He mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa - Warm greetings to all.

This is bike week and I know a lot of children are keen to decorate their bike and bring it to school on Friday.

It is great so many of our tamariki walk or use a wheelie to come to school. It isn't without its challenges in some cases with the amount of traffic and the speed of the traffic in our area, even with the speed limit zone! Please take care of our tamariki as you are driving around our school. They think they are bullet proof and rely on adults to do the right thing to keep them safe!!

We have restarted our evacuations drills and for new parents you will see from the Health and Safety article they are a regular requirement for schools.

I've also put in information sent from the Ministry of Health about the winter illness season under our COVID update and further information about chickenpox as we have a suspected case in the school.

Thank you for your support in keeping sick tamariki at home. We have low absences compared to some schools and much of this is due to your support. Keeping sick children at home stops the spread of runny noses, coughs and cold as well as COVID. Just a reminder our staff have the same requirements to stay at home as you do.  At the beginning of the term it isn't usually an issue but it can be later in the term when there is a shortage of relievers. So we appreciate your help as it helps keep us all health and classes stay open!

Masks are not currently a requirement but we are monitoring things very closely. If we need to, we can and will reintroduce masks as they are a great line of defence, particularly for winter illnesses as well as COVID. We are fortunate that so far our CO2 levels in spaces are within safe levels but they haven't really been tested with the cold weather!