Kia ora koutou.
Last time I spoke to you I was pleased that it had finally stopped raining! Looks like I spoke too soon (again!). Our thoughts are obviously with those badly affected during this recent weather event and we hope that you and your loved ones are safe and reasonably dry! We have had a bit of a rough run with the weather over this Autumn/Winter. I remember our school cross country event! The ground was completely saturated, but it certainly was great to have many of your together with us and enjoying our fabulous kids.
State of Local Emergency for Nelson/Tasman, West Coast and Buller Regions
As many of you are aware this has been declared yesterday in response to the weather event we are experiencing. Our thoughts are with all of those badly affected by flooding and also with those in our community who have been evacuated from their homes. We were advised by authorities that we can stay open if it is safe to do so. We have determined to stay open to ensure our families who need to send their children to school can. As advised, families can make their own choices at this time and we encourage this, but some of our whanau do not have the luxury of this choice and will need to send their children to school. More rain is predicted over the next 48hours so we will monitor the situation carefully and will advise if it is necessary that we close. We thank you all for your support at this time.
New Trustees on our Board
Congratulations to our newly elected BoT members. Thanks very much to Belinda Kolomatangi, Holly Warren and Mitchell Wilson for putting their names forward to support school governance in our community. This new Board will take office later in September.
Covid situation
Most of you will be aware that we are undertaking a daily risk assessment with regards to COVID in our school to inform our response to mask wearing in the school. At this stage our assessment still shows very low levels of COVID in the school (One student isolating due to a family member testing positive). We have not had any concerning levels of seasonal influenza reported to us at this stage. We will continue to encourage families to make their own choices about mask wearing. As always we encourage whanau to make this choice by considering those who are at higher risk of Covid 19, particularly those in their own families. We will support whanau in their choice.
Learning Conferences
Learning conferences are planned for Week 1 of Term 3. Should you need to meet or contact your child’s teacher beforehand, please feel free to do so.
Policy Review Term 3
This Term we are reviewing Student Well-Being and Safety and Staff Well-Being and Safety. A reminder that our policy can be found by going to the policy page on our school website. The review page can be found on the home page of our policy site. I will include an overview of our concerns and complaints as a reminder (click here). Please refer to this if you wish to raise a concern with someone here (please never raise a concern directly with a student!).
Reporting Development - STAFF ONLY DAY
Just another reminder that on Friday the 16th of September we will have a Staff Only Day to attempt to finalise a new reporting system for our whanau. It is looking increasingly likely that our Student Management System programmers will not be able to have this report ready for the end of the year. If this is the case we will look at how we can share this information with you if we can realistically do this. We realise that staff only days are inconvenient for our whanau, and we thank you for your patience with this. I will provide a very quick overview in my video of what we are trying to achieve.
Staffing 2023 and Class Placements…
This old chestnut again! Yep - we will be going through this process soon. We will have some staffing changes to announce in the next few weeks. If you have any information that may support class placement for your child, please let your child’s teacher know this prior to the 28th of October. We will not take requests for particular teachers due to the difficulties this causes for all of us. I will continue to provide reminders of this in the coming months.
Finally…
Have a fabulous fortnight. :-)
Coming up in Term 3:
25th of August - BoT Meeting (Week 5 of Term for the outgoing Board)
6th September - Tasman Rugby Union Y5/6 tackle tournament (Now Cancelled by the TRU)
12-14 September - National Monitoring Study at EGS (Week 8)
16th September - STAFF ONLY DAY
20th September - Yr 3 and 4 Hockey Tournament (Week 9)
22nd September - First meeting of our New Board.
27th September - Yr 5 and 6 Hockey Tournament (Week 10)
30th September - Term Ends at 3pm
Thanks to you all.
:-)
Isaac Day
Principal