KORERO FROM MIRANDA

Kia ora Rototuna e te Whānau,

I hope you are continuing to be safe in your bubbles.

Thank you all for your feedback to date and your continued support as we work hard to navigate the constantly changing landscape for schools. Our focus this week has been working through the Ministry of Health orders to ensure we are meeting our requirements and minimising risks so that we can provide a safe environment for our teachers and students to work in. We must show that we can meet these requirements before we are able to open.

Being a Senior High School (one of the few in the country) we found ourselves in the unique situation of not being able to spread classes like other schools whose junior classes were not returning. To this end we are working with the Junior High to use some of their spaces so we meet the distancing requirements to spread classes out.

This week we have been able to offer onsite learning for our young people who have needed to complete practical assessments. This has mostly happened in the afternoons, with approximately 300 students invited to come on site to do their work. It has been so good to see the large number of students taking up these opportunities, yesterday 270 students attended to progress and complete work.

We want to ensure all our students who have work to complete and need to be onsite can do so, including those preparing for upcoming examinations. We have been working through the logistics to find the most effective way to do this with people’s health and safety front of mind. The details of how we will move forward with our programmes of teaching and learning follow, as well as the expectations that we all need to follow to keep each other safe.

Finally,

Stay well.

Stay safe. Wear a mask if going out!

Get vaccinated,

Stay connected,

Ngā mihi,

Miranda