24 March 2020

Kia ora koutou
 
With yesterday’s announcement by 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.
 
For children of essential workers, we look forward to seeing your child here at school on 24^th and 25^th March from 8.40 am. You may wish to check if you are considered an essential worker - https://covid19.govt.nz/government-actions/covid-19-alert-system/. However those roles include doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and police.

Learning from home
 
As per our communication in the newsletter last week, we will be supporting learning from home in the following ways:

• Rooms 1 to 3 – Seesaw platform and Reading Eggs, plus hard copies of learning activities.
• Room 5 - Seesaw platform, Reading Eggs, Mathletics, Google platform via Gmail, plus hard copies of learning activities.
• Rooms 6 and 7- Seesaw platform, Mathletics, Google platform via Gmail, plus hard copies of learning activities.
• Rooms 8 to 10 - IXL, Google platform via Gmail, text books, plus hard copies of learning activities.

Teachers will engage regularly with you and your child at home through Seesaw, email and/or Zoom (depending on the year level). Parents and caregivers can contact the class teacher by email and please contact office@sacred-heart.school.nz or you can contact Bernadette on 0274609259 or Cathy on 0277682334 for any other issues. 

Extra Resources

In addition to the websites I circulated yesterday (pdf attached again for your information)  the Ministry of Education has launched Learning from home and Ki te Ao Mārama, two new websites to support teachers, learners, parents and whānau so that learning for children and young people can continue. Resources span the learning pathway from early learning through to senior secondary, and more resources will be added as they’re developed.
 
The information and resources are available at https://www.learningfromhome.govt.nz/ and https://www.kauwhatareo.govt.nz/ki-te-ao-marama/.
 
The Ministry of Education is preparing hard copy packs for learners and whānau who don’t have connectivity at home and we will be in touch once we have more information on this but we expect this to be after the school holidays.

School Holidays

Please note that the school holidays are being brought forward to begin from Monday, 30 March to Tuesday, 14 April inclusive. At the end of the school holidays, schools will be open for distance learning but not physically open for staff to work at the schools.

Self-isolation Group

If you need to have your child cared for by someone else you will need to identify that person or people as part of your self-isolated group. This will need to be done by midnight Wednesday and the group must remain the same for the whole 4 week period. The caregiver’s own group (eg, their partner and children), your child and your own group (eg, your parents and other children) become one group. This group needs to be limited to minimise any risk of spread and should be no more than 20 people.
 
Your child will be looking to you for guidance about this decision. 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. 
 
We will continue to communicate with you over the coming days. Thank you for your ongoing support of our school staff and school community.

I iterate the words of the Prime Minister – be kind, keep safe and look after each other.
 
Ngā mihi

Bernadette Murfitt

Principal

Sacred Heart Cathedral School