On Monday we will be welcoming students of all year levels back to school.

It feels like a long time since the school was full of the sights and sounds of hundreds of students and when classrooms were the focus of learning and teaching.

Today we held a karakia whakawatea, or blessing, for our school and community as we prepare for the new chapter, post lock-down, of life at school. Officiating were Reverend Canon Whaea Maureen Cribb and our kaumātua Matua Pita Kara and I would like to thank them for supporting us in ensuring we are doing all that is possible to make our school environment a safe, welcoming and inclusive place for all members of our school community, regardless of their culture or beliefs.

All staff were onsite today preparing for students’ return on Monday. We spent the morning working together on the three r’s - Relationships, Routines and Reignition - and ways of working to enable staff and students to transition smoothly from the online learning they have been doing over the past eight weeks to face to face learning.

As I have indicated in my previous communications with parents and caregivers, we have implemented a number of changes to the way we are doing things to ensure we meet the safe distancing requirements as far as practicable, and do all that we can to minimise the risk of anyone contracting the virus. Despite all of these actions, we cannot completely guarantee that the virus will not be brought into the school community and urge you all to continue to exercise good hygiene and distancing practices at home and in the community.

Hopefully you have seen the video produced by some of our bubble students to showcase some of the practices and signs students will encounter on their return to school on Monday. We have implemented the “one direction” policy for movement around the school to reduce congestion and cross over of students between classes. It will take longer to get places so we have included a five minute break between back to back classes to enable girls to get to class on time. We have also removed whanau times, assemblies and silent reading time for the first week to reduce the movement of students around the school and allow us to finish slightly earlier each day.

Times for the first week back are as follows:

Period 1: 8:50 - 9:50

Period 2: 10:00 - 11:00

Interval: 11.00 - 11.30am. (Warning bell at 11:25)

Period 3: 11.30 - 12:25

Period 4: 12:30 - 1:25

Lunch: 1:25 - 2:10 (Warning bell at 2:05pm)

Period 5 2:10 - 3.05pm

Please note that, as a general rule, we would appreciate having students offsite by 3.30pm each day and staff by 4pm. This allows cleaners to get to work, knowing that surfaces are still hygienic for the next morning.

Because we have made changes to the timetable in order to better accommodate larger classes, please ensure your child has checked their timetable before Monday morning. They may need to go to a different classroom than previously.

As drinking fountains are a potential source of infection students will only be able to use them to fill drink bottles, not to drink straight from them. Please ensure your child has a drink bottle with them.

If your child is planning to travel to and from school on a bus, please ensure she completes the bus form included in the newsletter.

I know there has been an enormous amount of information coming your way but if I have not covered anything you would like to know, or if there is anything that is unclear, please email me at mi@otagogirls.school.nz

Ngā mihi nui