KORERO FROM FRASER

It is fair to say that we have been caught off guard by the announcement yesterday that Waikato will return to Alert Level 2! As I am sure you will all appreciate, the planning to return at Level 3 was significant and while this is frustrating the big positive is that Level 2 is easier to manage for us and we will see all students back on site together.

As our Facebook post indicated yesterday it is our intention to have students start back this Thursday at the usual start of school time, 8.45am. I anticipate that there may be some hesitancy out there in regard to a return to school but we will be ensuring the usual Public Health Requirements are in place. This means masks are not a requirement however diligence with keeping distance from each other, handwashing and sanitising are important. As previously mentioned, space is tight for us on site so we are going to move some existing modules into SHS spaces from Thursday and we also have the modulars ready for use. It is going to be nice to essentially move over 300 students out of our existing spaces into these new ones for the rest of the year.

All students are expected to attend unless an underlying health condition prevents this from happening. A medical note of some sort would need to be provided in these instances otherwise everyone is back! Online learning will not be provided for learners where whānau make a decision that their child/ren are not returning.

Rural buses will be running as normal. Our cafe will not be running until next week.

Getting the staff together on Wednesday, without students, to update some of our planning for the rest of the year and adapt our plans to include aspects such as Flight Times and Advisory is super important for us. I totally understand the challenge this may create as many of you will now have to physically be at work so we are offering supervision for any students who require this on Wednesday. This will start at 8.45am. If you have booked in previously we will expect your child/ren already otherwise please book them in with the form below. Thanks for your support on this, I know having this face to face time with staff tomorrow will set us up for a really positive end to our year.

Supervision Form

On Thursday, we will adapt our timetable slightly with all students being in advisory for the first block of the day from 8.45-11am. We will use this time to reconnect with our young people and make sure everyone is feeling positive about the return to school. From Block 2 this Thursday, our normal timetable will then run through until the end of Week 8. Friday, December 10 will be a day based in Hapū groups and we will plan to find some ways to farewell our Year 10 students in style on this day. The Monday to Wednesday (December 13-15) of Week 9 will be IEM days. Students will start preparing for these in the next two weeks. Please note that any scheduled Teacher Only Days are cancelled for the rest of this year. Our plan is to keep learning going as long as possible to make up for some of the lost time as best we can.

So everyone, make sure that uniform is clean and ready to go and isn’t still sitting at the bottom of a washing basket. Charge that device and make sure your pencil case is well stocked. We will see you on Thursday.

Level 2 - Welcome Back to School