Kia ora parents, caregivers and whānau

Greetings to you all in your bubbles. We are now over half way through the four week lockdown and heading into the Easter break. I hope you are enjoying the opportunity to be together as families and to take time out of our busy schedules to walk and exercise together, cook and bake together, make music and fun together and watch movies and entertainment together.

However, normal family life also has its frustrations and these will be amplified while we are all locked down together 24/7. Be kind to yourselves and your teenagers. During these years growing into adulthood, peers are critically important to teenagers and they will be missing social contact. They will be watching rites of passage in the senior years at school disappear, access to sport and cultural activities gone and will be worrying about their qualifications. Your role in reassuring them and supporting them is more important than ever. Please be in touch with their social media activity so that its use to connect is positive and safe.

At the same time some of you may be experiencing job loss or insecurity, loss of income or the prospect of businesses not surviving. It is not an easy nor a normal time and can be a time of significant stress for some. Our thoughts go out to you all and to our parents who are essential workers.

While school is not physically on site, we are still here and responsive to any concerns you have for your daughter. When Term 2 starts online next Wednesday all our pastoral care functions are there. Please email contact your daughter’s AKO teacher in the first instance if you have any worries or the year level Dean if your concern is more serious. They will respond and we will follow up just as we would if we were at school. Also remember that the counsellors are available and our students can make appointments online with them. We are building a spreadsheet of information regarding students whom the teachers identify as not engaging online and this will continue as we go back. If we are not seeing your daughter connecting in she will receive a phone call supporting her to engage, and you will as well as parents if we do not see the engagement start. Your help is invaluable in communicating at home, talking with your daughters about their work and asking them to show you some of what they are doing so you know they are active in online learning.

Students may work to the pattern which suits them best and which best suits the needs of each individual household. If students struggle to set themselves a work pattern, suggest a timeframe for school work each day and a timeframe for leisure ie 9am-1pm school work, afternoons leisure. Some junior students may like to use the school timetable as a structure though I would caution that online learning at home in the current environment is not a replication of a school day. Some students may work in many short bursts with short breaks, others may immerse themselves for long periods then have long breaks. What is important is that they do their work and have a routine which works for them. Exercise and leisure time is important as a balance.

We do ask that they all do the following, however

• Check their emails every day
• Check into AKO time every Wednesday with their AKO class and teacher (wellbeing and relationships)
• Check in with each subject teacher twice per week (junior PE and options once per week)

The subject teacher check in will be class or group based face to face, may be 10 minutes to a full period depending on need. The check in time will be from the subject periods on your daughter’s timetable and each teacher will advise the student which two periods he/she is using. The check in is equally about maintaining relationships and connection as it is about supporting learning. Staff will be using two online platforms, just as they do at school – Google Classroom and Microsoft OneNote.

Completing work on an ongoing basis is important as we are likely to be using derived grades for the NCEA qualifications as well as normal assessments. Derived grades enable the teacher to make a judgement with evidence on the student’s achievement without a normal assessment (for example, if external examinations cannot be sat). These were used successfully during the earthquakes during which time NCEA achievement in Canterbury went up. Please reassure your daughters that their national qualification will not be compromised.

I sent a video communication to all students earlier in the week explaining all of this so you may want to watch that with your daughter and discuss it with her.

As you will have seen on the news the Ministry of Education is using two TV channels to deliver education as well, predominantly focused on early years, primary and years 9-10. Maori TV is providing Maori immersion teaching and te reo (we could all learn some reo) and you will also see information in this newsletter regarding extensive TV delivery of sports coaching and education which may be very useful to our secondary students.

Meanwhile our students are safe in their bubbles, they are safe at home and their learning and pastoral care from school is continuing. See the prefect item in this newsletter – we are all still here and we all still belong to our school community. Have a very happy Easter break together. We will be back next week.

Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui

Be strong, be brave, be steadfast

Ngā mihi nui

Christine O’Neill