Amesbury School


Kia ora koutou,

Well, winter has well and truly arrived this week, with hats, scarves and gloves being dusted off to ward off the chilly winds.

Our first few days in Alert Level 1 have gone smoothly, and people seem to be feeling very positive about the current situation for New Zealand - we currently have no active cases of Covid-19, and no community transmission of the virus since early April. We are keeping up with our thorough cleaning and sanitising routines - thank you Brian - and all teams will continue with their consistent hand washing and sanitising routines. We are very pleased that all students are now back at school, apart from two students who are overseas. We are all feeling more settled and it is nice to see the school operating much more ‘normally’.

The changes in our pick up and drop off routines have started well. This week you will see one Koru teacher out on morning duty each day from 8:30 - 9am around the car park area, ready to support students coming into school by themselves. After school there will be a member of the leadership team out on Amesbury Drive to ensure it is safe for students, and Koru teachers will continue taking their groups out onto the courts to be picked up by parents and caregivers, unless it is raining. In the case of rain, people can pick Koru children up from their learning spaces. When children are taken out to the netball courts at 2:55pm we ask that children who are picked up and stay to play around school grounds move to the far end of the netball courts during the 15 minute pick up process,, so that teachers can easily keep track of children they are still supervising. Once all children have been picked up, people are then very welcome to use the whole of the courts for playing. It is great to see children continuing to develop their independence and confidence in coming into school by themselves. Please do remember that parents and whānau are still most welcome to come on into school if you would like to do so.

It is very exciting to see work happening behind the scenes on our new fitness trail, which will be situated adjacent to the fence running along the edge of our school boundary, beyond the pathway joining Romaine Road and Amesbury Drive. Students had input into obstacles and colours being used in the trail, and work will begin on constructing it soon. The trail is built as a dual track, so two students can race the trail together at the same time. We are eagerly awaiting the trail, which will become a strong feature of our ongoing fitness routines. Currently we can see lots of groups of children out regularly practising our cross country track, ready for the school cross country in several weeks’ time (Tuesday 30th June).

Teacher only days coming up

We originally had two teacher only days scheduled in May. These were postponed as the timing did not work well with the rāhui. We have now rescheduled these days so that our teaching team can continue with their professional learning. The new dates for these days are:

*Friday September 11th - Week 8 of term 3

*Friday October 23rd - Week 2 of term 4

School will be closed for instruction on these days, and teachers will be participating in professional learning workshops.

We hope you all have an enjoyable week and manage to stay warm.

Ngā mihi nui,

Urs Cunningham (Acting Principal) and John Bunting (BoT Chairperson) 


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