Kia ora whānau. Next Wednesday sees the Term 1 parent/teacher/student meetings. These are a great way to talk with your child’s teacher, face to face, about all aspects of their learning. Please ensure you have made a booking through the SkoolLoop app. A reminder that classes finish at 12.30pm that day, so please ensure you have made arrangements for your child to be collected at that time.

Starting today, the annual Book Fair is being held. This is set up in Room 4, and will be open every morning 8.30 - 9.00am (Friday 8th to Wednesday 13th) and every afternoon 3.00 - 3.30pm (Friday 8th to Tuesday 12th). On Wednesday 13th, the day of our parent/student/teacher meetings, it will be open continuously from 12.30pm - 7.30pm. All parents and whānau are welcome to come to it at these times - please do wear a mask while you are on the school grounds. All profits from the Book Fair go directly to our school library for the purchasing of new books.

We have had a warning from Linewize, the company who monitors cyber safety in our school, that some schools are reporting children talking about Huggy Wuggy. While this may sound harmless, please know that it is not and, as always, you need to monitor very carefully what your children access online at home. Police have been warning parents and schools to be vigilant of children engaging with the now-viral social media character. Huggy Wuggy is a razor-toothed teddy bear character who sings about ‘hugging and killing’ and invites viewers to ‘take their last breath’. Our school filters block this content, so be assured your child won’t be viewing it through our platforms, and our staff will act if they hear any talk about this character.

If there are any changes to covid-19 traffic light settings next week, I will email you with the impacts of these for us as a school. We are currently reviewing our risk assessment and planning documents, with the view to being able to have parents in the school grounds next term. We are also looking to restart activities such as Kapa Haka (finally!). I will confirm any changes once the assessments have been completed. As always, risk mitigation is the priority.

At the end of next week we temporarily farewell Mrs Katy Cachopa (Year 5, Room 6 classroom teacher) as she begins her maternity leave. We wish her and her husband Craig all the very best in this new chapter in their lives. We look forward to welcoming Miss Charlotte Sutton to the role from the start of term 2.

As of this morning, we currently have only 6 students and 1 staff member isolating at home with covid-19. If your child does test positive at any stage, please let the school know by filling in this form and/or letting the office know. 

Keep well and safe everyone.

Noho ora mai

Sue