific measurement but where practicable and reasonable 1 metre can be used as a guide, particularly between adults. Physical distancing of 2 metres is recommended for parents and caregivers, from people they don’t know (to align with public health measures outside the school grounds).

Cleaning

All surfaces will be disinfected and cleaned daily.

Morning

All teaching staff on-site by 8.15 am. School starts at 9.00am. All children go to class to prepare, rather than playing outside with balls or equipment, and get ready to start learning.

Drop off and Pick up

School start and finish times are 9.00am and 3.00pm. Please stick to this.   

Drop off  – In Alert Level 2. Please drop and go. Exceptions made for New Entrants. Parents of New Entrants and visiting New Entrants must all use the COVID-19 Tracer App and Visitor Register. 

Pick up –  All staff will take their students down to the pick up area in lines. Older students to pick up their siblings and wait together. Bus lines wait on the courts. Bottom car park will have two supervising staff on boardwalk area. 

Physical and cultural activities/ playgrounds

Physical education classes and break time activities can include access to sports equipment, including playground hygiene practice will be observed before and after playing with equipment. This includes regular cleaning of shared equipment such as balls, sticks etc.

Physical distance is not possible in some sporting activities. In these situations, extra emphasis on handwashing and drying (or cleansing with hand sanitiser) before and after activities and regular cleaning of equipment is very important.

Contact tracing

Contact tracing remains a priority through our Visitor Register, timetable and attendance register. The school is required to display QR code posters for the NZ COVID-19 Tracer App.

Visitors

To support contact tracing, all visitors who are on-site for a period of time, including parents and caregivers, must be recorded in our Visitor Register (as is usual practice but also to assist if contact tracing is necessary). For drop offs and pickups, if the parent or caregiver uses the app we don’t need to capture them in our Visitor Register. Please use the App parents!

For parents and caregivers who cannot use the App, you must continue to sign the Visitor Register when doing pick ups and drop offs if you get out of the car. 

Music lessons

The itinerant music lessons will resume teaching. 

Drinking fountains

Fountains are turned off and all children must have their own water bottle.

Wai Factor Semi-Finals for Years 5-8 – Wednesday 2nd September (do get practicing if that is you!!). Student leaders have lots of fun activities for us to do. We are going to get all this going and more and we will let you know next week everything else.

THIS WEEK 

Look forward to seeing you all next week!!

FOR YOUR CALENDAR

• Tuesday 1st September – BOT Meeting – Staffroom – 6.30pm
• Wednesday 2nd September – Waifactor Semi Finals
• Friday 4th September – Team Assemblies – Pukeko – 9.10am, Kiwi – 9.45am, Tui – 10.10am and Takahe – 10.40am.
• Friday 11th September – Pukeko / Kiwi Assembly – 9.10am
• Friday 11th September – Waifactor Finals
• Monday 14th September – Boostrix (Yr 7) and HPV (Yr 8)
• Thursday 17th September and Friday 18th September – Learning Conversations – (To Be Confirmed)
• Friday 18th September – Teacher Only Day (CANCELLED)
• Friday 18th September – Last day to order Calendar Art via Kindo
• Friday 18th September – Kowhai / Daffodil Day
• Tuesday 22 September – Photo Day
• Wednesday 23rd September – FOWS Meeting – Staffroom – 7.00pm
• Friday 25th September – Whole School Assembly – 2.00pm
• Friday 25th September – Last day of Term 3

OTHER

COMMUNITY