Useful information:
*Healthline: 0800 611 116 For free health advice and information
*Need to talk: 1737 To connect with a professional counsellor. Free to call or text this number.
*Covid-19 website
*Locations of interest - Covid-19
*Fact sheet about getting food deliveries if you are isolating at home
*Link to Home Learning TV
Tēnā koutou e hoa ma,
I hope you and your whānau are all doing well during this urutā (outbreak). As I live by myself, my bubble is extremely quiet! I am keeping in close touch with family, friends and staff online, and spending a lot of time on Google Hangouts or Zoom. Lockdown is also the time when I get to spend more time exploring my own neighbourhood. At other times I tend to go out of my suburb to shop or explore, so spending a bit of time closer to home is nice. In the last lockdown I discovered a park and several playing fields, I did not know existed, close to my apartment, and this time around I have found several ‘secret’ paths to these various locations. I hope you are all enjoying exploring closer to home yourselves, and possibly making a few new discoveries.
We have heard the announcement today that New Zealand will continue in level 4 lockdown until 11:59pm Tuesday 31st August, and all of New Zealand south of Auckland will then move to alert level 3 as of Wednesday 1st September. In this post there is a second article about level 3, which explains what happens with remote learning at level 3, and what this looks like for Amesbury School. Essentially, remote learning continues for everyone in level 3. All tamariki (children) who can continue to learn at home are encouraged to do so. Tamariki who cannot learn at home will be able to come onsite to learn. It is important to note that the learning will look the same for all children, regardless of where they are. Children who continue to learn at home will complete the remote learning uploaded to our hub learning websites, with some help, where needed, from their whānau. Children who learn onsite at level 3 will complete the same learning, with some help from bubble teachers. We will continue to send out an email to parents each Sunday evening with the remote learning links for the coming week.
If your tamariki will need to learn onsite at school during level 3, please register them for this by completing this short form. This helps us considerably with planning and preparation for level 3. You do not need to fill this in again if you have already completed it during this lockdown. We will email to confirm with you what learning bubble your child/ren will be placed in.
We are aware that several families would like to collect their child/ren’s school Chromebooks, and missed the opportunity to do this on Monday. Once we move to level 3 we will be able to arrange for you to complete contactless pickup of school devices. Please contact Urs (urs@amesbury.school.nz) or your child’s whānau teacher to arrange this. We will also arrange for Koru Hub ākonga to have packs of reading books for contactless pick up, if you would like to. If you have already completed the online form indicating that you want reading books, the hub will continue to provide a weekly pack of books once we move to level 3. If you have not signed up for this yet and would like to do so, please complete this short form.
In terms of the learning our tamariki are doing from home, I would like to reiterate the message to please not feel stressed or worried about getting certain learning completed at particular times. Children learn in many different ways, and there is useful learning in a wide range of activities and endeavours. Teams provide learning tasks in weekly ‘packs’ on their distance learning website. They have also provided a possible timetable to structure daily learning, as feedback from parents let us know that this would be useful for some people. However, if your whānau is completing home learning in a different way, or if it works best for your family to complete some of the learning but not all of it, then that is absolutely fine. It is important that you do what works best for your whānau at this time. Please be aware that whānau teachers will continue to check in weekly with you. If your child does not appear to be engaging with the learning from school (from what the teacher can see) then they will check in with you about this. This is not to appear pushy about completing learning, or to seem judgemental in any way. It is simply to check if your child is doing okay, and to see if there are any obstacles to completing the learning that we can help with. Teachers are aware that some families will not be completing the school learning because they are doing their own home learning instead, and other families may not be engaging with the learning because their child is finding it difficult or struggling to connect in some way. We just want to check and see if any help or support is needed from us in any way.
Changes to school events
- Term 3 Mihi Whakatau (school welcome) - rescheduled when we return to level 1
- Term 3 New Parent Session - rescheduled when we return to level 1
- ICAS Science Exam - rescheduled for Tues 19th October
- ICAS Maths Exam - rescheduled for Tues 26th October
- Co-curricular lessons for Weeks 4, 5 and 6 - rescheduled (where possible) when we return to level 2
- Four Year Old Programme - rescheduled when we return to level 2
- Community Consultation Session: Community Partnering Document - rescheduled when we return to level 1
Please continue to stay safe: stay at home during level 4; only go out to collect food or medicine, or to exercise; wear a mask if you go out; get a Covid-19 test if you have visited a location of interest during the specified time of interest, or if you show signs of sickness; book to have vaccination if you have not already done so.
Take care, me toru ki ētahi atu - check in on others. We hope to see you all very soon.
Urs Cunningham and the Amesbury team
