Tēnā koutou e te whānau

A lot has happened since our last newsletter! The sudden move to Alert Level 2 has certainly had an impact on our lives and has been a timely reminder that COVID-19 is still very much with us. My thoughts go out to our teaching colleagues and school families in Auckland who are once again juggling the demands of onsite and distance learning at Alert Level 3. 

For us, at Halswell School, the change in alert level has meant having to once again restrict access to the school grounds and reintroduce contact tracing measures along with reinforcing hand-washing routines and general hygiene practices. We have also suspended Sausage Sizzle and the Tuckshop while we remain at Alert Level 2. 

Another area that has clearly been impacted over the last couple of weeks is the community consultation process that is taking place this term. Unfortunately, we had had to reschedule both parents evenings. The Positive Education session (John Quinn and Dr Sarah Anticich) will now take place on Tuesday 1 September (7.00-8.30pm), and the Developing Brain presentation (Nathan Wallis) has been rescheduled to Tuesday 8 September (7.30-9.00pm). If you have registered for either of these events, please hold on to your tickets. If you were unable to make the original dates but are available to attend either event, please let Heather Burnby in the Office know asap. 

Please note that we have also rescheduled two of the parent focus groups meeting as follows: 

• Years 5-8 parent group 7.00pm-8.30pm on Thursday 10 September and
• Years 0-4 parent group 9.00-10.30am on Tuesday 15 September. 

Finally, in light of the recent developments, we have spent a considerable amount of time reviewing our processes if we should need to move up the alert levels. I would like to assure you that we feel very confident about our ability to seamlessly transition back to distance learning if the need should arise. We will, of course, be keeping a close eye on next week's announcement with the hope that we can return to Alert Level 1 in the near future. 

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Ngā mihi nui

Stuart Cameron
Principal