Kia ora Koutou

As you will have heard during the Prime Minister's announcement this afternoon schools are to reopen on Wednesday 1 September, only for those children whose parents or carers need to go to work and are unable to provide supervision for their children. Parents who are able to keep their children at home, continuing with online learning in its present form, are asked to do so. 

As we are unsure about several issues, especially safety concerns, we will be awaiting guidelines from the Ministry of Education before informing parents of how learning will look for those children for whom it is necessary to be at school under Alert Level 3.

It is likely that as with Level 3 last year, students will be in a bubble in the Owhiro Centre with Denise Hannagan, our Learning Support Coordinator supervising learning, with the support of one of our Teaching Assistants. We appreciate that this will not be an easy environment to work in, but as the Prime Minister stated it is best to stay in your bubble and stay safe.

Our teachers are working hard to ensure students get the best learning opportunities in the current situation, and will continue to do so.

As with last lockdown, I have been impressed with the online learning that has gone on, the support from parents and the great range of activities that children have been involved in. I have been able to join all classes for one or more of their zoom sessions and it has been great to see the positive interaction shown by students engaging with one another, their teachers and teaching assistants.

I want to thank teachers for the time and effort that they have put into ensuring that the transition to online learning has been so successful. Thank you also for the great parent support during this challenging time.

To get an idea of how many students we may expect at school to be supervised from next Wednesday, could parents please email me - jennifer@east-taieri.school.nz with children's names and days that it is anticipated they will be at school. Could I have this information by Tuesday please?

Enjoy your weekend.

Noho haumaru mai. Keep safe.

Jennifer Horgan