Kia Ora Parents and Whanau,

Thank you for your patience, warm wishes and support during these uncertain times. If there was ever a time to be proud of our Three Kings School and community this would be it. Our students kept their enthusiasm and can do attitude, our teachers exuded calm and positivity and our community stayed supportive of us and each other. Below we outline our Continued Learning plan (we have chosen to call it this as it is not all online).

WELL-BEING

With regards to the COVID-19 update on Monday 23rd March please find instructions below for your child/children:

· Don’t worry about your child regressing in school

· Every single child is in the same boat and they will all be OK

· When we are back in the classroom, we will meet your child’s learning needs

· Don’t pick fights with your children if they don’t want to learn about a particular subject

· Organise regular learning times

· Remember to keep positive and praise your child’s efforts regularly

If we can leave you with one thing it is this:

‘At the end of this time your child’s mental health will be more important than their academic skills’.

How your child felt during this time will remain with them once the weeks of school absence are long gone. Please keep this in mind every single day to keep a sense of CALM and NORMALITY.

CONTINUED LEARNING

Here is the link to the google site that we are using as a platform for our home learning - https://sites.google.com/view/threekingshomelearning

You can access the learning for all teams through this site by using the dropdown menu at the top. We will provide one week at a time and will update this the day before the week commences (e.g. on Tuesday the 14th April for Term 2 Week 1).

This is a new way of learning for our teachers and students. We expect that there will be hiccups along the way and we will work on these as they occur. Keep an eye on the FAQ’s menu as we will add common questions and answers as these arise.

Learning Packs for students without electronic devices

For families without digital devices (laptops, chrome books, iPads, etc) there will be ‘Learning Packs’ to cater for up to 10 days of learning that can be collected from school on Wednesday 25th March between 11.00 am and 1.00 pm from under the Crown. There will be a register to sign to say who has taken a pack. These are only for those students without access – we will run out of packs if families with access to devices also come and pick these up.

If you live in Three Kings School Zone and no-one is available to collect the learning packs for your family/whanau then please email your name and address to admin@threekings.school.nz today and we will endeavour to drop off a pack to your letterbox before 3 pm on Wednesday 25th March.

COMMUNICATION

There will be team email addresses to ask any questions you may have regarding home learning. This means that we can utilise the strengths of different team members in supporting our families and safeguard communication in the case of illness of teachers or their families.

These email addresses are rata@threekings.school.nz , kowhai@threekings.school.nz , kauri@threekings.school.nz . These should become live overnight tonight.

Teachers have been instructed to respond between the hours of 8.30 am and 4.00 pm weekdays only (Monday – Friday) and this does not apply to PUBLIC HOLIDAYS. It is likely that teachers may check these from time to time during the school holiday period, but please do not expect an immediate response as they get used to working in a new way, and also cater to the needs of their own family during this period.

SCHOOL HOLIDAY DATES

As mentioned in yesterday’s address the school holidays have been brought forward.

The school holidays will now commence on Monday 30th March to Tuesday (Easter Tuesday) 14th April. During the school holidays you may wish to access the ‘Extra online resources / games’ area of the google site. We will continue to provide online learning after the school holidays from Wednesday 15th April.

‘WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER – WE’VE GOT THIS!’

In this issue

COVID-19 update and pandemic plan