Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome to the wonderful world that is room 7. Today we celebrate our wonderful student whanau. We are all incredibly proud of every single one of them for the resilience and fortitude they demonstrated during the lockdown.

Our tamariki Alex, Caleb, Flynn, Ford, Kai and Logan were busy at home staying safe with their families/carers, some were engaging in classroom studies and others continuing to expand and extend their life skills.

Every day we had crazy fun weird class and/or individual zoom meetings with special guest appearances by Ed sports coordinator, Alysia Speech-language therapist, Steph Behaviour Specialist teacher, Sai behavioural teacher assistant, Alex front receptionist, Donna transition TA, Louise music teacher and our wonderful friend Felix who is a senior student at TEC. Zoom meetings were a great way to keep in touch and to see everyone, although our crazy hat day had some of us wondering who we were looking at. Our zoom meetings were fun and our most special fun meeting was when everyone was asked to bring along, if they wanted, something that was very dear to them. It was humbling and heartwarming to see the smiles on our tamariki’s faces as they shared with us their most precious possessions. Thank you.

We definitely had lots of fun and laughter but our days weren’t all about zoom meetings. Caleb was amazing and led by example. He did school work, gardening, mowed lawns, baked cookies, cooked lunch and completed schoolwork. We were impressed and exhausted. Logan continued on with this awesomeness. He did school work, took a photo of a flower and painted a very lifelike picture of it.. He is our budding photographer. Alex wasn’t feeling very well during lockdown but he attended a few zoom meetings and when he was feeling better he created an amazing piece of craftwork, a big yellow bus with lots of red balloons, which he then released outside. Kai had great fun coming to zoom meetings, he did some schoolwork and shared a photo of pizzas he made for lunch. Nicely done chef Kai, you’re on lunch next week. Flynn also managed to pop into a couple of zoom meetings as well as being involved in packing and moving house with his family. Wow, great teamwork whanau. Ford was quiet and busy with his whanau keeping safe and healthy, thank you Ford for looking after yourself.

Our room 7 tamariki are the most amazing young people who every day make us smile. Thank you to all the parents, carers, immediate and extended whanau for everything you do, especially during the last few weeks.

He Waka Eke Noa

We’re all in this together

Sally Bates