Dear WAS Parents / Caregivers / Whanau,
With recent announcements by the Government, we are implementing with urgency our plan to support your child’s learning from home. We appreciate this is a sudden and significant change and will be heavily disruptive to many people in our community.
For all our students, we will be supporting their learning from your home in the following ways:
- through online learning platforms which will be communicated to you directly by your child’s teacher;
- ensure that your child has access to their school email address – Years 5 upwards;
- provision of a learning pack (reading books for the younger lot and some handouts) for the remainder of the week (to end Term 1 2020) and for two weeks after the holiday – please pace yourself;
- Teachers will look to provide more (online) work from Term Two onwards (Weds 15/4 -) as best as they can. This is an important time to check in with one another to see how everything’s going etc. Some families may not need or want more work – we don’t want parents or caregivers to feel anxious nor cause any undue stress;
- making adjustments to the NCEA programme by adjusting the type and number of credits available. Specific details of this will follow.
*Please note some packs that have been sent home will be for this week and for the start of Term Two. Keep in touch with your child’s teacher directly. You can always email or text me too.
If your child needs to be cared for by someone else, you will need to identify that person or people as part of your self-isolated group. This will need to be done by midnight Wednesday and the group must remain the same for the whole 4-week period. The caregiver’s own group [eg their partner and children], your child and your own group [eg your parents and other children] become one group. This group needs to be limited to minimise any risk of spread and should be no more than 20 people. Please, for the benefit of our whole community, follow these guidelines.
Now more than ever we need to come together as a region and a country. As noted by the Prime Minister these restrictions are our best chance to slow the virus in New Zealand and to save lives. We all have a clear role here to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Your child will be looking to you for guidance about this decision. Parents, caregivers, whānau and teachers will have a particularly important part to play in reassuring children at this time. If you haven’t already done so, you may wish to read the information put together by the Ministry of Education to support your conversations with your children – Talking to children about COVID-19.
Please also be aware of the following changes to the published school calendar:
- Term 1 end date Friday 27 March 2020
- School holidays Monday 30 March – Tuesday 14th April
- Term 2 begins Wednesday 15 April by distance learning – please note the school site is not open on this date.
I am just a text or email away. This is an extraordinary time in history.
The spirit and determination I’ve seen from staff and families as we’ve all been grappling with this crisis over the last few weeks has been amazing. Thank you all for your support.
As the Prime Minister said: be kind, keep safe, and look after each other.
He waka eke noa. We are all in this together.
Kind Regards
Andrew PB
0224759607
principal@was.school.nz