He mihi mahana kia koutou katoa - Warm greetings to all.

As we go down the Alert Levels, schools, their whanau and businesses across the country are asking themselves what are the good things and learnings from the Alert Levels we can take into our lives going forward.

Many of you have spoken to me about more family time and less rushing around. Businesses are looking at new ways of working. The school was very clear that we were going to use our "beacons of light" to guide our work as they put wellbeing at the foundation of learning as we move towards normal. This has been part of our work for years but the beacons make them explicit.

Schools know that improved learning outcomes come from wellbeing but also from having high but realistic expectations of our tamariki. Huge amounts of research have been carried out on teacher expectations. If teachers expect tamariki to make progress and work hard to create the conditions for progress then it happens.

The recent learning for us is the impact of the expectation of increased independence. Many of you have also mentioned this to me. There were tamariki who we were concerned about leaving their whanau at the gate but they proved to us and their whanau that they could do it. This has had spin offs in the class as well. We have been amazed how resilient our tamariki are. We have had expectations that they will be resilient and we have created the conditions through our "beacons of light" to allow it to happen. This doesn't happen in isolation. Thank you for your support.  I believe our new normal will be quite different. The challenge as we go into Level 1 and the gates are opened (although no details on what this looks like yet) is to maintain this sense of independence. I ask you to ponder how you will support this.

I have included in this newsletter a survey to get some feedback from the school's actions through the Levels. As promised it should take no more than 5 minutes. Please take 5 minutes before 5pm Wednesday, 10 June to complete.

Reports will be sent home on Friday, 3 July. You will get the report digitally and in a written format as well. The written form will have an explanation of the new format and information about the Learning Journeys - when they run and how to book.