24 March 2020
We hope you are all doing well and settling down for the interesting times ahead.
School Holidays
School holidays are being brought forward so that they are completed within the 4 week lock-down period. Holidays will now begin from Monday 30 March to Tuesday 14 April inclusive (a reminder that the Tuesday after Easter Monday is always a closed day for schools).
With that said, our LAs had prior to the Ministry’s announcement, already agreed to make work available immediately. They would prefer to work for the next two weeks supporting your child and then go on holiday.
In practice, work will be available for students already signed up to 1.2 classes and Y1-6 students throughout this entire period.
Closed means closed
Just to be perfectly clear on this, if you or your child has left something at school and desperately need it, you will not be able to get it until school reopens.
Learning resources
Many of our courses are already available to our students via google classroom, websites and the like. You can continue to work on this right away.
Tomorrow my communication will include a link to a list of resources that you can use from home, including our classes.
IEMs – Cancelled
IEMs that were scheduled for the end of term 1 and the start of term 2 have now been cancelled. We will be in touch with a date for these when we have more certainty regarding when schools will reopen (hopefully in 4 weeks time!)
Communication with whānau
All whole school communication will continue to be posted to the website. This will update Twitter, Facebook and School Apps.
There will be another update tomorrow and following that whole school updates will be as necessary.
Teaching LAs and Homebase LAs are likely to remain in contact with you and your child too. This is likely to be via email or their online classrooms.
Remember that for health matters, please continue to contact your GP, Healthline (0800 611 116) or 1737 for support from a trained counsellor.
Final thoughts
If you haven’t already done so, you may wish to read the information put together by the Ministry of Education to support your conversations with your children – Talking to children about COVID-19
As noted by the Prime Minister these restrictions are our best chance to slow the virus in New Zealand and to save lives. We all have a clear role here to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Finally, I’d just like to reiterate what the Prime Minister said yesterday. Be kind, keep safe, and look after each other.
Steven Mustor – Director