During Alert Level 4 all children need to complete remote learning from home. On Wednesday September 1st all areas south of Auckland will move into Alert Level 3. This means children are to continue learning from home where at all possible, and for children whose parents need to go to work in level 3 and there is no appropriate caregiver at home, school will be open to enable them to can come onsite to learn at school. Please be aware that all ākonga (students) are marked as 'learning remotely' on our attendance roll if they are completing some form of home learning. This is not counted as any form of absence - if ākonga are learning remotely, whether it is from home or completing the remote learning onsite at school, then they are counted as present for learning.
Onsite learning at school
If it is not possible for your child/ren to continue to learn remotely, and your tamariki need to learn onsite at at school from September 1st onwards, please complete this short form. This will enable us to be adequately prepared. If you have already completed this form you do not need to fill it in again.
There will be 3 student bubbles onsite to begin with - one bubble based in each main hub: Karaka bubble (based in Koru hub, where the carpet is orange); Māwhero bubble (based in Harakeke, where the carpet is pink); Hall bubble (based, funnily enough, in the hall). Please note that these bubbles will be mixed to some degree, with children from different hubs in them; siblings will be placed in the same bubble, to avoid cross-bubble contamination. Children will stay in the same bubble - the bubbles will not be mixed at any point, and teachers will endeavour to stay separate. All break times will be separate, and both playgrounds on school grounds will remain closed to all children, to avoid cross-contamination between bubbles. We will have staggered start and end times to the day for each bubble, to avoid bubbles merging inadvertently.
Within the learning bubbles there will be two teachers assigned to each bubble. Each teacher will work in the learning bubble for half of the time, and they will spend the rest of the time staying in touch with their own whānau groups online - completing online conferences and monitoring learning. In the Karaka bubble the teachers will be Regina and Elena; in Māwhero bubble the teachers will be Eilis and Michelle; in the hall bubble the teachers will be Onaitta and Gar Kee. We have ensured that all bubble teachers are people who are not at higher risk from Covid-19 themselves, do not have someone in their bubble who is high risk, or do not have children under the age of 14 at home.
Here are the school day times for students in the three hubs:
Karaka bubble: 9:10am - 2:50pm
Māwhero bubble: 9am - 3pm
Hall bubble: 8:50am - 3:10pm.
We ask that students do not arrive too early for school, and that they go straight inside their hub when they get to school. We will keep siblings in the same learning bubble, which will help with the different start and end times. The library will not be accessed by students during level 3, and as such it can't be used as a space for students to wait if they arrive at school early. Once students leave their hub at the end of the day they need to leave the school grounds as soon as possible, rather than staying and playing. This will avoid student bubbles merging at the start or end of the day.
Please note that before or after school care is not able to run during alert level 3. We will also not have staff stationed at the Amesbury Drive zebra crossing or the drop off zone, due to limited numbers of staff onsite.
For parents dropping children off or picking them up, we ask that you do not come inside the school building. We appreciate that this is different from our usual approach, and we do not wish to appear unwelcoming. However, it is important that we keep students, staff and parents safe, and look to maintain bubbles as much as possible. If you need to communicate with us, please phone or text, or send an email.
Here are the drop off and pick up points for hubs:
Karaka bubble = children enter and are picked up via the blue matting area next to the field beside Koru Hub.
Māwhero bubble = children enter and are picked up via the sliding doors in Mawhero, next to the library.
Hall bubble = children enter and are picked up from the main school entrance into the hall.
When parents are waiting for children, please stand back away from the doors while maintaining a 2 metre distance from other caregivers. In the case of inclement weather, all three pick up areas have some shelter. We recommend coming as close to the pick up time as possible, to avoid needing to wait around, close to others.
There will be no lunch orders running during level 3, and no co-curricular lessons or any learning that brings students from different bubbles together. We will be not using any shared spaces with children, such as the library or the commons. Students will stay in their respective learning spaces. Teachers will not cross between bubbles. Each bubble will have a small set of shared equipment that will be cleaned as regularly as possible. This equipment will not be shared between bubbles.
Children will generally be placed in the learning bubble operating in their hub. We will keep siblings together in the same bubble, to reduce risk. In this case we will let parents know which learning bubble their children have been placed into.
Please note that there is an information poster about learning onsite at the bottom of this article.
The learning ngā ākonga (students) will have at home is exactly the same as the learning that will be given at school. All ākonga will continue to follow the online learning delivered through the hub home learning websites. Students learning remotely will complete this learning at home, with some help from parents where necessary. Students learning onsite will complete the same learning, with bubble teachers to help where needed.
Each team has created a Google Site for their home learning: Koru site; Harakeke site; Pōhutukawa site. Each team has carefully thought through their online learning and housed all learning in a purpose built website. The sites will contain no information about students.
Each child will to continue to have the option to participate in a weekly small group social conference with their teacher via Google Meet, and they will also be invited to a weekly learning group discussion online meeting with a small group of students from their hub. These online meetings are optional, and teachers will not follow up if students choose not to join. All students and parents will also continue to receive a weekly individual email from their core teacher, as another way to check in with them.
The home learning sites will contain all of the learning tasks, videos, learning presentations and all other learning tasks and resources needed. This site will be a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all of the content needed for the home learning, in a clear, orderly overview. Hopefully this will make it easy for parents and children to navigate the learning.
If you have any questions about any of the remote learning, or about any information contained in this article, please contact me (urs@amesbury.school.nz) or your child's whānau teacher. If you or your child/ren are experiencing any difficult with the home learning, please don't hesitate to contact your child's whānau teacher, as we will look to help in any way we can.
Ngā mihi nui,
The Amesbury team
