Kia ora koutou,

We are currently finalising our Board of Trustees election process; please see the accompanying article in this digest for the results. The school governance board is one way that parents can be involved at school. If you are interested in getting involved in this area, there are still places available - see the Board of Trustees article. There is also a range of different ways in which you can support and be involved with the school. I would like to pass on a huge thank you to the parents who have recently helped out at school events such as our school disco, school cross country, Scholastic book club, providing transport to a range of sporting events, and coaching our netball and miniball teams. All of these events help to provide a variety of different opportunities for our tamariki.

We are currently looking for more parent and whānau volunteers in a number of areas. We are looking for help with fundraising activities at our upcoming Kapa Haka festival, as Amesbury School is hosting this event at Onslow College. If you are keen to help with providing or selling food at the festival, or you can help to organise tamariki on the day of the festival, please contact Amaria (amaria@amesbury.school.nz). We are also looking for support at our Junior Invitational Cross Country (contact Eilis - eilis@amesbury.school.nz) and at our upcoming school disco for Term 3 (contact Gar Kee - garkee@amesbury.school.nz). We love having whānau involved in these events and the support enables us to provide a range of different opportunities for our tamariki. Thanks for your ongoing support in different areas.

Covid Update

The number of Covid cases in our school community has reduced over recent weeks. We currently only have one active case of Covid-19 that we are aware of amongst our students. In the first three weeks of Term 3 we have had 15 confirmed cases of Covid-19, 3 in Koru Hub, 6 in Harakeke Hub and 6 in Pōhutukawa Hub. We have also had 6 confirmed cases amongst our staff.

Despite the waning number of cases, we encourage families to remain vigilant for signs of sickness, and to stay at home and test if family members become unwell. Please keep school informed of Covid cases in your household, so we can remain mindful of the trend of current cases in our community. 

Masks at school: at the start of this term the Ministry of Education requested that ākonga in years 4 and above, and all staff, wear masks when indoors for the first four weeks of term. It has been really pleasing to see that compliance with this request has been high at Amesbury, and we believe this has had a positive impact on our case numbers. We are now going into our fourth week of the term, and during this week we will hear from the Ministry whether this request will be extended. We will communicate with families about this once we receive an update about masks at school.

Regardless of whether or not the current mask request is extended, we will continue to strongly encourage year 4-6 ākonga and all staff to wear masks indoors. Masks help to reduce the number of virus particles someone with Covid-19 can spread, and they also help to prevent you from inhaling virus particles. We have a large supply of adult and child masks, and we will continue to make these available to anyone coming into school. We also ask that any visitors coming indoors at school also wear a mask. There are masks available in all hubs and at school reception.

Kia haumaru te noho - stay safe and well, and stay warm in this chilly weather. We look forward to seeing many of you at our inquiry 2 learning celebration on Friday afternoon.

Ngā mihi nui,

Urs Cunningham