Principal's Address - 08-02-2022

February 8, 2022

Hi all,

A message from our principal:


Principal’s Address - Week 1

Kia ora koutou whanau / parents

The children have returned to school in a mixed state of emotions today with most being really excited and maybe a little nervous, but generally our amazing teachers have managed to instill a sense of safety and confidence, and I hope your child returns home today with some positive sentiments.

This morning’s attempts to keep parents off the school site proved far more difficult than we would have preferred. We do understand parents’ apprehensions with their child’s first day back to school after such a long break, and this is why we showed a greater level of empathy and tolerance. However, in all honesty, we cannot accept this level of parents’ presence on site at the start and end of each school day. The current state of Covid -19 in our community is that Omicron, the much higher transmitter of any of the variants, is increasing daily. Therefore we are being advised by the Ministry of Health to minimise the number of adults on our school site. This is for the safety of your children.

So, from tomorrow, there will be a member of the Senior Leadership Team or a Middle leader on each gate ensuring that there are only ESSENTIAL visitors coming into the school grounds. We will have a checklist and will only accept parents of New Entrant children or parents of anxious children. I have spoken to my Learning Support Coordinator, Kim Tavinor, and we would expect that there will be about 3-4 anxious children, which we know about on our lists, whose parents may accompany them on to our school site. Please understand that this is something that has been requested by the Ministry of Education, who are advised by the Ministry of Health. We would appreciate your cooperation and understanding in this difficult matter.

Gates will be open in the mornings from 8.00 a.m. Please don’t drop your children off earlier than this time to wait for the gates to open, as we cannot guarantee their safety. The gates will not open at the end of the school day until just before 3.00 p.m. Again, we would appreciate you waiting at the gate for your child to come to you. Please show our school values of Care, Responsibility and Respect at this tricky time - we don’t enjoy having to put these measures in place but they are necessary.

Many thanks for reading this letter. It is great to hear the happy sounds of children, laughing and playing again in the playground outside my office. I look forward to seeing you all at the gates in the next few days.

Nga mihi ra



Matua Danny