1. Principals News Term 4, Week 3 2021

Year 6 Camp

This was awesome.  The children were brilliant and we got lots of lovely feedback about how respectful and kind the children were to each other.  These are two qualities we work very hard for our children to take on board and to get unsolicited feedback from our instructors and parent helps that they were really impressed with the behavior of our children, is just lovely.

The children stayed at Camp Iona and experienced a high ropes gorge crossing, an environmental river study, archery, kayaking and sailing.  They loved it.  There are more photos on our Facebook page.

We thank God we were able to have it and didn't have to cancel.  Please keep our intermediate camp in mind for week 8 and we are praying that this awesome camp will also go ahead as planned.

What are the Rules?

I think this is something that's bothering many people at the moment.  Conditions are changing very rapidly and I get a large bulletin of information from the Ministry of Education nearly every day.  Sometimes that means earlier information may change.  So please know that there is a level of uncertainty around some things but that we will give you the most up-to-date information we can.  We are also doing our best to plan events for term 4 knowing that conditions and "rules" can change very quickly.  Please help us, if you think we've missed something or something is not clear, please let us know.  Thank you.

Athletics

Our apologies to Kiwi Class parents who were told that Kiwi Class would be participating in the junior athletics.  We made a call that we believe was best for their learning and they will actually be participating in the senior athletics.  This is because due to the ages of the class, the class would have had to be split between junior and senior for their practices which would disturb too much other learning time.  So we decided the whole class would participate in the senior athletics.  We hope this has not inconvenienced or confused anyone.

Parent Helps and Parent Visitors

Please note the most up to date information I have from the Ministry on this is:

From the MOE: "The COVID-19 Required Vaccinations Order covers those who work (paid or unpaid) in the education sector and who will be on site when children or students are present. The Order doesn’t require parents to be vaccinated where they are on site for the purposes of “being a parent” (as it were)."

That means we can have parent spectators for both junior and senior athletics and we still need parent helpers for the senior athletics.  We purposely moved the date of the senior athletics to before 15th November so that anybody could help regardless of vaccine status.

If you are coming as a spectator please wear a mask and keep a social distance.  We will be outside which should be fine for distancing and gatherings of up to 100.  

Parents coming onto the grounds, please sign in using the QR code or sign the register which will be located either in the foyer or outside on a desk on the grass area.

Senior Athletics

Senior athletics is all day next Friday 12 November.  This includes all of Kiwi class and the senior school.

Junior Athletics

Starts at 1.45pm on Tuesday 16 November for Junior Hub 1.  Relays which include our senior school will start at 2.20pm that day.

Multicultural Day - Wednesday 10 November

- Children are encouraged to dress in clothing that represents their culture.  Parents, please have a conversation with your children about an aspect of your culture that is important to you.   I will be going around the classes on the day and filming some students telling me what is important to them about their culture.  As we can't have our usual get-together, I will share this video on Facebook.

- There will be no shared lunch. 

 

- The vast majority of children and teachers have agreed that even though we can't have our parents come in and help us and lead us in our workshops, they still want to do these in the morning and the teachers will run them.

- We won't have the usual performance celebration in the afternoon.  A group of Filipino and Tongan children will do a performance before lunch led by Mrs Misiloi and Miss Sollano and these will be shared via Facebook.

I feel very sad that this beautiful gathering of our families cannot happen in its usual way this year, and also that we did not get to celebrate our International Food Fair.  We will be hoping next year allows us more freedom to do these things and we will REALLY MAKE THE MOST OF THEM.  I really want to thank our staff, our students and yourselves for doing the best we can to make the most of what we can this year.

Please note we have a teacher-only day on Tuesday 30th November and school will be closed.

God Bless and Aroha

Lorraine