As term 3 draws to a close after a second disrupted school term I thought it would be a good opportunity to reflect on our journey so far this year

Under normal circumstances, your children would've been at school 148 days come the end of term 3. As a result of going into lock down, most of your students have missed 37 days of class based learning. Many of our students have missed out on a terms worth of in-school learning already this year due to returning to school a week later following each lock down. 

Despite the best efforts of staff and whānau distance based learning programmes were never going to adequately replace the learning routines and class based inquiry school can offer.

All children have had their learning disrupted this year, some more so than others. Every child will experience the interruption to their schooling differently. We have observed that some children have jumped back into their learning as if they haven't been away while other children have taken longer to resettle. Our collective job is to first focus on ensuring that all children are feeling good about themselves and their learning. Low self esteem, anxiousness and undue pressure can all be counter productive to the learning process. We are working hard to keep the conditions right for learning at school and not burden children with unnecessary assessment and testing.

With that in mind I hope you are all able to make it to this week's Learning Celebrations. The teaching team are keen to hear from you and respond to any questions you may have. They will be discussing learning progress and can provide you with a clear picture of where your child is working in relation to national curriculum framework. Remember that your child has had a disrupted year. They are experiencing something that none of us have gone through.

Written reports will be sent home in term 4 which will illustrate your child's progress in 2020.

Ngā manaakitanga

Andrew