Taking Chromebooks home
We are committed to ensuring that student learning can still continue remotely in the event of schools being closed. We recognise that for some families, sufficient access to appropriate devices may prove difficult, so for students in Harakeke or Pōhutukawa hubs, families can choose to take their child's school Chromebook home in the event of schools closing.
There is some risk in school devices going home, and we want to ensure that devices are used appropriately and treated well. As such, we have created a home use agreement that will need to be signed and followed, if parents wish to take their child's Chromebook home.
We have attached the home use agreement to this article, and it is linked here. If you wish to take your child’s Chromebook home, please either:
Print off a copy of the agreement, sign it and send it back to Lisa Bengtsson (lisa@amesbury.school.nz) OR
Pop into school and sign a hard copy of the agreement. Copies of this agreement will be kept in both hubs, and also in the shared principal office. OR
Sign a copy of the agreement when you collect the Chromebook from your child’s whānau teacher in the event of school closing
In the event of schools being closed, we will communicate with our community to let them know the details of the closure. At that point we will advise parents of Harakeke and Pōhutukawa students that they can collect their child/ren’s Chromebooks if they have signed a copy of the agreement. Chromebooks can be collected from your child’s hub.
In the event that the school holiday is brought forward, we will allow Chromebooks to be taken home, in case schools do not immediately re-open after the break.
Home learning
Please note that at this point, schools are not officially closed. This means that the current focus for teachers is the on-site learning programmes that are still running at school. It is not manageable for teachers to be running and managing two separate learning programmes. We do fully understand that for some families, children need to stay home. We thank all families who are keeping our community safe by doing so. In this event, your child's whānau teacher will send home a 'keeping learning going' message, with some ideas and activities for your child/ren to do.
In the event of schools formally closing, teachers’ focus will turn solely to home learning programmes, and you will be sent much more specific home learning for your child. Your child’s teacher will communicate regularly with you and your child/ren. We will send home weekly sets of learning that your child can do, and teachers will mark and monitor learning, and keep in contact with your child.
We will also send home a list of ‘general activities’ that children can do at home to stay active, stay engaged and keep learning.
We have taken advice from teachers around the world who are currently running remote learning for students in schools that are closed. The strong advice seems to be not to ‘pile on’ too much structured learning. As such, our recommendation for daily home learning will be:
Koru students:
15 mins writing per day
15 mins maths learning mins
15 mins of reading per day
20 mins+ of activities from the ‘general’ list, including ‘community space’ activity
Harakeke and Pōhutukawa students:
20 - 30 mins writing per day
20 - 30 mins maths learning mins
20 - 30 mins of reading / reading task per day
45 mins+ of activities from the ‘general’ list, including ‘community space’ activity
Thanks to you all for working together to keep our community safe and healthy.
Warm regards,
The Amesbury team
