Alert Level 4 - Working together for the good of everyone

Tēnā koutou e tē Avonhead whānau,

What a difference one day can make. After the announcement from the Government on Tuesday night, it has been a busy couple of days getting back into life in lockdown. All teams have been in touch briefly with families reassuring everyone that we are here to support and help all whānau during this time.

With the update this afternoon that Alert Level 4 will continue until 11.59pm Tuesday 24 August, Avonhead will remain closed and we will move to our Online Learning Programme from Monday 23 August with the assumption that this lockdown may continue longer. Teams will email a timetable of activities for the week on Sunday afternoon. Activities and timetables will be age specific. We will be using Zoom once or twice a week to make contact and deliver learning to tamariki via video conferencing. Please remember, that online learning is not like a normal day at school. We understand that all situations are different and learning at home may create difficulties for some families. Please do what works best for you and your whānau, as these relationships are the most important. Completing online learning is beneficial, but so too is family. You can reach out to your classroom teacher should you need extra support. A survey around Access to Online Learning will be sent home shortly.

Our school newsletter will be coming out and within this there are multiple articles around useful home learning websites, digital safety, community notices and more. Please take the time to read through some of these as the information will be helpful.

At our Assembly last week, we discussed working together, through the context of sport. We spoke about the Olympics and the success of the New Zealand team and how it took not just the skills of the athletes, but all of the support from the coaches, managers and families as well. We shared the recent successes of our chess and basketball teams along with the exciting news that the Year 5/6 Football, Year 5/6 Rugby and Year 7/8 Rugby teams all won their  respective divisions at the Northwest Sports Competition last Wednesday. Our discussion about working together is very important, especially during lockdown. In times like this as a school, as a community, and as a nation, we all need to work together, support one another and do our part. 

The image of the whakatauki at the top of this article reinforces that we all need to make time to stop and breathe, to take a moment and work through the ups and downs that come along with the changes to our normal daily routines.

Ngā mihi nui,

Micah Hocquard

Principal