How Covid has changed school life.

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Surveys taken during the lockdown showed that many students and parents appreciated aspects of learning from home. Not all, to be fair, and some really hated it. Most students were really happy to be back together, seeing their mates and even their teachers, with an appreciation they hadn't had before, but some crave their quiet spaces. One aspect that seemed to work much better during lockdown was contact with home. 

We're working on how we can try to maintain that now we're back in the daily grind - there is a lot more to do when the students are all onsite than when you're looking after them at home and we're just sending work! 

The upcoming parent-student-teacher interviews (for seniors) will have an option to connect via videolink, just like we did in lockdown. We're hoping that improves our accessibility to parents who find it hard to get into school. If this works, we'll continue it. We're also developing an optional quiet space for those students who work better in this way. 

It's great to see sport starting to make a come-back and my thanks to our Sports Coordinator, Maddy Crawford, for her hard work in bringing this together for our students. 

We're only a day in but the student response to our new boundary rules (years 9-11 stay onsite, years 12 & 13 allowed offsite at breaks) has generally been good. I appreciate the way our students tend to respond to rules when we take time to explain them. 

Thanks to our student leaders who are doing their roles well, taking the lead role in assemblies, contributing to school decision making and supporting other students. 

Noho ora mai

Andy England

Principal