Tēnā koutou katoa,

I hope you all have fared well through the very unsettled weather we have had over the past week or so. Having had a week including bright sunshine, heavy rain, thunder and lightning, I feel we are ready for anything this week!

As we move into winter and the weather becomes poorer, it is a good time to recap the main expectations in our car park, especially at pick up time at the end of the day when it can get very busy. We are very lucky with our school car park compared with many other local schools. We have a generous car park and drop off area that generally works well. However, in the winter months especially, it can get busy and this can cause frustrations.

Some key guidelines for the car park:

• Parking bays are for vehicles picking up tamariki in Koru Hub only. Older children are more able to walk out onto Amesbury Drive and meet a vehicle or adult a little further away.
• The drop off zone is for children who are already waiting in the drop off area. If your child is not waiting, you need to head back out of the car park and come back in. Hopefully by then your child will have arrived.
• There is a natural loop around the car park. When traffic is light it is possible to move around the loop and drive back into the drop off area. However, once traffic starts to back up you cannot do this. If you wait in line to loop around, the whole system quickly blocks up and no one can move. If cars are lined up, you need to head out of the car park, turn around on one of the surrounding roads, and head back in.
• Please only park and wait in marked parking bays. There may be spaces where it seems okay to stop and wait, but that quickly clogs up the car park and makes it hard for small children to cross the car park safely. We may seem as though we are being overly officious when we move you on, but we are working to keep the car park a safe place for our tamariki.
• Thanks for being patient. Things can move a little slowly when traffic is heavy. Some of our children are little and it can take them time to get into a car and get buckled up safely, especially if car seats are involved.
• Our Koru Hub children come out into the drop off zone at about 2:55pm. Harakeke and Pōhutukawa tamariki come out at 3pm, and it can take some children a few minutes to collect their belongings and walk around to the car park. If your tamariki are a little older, it may help to aim to arrive at about 3:05, as the traffic tends to have thinned out a little by then.

Our car park procedure explains the car park expectations in more detail. If someone else will be picking up your child, please ensure that you pass on these key details to them, so that they know how the system works.

And to finish off, a final plug for our parent online safety sessions coming up on the 7th & 8th of June. Any places not taken by Amesbury School by the end of this week will be opened up to other schools in the cluster. I have heard really good things from several other schools who have had Rob and Zareen present to them, so it is a great opportunity to get some insight into this tricky and important area. If you are interested, see the article included in this digest.

Kia pai to wiki - have a lovely week.

Ngā mihi nui,

Urs Cunningham