Tēnā koutou katoa,

We have had a very positive start to Term 2, and it has been great seeing all of our tamariki back with us in fine spirits and fine voice! In particular, it was wonderful to welcome parents and whānau back onsite for our cross country on Thursday. It was great to see lots of supporters out cheering loudly for our tamariki, which added to the general excitement of the event. We were all so proud of the determination and effort of our ākonga in their running, and of the support they showed each other. Huge thanks to Eilis for all of the prep and organisation that went into ensuring the event ran well (pardon the pun), and congratulations to all of our place getters. There will be an article going out very soon with more information about the cross country and celebrating the place getters in each year group.

Now that we are in Orange level, we are thankfully able to welcome parents and whānau back onsite for some events and activities. We are still taking some precautions with this, and we will continue to avoid having students and whānau altogether in the school hall for the time being, as this does not leave us with space to distance a little. We are back to holding onsite events such as our learning celebration and Mihi Whakatau, and our much awaited school disco! Please be aware that these events will all run a little differently to ensure we can still take some precautionary measures and keep people safe.

Our approach to remaining safe and healthy this term is to begin taking away some of the precautions we had in place last term, whilst keeping some safety measures in place. We are now mixing across hubs, and running events such as electives and co-curricular lessons in mixed groups. We are also running more events offsite, such as swimming and trips to Waitohi Library, and more events where students can gather and interact with each other, such as miniball and netball, discos, and various shows at school (Nano Girl Science Lab and Playhouse Theatre show). As we continue to open up more and gather more together, we will keep some safety measures in place during the winter months, to ensure we don’t cause a sudden increase in winter illnesses.

Parents and whānau with tamariki in years 4-6 will already be aware that we have now altered our stance on students wearing masks at school, and we are asking all year 4-6 ākonga to wear a mask indoors from Monday 9th May for the rest of Term 2. This will hopefully help us to strike a safe and healthy balance between beginning to open up more as a school community, and staying safe while our immune systems are still potentially lower due to two years of lockdowns. We are aware of a number of airborne viruses that could be problematic for some people in our community, such as Covid-19, Influenza, and RSV. Please follow the links for further information about each virus and about ways to keep safe this winter.

Kia pai to wiki mutunga - have a good week, and we look forward to seeing many of you around school at our various school events and activities over the coming term.

Ngā mihi nui,

Urs Cunningham