Hero photograph
 
Photo by Christchurch Boys' High School

New Term dates and holidays announced by the Ministry of Education

Nigel Vernon —

As you can imagine, the school is responding to these unprecedented times as quickly as information or advice changes. We are also aware that different schools are responding very differently. We have had official guidance from the Government that NZ will reduce to Level 3 on Tuesday the 28th of April. CBHS is waiting on official updates from the Ministry of Education before announcing any future plans.

Click here for up to date details from the Ministry of Education

The Secretary of Education has announced that the school holidays are as follows.

  • Term One ends this Friday 27th March
  • Term Two begins Wednesday 15th April


The school's response will be:

Senior students that have started final assessment for a standard that can be continued at home, should continue to work on their assignments in order to provide continuity of learning and assessment. Heads of Departments will, through their teachers send these students instructions about any assessment conditions that need to be in place for these assessments to continue off-site.

While we do not want to think about imposing due dates, we do recognise this may give some students a sense of purpose and certainty. Due dates for any assessments that have already been started will be extended out to the 24th April at the earliest. This recognises that students, staff and the whole community will be under stress over the next few weeks.

  • Because we cannot be certain of what is happening in individual students' homes, staff are instructed to accept late submissions in all cases in the immediate future. No medical certificates will be requested for extensions or late submissions.
  • Staff will not begin remote assessment of any standards or common assessments that have not already been started. These will be delayed until Term Two which, at this stage, starts on Wednesday the 15th April.
  • For all other classes (especially junior classes), for the balance of this week and over the holidays, staff will be encouraging students to do what we would normally expect during a holiday period. This might include things such as Reading Plus, Education Perfect, Read Theory, Sci-pad, revision, reading a book, etc. It may also include project work or finishing work that has been started this week.
  • Students can access our eBook collection remotely. They need to go to https://cbhs.wheelers.co/ and log in with their usual school username and password. They can then select eBooks and audiobooks by clicking on "borrow now". They should then select "read now" or "listen now".
  • Although the term officially ends on Friday, we see the next two to three days as an opportunity for students' families and our teachers' families to get used to their new realities, attend to members of their communities and put isolation measures and family support systems in place before the full lockdown begins.

To all intents and purposes, full remote learning will begin at the start of Term Two on 15th April. The school’s Remote Learning Policy can be found on the school website.

We believe that these policies are consistent with the current directives from the Ministry of Education. As these directives change, we will respond accordingly.