Nau mai, haere mai! Welcome back to Kowhai!

Level 2 at Kowhai

Posted Wednesday 14th May 2020

Nau mai, haere mai ki te whanau o Kōwhai

We are looking forward to seeing many of our students back at school on Monday the 18th of May on or after 8.15am.

Our survey sent out to our students confirms that they are eager to reconnect with their friends and come back into the physical school.

As I said in my newsletter last week the need to check on well-being and to just connect will be vital, if our students are to successfully manage the return to physical school and re-engage. So over the next week we will need to make sure that we are ready to ease them back into their space.

The Kowhai team of teachers are delivering a programme called Te Rito Toi that helps teachers work with children when they first return to school, following life changing events. These resources are research based, by the University of Auckland and draw on a strong creative arts element.

Under Alert Level 2, hygiene, social distancing and contact tracing are priority public health messages so that we can, reduce the risk of someone getting infected in the first place (hygiene protocols/ maintaining distancing), ensure we can identify and contact anyone who becomes infected (contact tracing register) and understand that Level 2 is not business as usual.
Parents and caregivers are asked to keep any sick children at home. If your child comes to school and they are sick we will require you to collect them and take them home.

Where possible in classrooms students and staff will be far enough away from each other, so that they are not breathing on, or touching each other. There does not need to be a specific measurement but where practicable 1 metre can be used as a guide, particularly between adults. This will be accompanied with good hygiene practices and regular cleaning of commonly touched surfaces across the school.

Students will be asked to “Sanitise in and sanitise out”, each time they enter any classroom or building. Sanitising stations are set up at each entry/exit to every classroom. Soap, water and the ability to dry hands is also provided in bathrooms. All classroom surfaces are disinfected and cleaned daily.

We will continue to ask students to practice safe cough and sneeze etiquette into their elbow, and try to avoid touching their face.

Physical education classes will include access to sports equipment, including the playground and again, strict hygiene practices are in place to ensure everyone’s health and safety.

Our water fountains will not be available. Students must bring a 1 litre bottle of water to school. The ability to refill the bottle will be managed by teachers. No food sharing to be allowed.

Contact tracing registers are in place. Parents must not wander onto the school grounds. All student pick ups must be outside the school.

If parents or caregivers need to visit the school,they must enter through the Administration area, follow our hygiene protocols, apply social distancing and have their details recorded by the office staff on our contact register.

Our Learning from Home programme will continue for those students who are remaining at home under Alert level 2. The classroom teacher will do their best to manage both the face to face programme and the Learning from Home programme.
The Learning from home programme will not replicate the face to face time at school.

Public transport does raise some concerns for us. AT have advised that their buses and trains will only be running at 43% capacity, to ensure physical distancing, on all their vehicles.

Given the large number of students who use these services to get to and from school, and the fact that these vehicles were often very crowded before the lockdown, we have concerns that students may not be able to safely access their normal scheduled rides.
As such we suggest you explore alternatives to public transport as we would not want to see students left at stops and stations for significant periods of time waiting for a train or bus that will allow them on.

Finally, all students will receive an email tomorrow with a video link that will assist in preparing them for a return to school.

Please feel free to contact the leadership team if you have any queries, principal@kowhai.school.nz ,ap@kowhai.school.nz , dp@kowhai.school.nz

Nāku, nā
Louise Broad
Principal

Returning to school under level 2 survey

If you have not returned the survey asking if your child is returning to school on Monday 18 May please follow this link and do so now.
If you have completed the survey already this week there is no need to do this again.

Official Covid-19 Information

As the situation is developing rapidly we refer the community to the official government sources for information:

Learning from Home

Learning from home will continue in a modified format under level 2 for those not attending school. Your teacher will communicate directly with those students/whanau who this affects.

Technology & Arts Activities

In addition to the programme being provided by classroom teachers our wonderful technology and arts teachers have put together a range of activities to keep your creative energies flowing. Feel free to try any of them out and remember you can contact the teacher if you need some help or just to share what you are doing!

TV - Home Learning | Papa Kāinga TV

Home Learning | Papa Kāinga TV is free to air on TVNZ channel 2+1, TVNZ on Demand, as well as on Sky Channel 502 and Vodafone TV.

It can be live streamed at tvnz.co.nz/livetv. Some lessons are also available on TVNZ OnDemand from the Home Learning TV landing page.

Safe Internet Browsing during Lockdown

While your children are learning from home, they are away from the online safety and security services provided by Network for Learning (N4L) at school. So together with N4L and Netsafe, the Ministry of Education have launched www.switchonsafety.co.nz - a free way to block the worst of the web for students and teachers.

I am sharing this website so that you can follow the instructions to set up your child’s device for safer connectivity while they learn from home.

Remember, no technical solution is a silver bullet. I suggest that you complement switch on safety with digital citizenship toolkits provided by Netsafe https://www.netsafe.org.nz/the-kit/resources-to-support-families-and-whanau/.