Tena koutou katoa. Nga mihi nui atawhai.
We are just over halfway into the national lockdown. What an adjustment it has been for all of us to make. There isn’t any real road map for this situation so we are designing the map as we are travelling down this road.
There is a glimmer in the news that this drastic step that we have all taken as a nation is beginning to show dividends with the flattening of the curve – American media are even suggesting that we have ‘squashed’ the curve!
As a learning community, we continue to prepare for the beginning of Term 2 online learning next week. The Online Timetables and the explanations for these were sent out to all students and staff last week. A copy of these are available on our school website – HERE
As stated previously, although we had initially considered just continuing with our usual school based timetable, we quickly realised that this was not going to be sustainable in terms of wellbeing, for staff, students and their whānau. This online timetable reduces the amount of time students have to spend online while balancing the need to still have a sense of connection and belonging to our learning community.
We have acknowledged with our staff that we will not be able to cover that same amount of learning in this online environment as we would in our classrooms. We have asked Heads Of Departments to work through with staff about what is realistic, for both them and their students, and pare back the programmes of learning to a real focus on the essentials as a priority.
In these uncertain times, we have focused on sharing information in a clear and concise manner to the groups that need to know. We have used broadcasts out to our parent community and shared these with students and staff – adapted for these different audiences.
We have added links on the front page of our website to guide our community and share useful links with them. We have drafted and now published ‘Expectations’ for students, staff and parents so everyone knows what we are doing and how and where they can support others – these are available HERE
Connection and Engagement
We are very much aware that there needs to be at least an equal amount of attention given to staff and student wellbeing during this time and we are putting in place a range of strategies to enable this to happen. We are working with the Pastoral Team to work out a simple system to check in regularly with our students.
Our student leaders are doing a stunning job of working on keeping up the connections and engagement with students. Our Student Leadership team are putting together an iSite that has activities and resources under each of their portfolios. Our Sports Council students are doing daily updates and challenges on Instagram which all ensure that we maintain our sense of community.
Our e-learning Co-ordinator, Catherine Mackisack, is working on a site where staff can access a range of online readings and tools.
Take care and look after yourselves and all your whānau. Wishing each and every one of you a blessed and happy Easter bubble time.
