By Simon Clarke | Posted: Wednesday February 17, 2021
The first three weeks of the year have started with all of the normal excitement and busyness that comes with the start of any new year.
What hasn't been normal however has been the disruption of the rebuild and the recent Covid19 scare which moved us back up to level 2 for a few days. The staff and students are to be commended for how well they have adjusted to both of these interruptions.
Many children are taking the opportunity to go to Nairn St and play games of soccer, cricket and T Ball at lunchtimes and when it is wet, we play a form of Volleyball in the hall. This is taking a large number of children out of the playground which means that we can go back to normal bell times as we are finding we have plenty of space for everyone.
Naylor Love is making excellent progress on the first stage of the new classrooms with the slab due to be poured in the next few weeks followed by the installation of the steel framing. The students have been spoken to about site safety and they are making excellent decisions in regards to their safety around the school.
The recent Covid19 scare is a reminder of just how tricky this virus is. Thank you for following the advice that we provided and we encourage children to keep up good hygiene practices. Even at Level 1, we encourage parents to leave their child at the gate as this also builds independence and resilience. It seems to make a massive difference to the start of their day if they have left you rather than you leaving them.
The middles and senior classes all have their Google Classrooms up and running and we are ready to move to remote teaching should Dunedin move to Level 3. These will become excellent resources for the students learning regardless of whether we go into level 3 or not. The link to your child's online classroom can be found on our online learning page.
It was interesting to see that Auckland Schools had no warning this time, making it impossible for them to send Chromebooks home with students. It would be useful to allow your child to practice logging into their account at home while we are at level 1 and I have attached a tip sheet for parents of junior students as they don't use google apps for education and won't be used to logging in.
Touch, TBall, KPSTV, Choir, OrchestraK and Kapa Haka have all started with many more sports due to start next week. It is great to see so many children take up these opportunities and thank you to the many staff and parents who take the time to provide these extra opportunities. Please remember that as adults we too should always display the Kaikorai Values on the sideline when supporting our children to play sport.
The fees for these sports teams will appear on your accounts which will be emailed out next week. Please pay the sports fees promptly. You are more than welcome to see me if payment is an issue as there are a number of Trusts set up to support students to take part in activities. We have $16,000 in unpaid bills from 2020 and this is something that we cannot afford and cannot continue to carry. Your child will be removed from sports teams in the future if you don't pay the fee in full so please set up an automatic payment or come and see me if you have any difficulty with this.
Kind regards
Simon Clarke