From The Principal July 7

Newsletter Week 10 Term 2, 7 July 2022

The Term has flown by at its usual pace. In this week's Principal piece, I talk about:

• Upcoming Board of Trustee elections

• Why masks are still required at school

• The tremendous attitude of our staff and students

• Opening an additional Year 0 class in Term 4

• Dogs on school grounds

• 2023 intentions

• Out of zone ballot for places in 2023

• Term 3 programme

• COVID Case update for the end of the Term.

School Board Parent Election 2022 - Nomination round

Our school will be undertaking a parent election for Five (5) School Board vacancies. This process will start with the issuing of nomination papers to our caregiver community by Friday 15th July 2022.

We have employed Canterbury Education Services (CES) to undertake the election process on our behalf. This year with legislative change, our nomination form and full instruction on how to place your nomination on our own School’s Election website will be emailed to you if we have your email address in our database or you will receive it by post if we don’t have your email in our database.

Nomination papers will also be available at the school office. The school will send those on to CES for processing upon receipt from candidates.

Nominations close on Friday 5th August at 12 noon. We look forward to your participation in this process.

What we are doing is working and we will continue with our mask-wearing requirements

This has been a particularly difficult term managing increased staff and student absences, including balancing the challenges of keeping learning programmes going. I regularly communicate with other school Principals and it is very obvious that we have not been as badly affected as many schools. We are confident that the continued wearing of masks, plus all the other interventions are working. We have hardly had to combine classes, have not had to roster home year groups and our specialist programmes have continued. School and student learning have not been as interrupted or compromised as in many settings.

We appreciate that not everyone wants to continue wearing a mask, but have decided to continue this for the beginning of Term 4 and evaluate the decision halfway through the term.

Assistance from students and staff this term

Another reason for our success is the efforts and attitude of our staff and students this term. We have had a large number of relievers in our school. Without exception, these relievers positively comment on how well the students behave and how hard they apply themselves. This both encourages these relievers to be available for us when we need them, but more importantly, contributes to a quality learning programme continuing.

The staff have also been tremendous in covering and supporting each other and in particular when someone is away, supporting the relievers and students.

Additional year 0 class for Term 4

We will be starting an additional new entrance class in Term four. This will be based in room 10 and Mrs Susan Kliffen will be the classroom teacher.

Dogs on the School Grounds

While many in our community enjoy dogs, not all do. It is tremendous to see so many parents walking to and from school and some with their dogs. We ask that you do not walk to the classroom to collect your child with your dog. Please find a tree, out of the way and tie your dog up. We are investigating having a designated area to safely tie your dog up.

Our out of Zone Ballot for 2023 closes on Friday 2nd of September at 12 noon. For more information visit our website here.

Intentions for 2023

We are well into planning for 2023 and we really appreciate being aware of any students that will not be enrolled in our school in 2023 (we do not need to know of Year 8’s leaving at the end of the year). Please email principal@seatoun.school.nz with details.

Term 3 programme

On the first Thursday of Term 3, we will publish the Term Plan and Team Newsletters. Next Term our Year 7 & 8 students will have a drama focus. Our Year 8’s will be leading a ‘Review style’ mini-production to be held on the Tuesday and Wednesday evenings of the last week of Term (Sept 27 and 28).

We plan to deliver a school-wide production in Term 3 of 2023.

We plan to hold our Talent Quest on Thursday, September 29.

COVID-19 Update for Thursday 7 July

Over the past week, we have had a very small and similar number of active cases.

As of 2pm today, we have:

• four positive student cases. We presently have student cases in:

  • Year 7&8 - Rm 12

  • Year 5&6 - Rm 17

  • Year 3&4 - Rm 3

  • Year 2 - Rm 8

• 1 staff member isolating as household contact

• 1 positive staff member

• 12 students isolating as household contacts. 

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