Teenaa koutou katoa, 

Last week we held our Roopuu Kaakano swimming displays as well as our Roopuu Maahuri and Puaawai Swimming Sports. We were really grateful we could manage spectators onsite for these events and having an audience gave the students some extra motivation. There was some exciting competition in the A division and lots of smiles on children’s faces as they showed off their swimming skills.

The P.T.A has their annual Golf Fundraiser coming up on April 3rd and there is still space to enter a team. This sounds like a really enjoyable day and an excellent way to support our P.T.A with their fundraising efforts. They are still looking for sponsorship so if you are able to help in this way then please get in touch with the P.T.A or get your friends together to enter a team! 

Yesterday the Government announced some changes to the Covid Protection Framework for the Red setting. Once we have the updated Framework, we will be able to re-evaluate aspects such as school assemblies, parents being onsite and outdoor mask wearing requirements for school visitors. It also appears that school events will be easier to manage with fewer restrictions around gatherings. We will keep you infomed as to what these changes mean for us as a school.

This week we have had a bit more of an influx of COVID cases than what we have had previously. This was to be expected as other schools have experienced the same. We do have a number of staff members now isolating at home and we are operating the school with reduced staff. Fortunately, our team teaching spaces work well in situations like this as the remaining teachers have been able to make adjustments to the groupings and classroom programmes have been able to carry on without too much disruption. Our Puketaha staff are a collaborative bunch of people who willingly step in and cover where needed, so thank you to all of them. We have also continued to be thankful for our Puketaha whaanau for their continued support and co-operation. 

The whakatauki displayed on Maahuri’s wall is quite relevant… 

“He waka eke noa”

“We’re all in this together”. 

With cases occurring more frequently, we have simplified our systems for notifying our families about COVID cases at school. The feedback from parents is that they prefer to just have the app notifications. So from now on, we will app out the cases that are occurring at school and keep you informed that way, rather than emailing families as well. Please make sure you have our school app installed on your phone. If you don’t, you can search ‘SchoolAppsNZ’ in the app store. 

For the children learning from home, we have enjoyed seeing your Dojo posts showing us what you have been up to and we look forward to seeing you all back at school soon!

Ngaa mihi mahana,

Nyree