Kia ora koutou, Following on from yesterday's announcement 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. Please listen very carefully to the directive from the Prime Minister and Ministry of Health around the critical need to self-isolate. You need to be putting plans in place now to ensure we are keeping others in our community safe. Please refer directly to the Ministry of Health guidelines for advice and information. There is a lot of conflicting information going around through social media that can be exceptionally unhelpful, covid19.govt.nz should be your go-to source for reliable and up to date information. During this time your child will be looking to you for guidance about recent decisions. 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. 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. Teachers and administration staff have been frantically working to piece together what learning will look like over the coming weeks. As stated this morning the school will be officially on school holidays through to the end of Easter, Tuesday the 14th of April. The next couple of weeks will give families time to settle into our new normal before we try and push too much learning into the home. Teachers will start getting in touch with families over the coming week to start pulling together how learning will look into the future. We will not be able to replicate school in the home or expect students to sit down at a desk for hours on end. Learning a card game and playing board games, talking to and with your children, cooking a meal and helping out around the home and/or farm are all highly valuable learning experiences for all ages. Most importantly have fun with your children. A more structured plan for learning will begin after the 14th of April. We will communicate this in more detail over the coming weeks. The school office will open again tomorrow through to midday and then it will be closed for at least the next four weeks. If you need to come to school for any reason on Wednesday please ring ahead first. We are also able to drop resources off in Waikari, Waipara and Amberley tomorrow. Please ring the office if you need any assistance. Stay connected with your wider family and friends and try and avoid COVID 19 overload. It is easy to quickly drown in social media overload, pick your times to go online and don’t be afraid to completely disconnect for times during the day. Also please be patient as we work through the many teething problems we will have as we move learning into our homes.
All the best - arohanui, Stephen Beck Principal - Tumuaki Hurunui College
Please ensure you stay connected with the multiple forms of school communication.
School website - access to the longterm school calendar and general information about the school.
Skool Loop App - pushes out school notices and newsletter, school calendar and can be used for notifying absences - critical mode of communication - download Skool Loop from the app store/google play and select Hurunui College
