Dear Whanau

In order to respond to the situation around students’ absence from school and our increasing difficulty in staffing classes at the moment through the precaution of staff or students self-isolating if they or family have flu like symptoms, management and the Board have decided that we will be moving the planned teachers only days for the end of term forward to begin this Tuesday 24th March.

 Students at year 10 -13 should remain home. Supervision and classes will continue for students in year 7-9 where families require support with care of their children while they are containing at work.

 The time will be used to set up and implement online learning programmes for all levels so that we can support all students in their learning. We understand fully that this situation is causing disruption to students learning and there is anxiety around this and we will be undertaking work to support students learning and achievement in the short, medium and long term throughout this situation.

 The school will continue as normal from next Monday for all students unless there is a direction contrary to that from the Ministry and students at school will be undertaking the same modified programmes as students that are at home.

 Our endeavor will be to develop lessons that parents can access and assist students with at home and that can be done in a schedule that suits families as we realize families with a number of students will not be able to access online resources at the same time.

 For families with no family computer the college has a limited number of desktop computers that we can provide families to assist at this time. If you would like one of these computer to assist your family, please let us know and we will provide that for you.

 We understand that people are anxious for their children and their progress but we would like to understand that staff at the college are doing a fantastic job in continuing to deliver classes and work towards solutions in this situation.  We would like you to remember staff too are all affected by this situation and have family members so we ask for your continued calm and supportive approach in this matters.

There will likely be further updates from government around this situation and the school will respond to those decisions at the time, appropriately.

Jarlath  Kelly
Principal