If you have received a loan Chromebook in the past couple of days, please check your email for the loan agreement form, and complete that and send it back. If your child is in Koru or Kahikatea, the email will also have in it a Gmail address that you will need to use to help your child log in to the device.

If you have borrowed a Chromebook from school, and your child is in Kōwhai, Pōhutukawa or Kauri, they should already know how to log in to this device. If you have any difficulty, please email nick.bruce@beckenham.school.nz and he can reset their password for you.

Contacting staff

We are working on getting the school phone working and hope that this will happen tomorrow. In the meantime, you can:

• phone the school cellphone 021 027 94107 
• email office@beckenham.school.nz
• email your child's teacher

The new Ministry of Education developed "Learning from Home TV" channel on TV2+1 starts tomorrow. I've captured a screenshot of tomorrow's timetable below, and you can go to the actual page by clicking on one of the links above.

Kia ora from my bubble to yours. 

We have three important jobs at the moment.
Job number 2: Care for our children

As caregivers (at home), and as staff (at school virtually now), our job is also to provide a balanced and individually appropriate education for our children and ensure their wellbeing. Over the past two weeks, as well as trying to get a holiday of sorts, our staff have been working very hard to reimagine how teaching and learning will look in this new era we have shifted into. We know that your role now, in supporting your children's education has changed too, and we want to work together with you as we travel this journey together. Each one of us want to do our best. What that will look like will be different for each child, each family, each teacher, and each school.

Job number 3: Be kind
A key message, for all of us, is to 'be kind' to each other as continue to run this 'marathon' together.  We won't get it right all the time so we want to be there to support one another and work through challenges together. Whether we are at home, or at school, our values remain at the heart of what we do.

Yesterday's Covid19 update from our Prime Minister gave us more indication of what the days and weeks may look like, moving forward and, like everyone, we are aware of our need to be adaptive and flexible in this environment that is rapidly changing and evolving. I am getting regular updates from the Ministry of Education on the back of the daily announcements from the Beehive.

The following is a direct quote from the email every principal in New Zealand received last night (Thursday) from the Ministry of Education:

"In Select Committee today, Minister Hipkins also spoke to the change of alert levels and the implications for education providers and their communities. The Minister noted it would be wrong to assume that all schools and early learning services will reopen at Level 3.

We are looking at various scenarios and they will be based on health considerations and requirements under Level 3, particularly managing physical distancing. A hybrid model of both distance learning and on-site learning is very likely at least in the early stages of Level 3.  The Public Health requirements will affect each school differently.

We want to reassure you that following any announcement, you will have some time to prepare for physically re-opening your school or early learning service to welcome back on site your staff and some, but not all, of your children/students.

Assuming the alert level does change, current planning assumptions are that you will have Thursday 23 and Friday 24 April to fully access your site and undertake a property inspection and necessary maintenance and cleaning. Monday 27 April is a public holiday (ANZAC Day observed) and Tuesday 28 April will be a staff-only day. We therefore anticipate Wednesday 29 April would be your first day with some of your students/children able to attend in person. Early Learning Centres might not need all of this time. 

We are developing detailed guidance to support you through this process. This will be ready in time for any decision announced on 20 April. Our staff will then work with you to support you to develop a detailed plan for your school and communication to your parents."

Over the past two days, there have been significant announcements relating to Education. It is important, when we hear these announcements, that we appreciate that they span at least three sectors of Education, from Early Childhood Education, through the Primary years, and right through to Senior Secondary where NCEA is a focus. Many of the initiatives that the government are rolling out in education are to try and ensure that students who are the most disadvantaged, through lack of digital connectivity, are able to access education.

The Ministry are asking schools like ours to try to do whatever we can do, to ensure that we support our own community with getting connected, so that they can focus on more remote and disadvantaged communities with the rollout of devices and hard copy packs. If we can support you, then those elements of the Ministry rollout will not be required for our community.

Our goal is for EVERY child in our school to have access to a device, so that they can engage with the learning that we will be trying to provide. Not all of the learning will be online, however, you and your child will need to GET online to be able to find out about what they can do.

From Wednesday, we will have a new set of pages on our school website - one for each team, that will provide some support for you and your children around learning from home. We encourage everyone to engage with this in the way that is going to work best for you and your family. Our teachers will be making contact with you and your children from Wednesday, and will be checking in with you if you/your child has not responded to messages.

Alongside our website, we will have two key digital platforms operating from which our staff will be able to engage with you and your children:

Given the current state of the nation, and the significant changes that we have all had to deal with over the past two weeks, the Board of Trustees have requested an extension to the closing date for submissions on the Proposed Enrolment Zone Amendment. This request has been approved.

Submissions should be sent to Tom Scollard: tom@tomscollard.co.nz

All of the information about the proposed changes can be found on our school website under 'Enrolment/Proposed Enrolment Zone Amendment'

Ngā mihi nui

Sandy Hastings - Principal/Tumuaki

Ester Vallero - Chair, Board of Trustees

Whilst we are all working to save lives by staying at home, we have also been finalising our staffing going forward. As you have been aware, particularly if you have children in the Kōwhai Team, Paulette Newton is moving on from Beckenham to a new job with the RTLB (Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour) from the start of Term 2.

With the school holidays being brought forward by two weeks, Paulette effectively now finishes at Beckenham at Easter. We do wish her very well in her new role, and will arrange for a more appropriate farewell assembly at school when we are back on site again.

In the meantime, we advertised for a new Team Leader and went through a robust appointments process. From that, we are delighted to announce that our own Laura Williamson has been appointed as the new Team Leader for the Kōwhai Team. We are very excited about having Laura join the Leadership Team, and bring her expertise and skills to our mahi.

Laura Williamson

That, of course, solved the problem of the Team Leader vacancy, but didn't replace a teacher within the team! We have just finalised our second appointment process, and are delighted to announce that Tracey Maloney will start in the fixed-term role of teacher in the Kōwhai Team from the start of Term 2, until the end of the year.

Tracey Maloney

Tracey has been one of our key relievers in the school for some time and, in Term 1, was working on Fridays in the Kahikatea Team in Charlotte's place. Charlotte will be returning to full-time work from the start of Term 2.

Nigel Easson

We also wish Nigel Easson extremely well in his new position as principal of Sheffield School, which he starts in Term 2. His time with us has also come to an abrupt halt and, like Paulette, we will invite him back for a proper farewell assembly.

Rob Proffitt-White

And a reminder that we have Rob Proffitt-White joining our team from the start of Term 2, to take up the position of Acting Deputy Principal. We will welcome Rob and Tracey properly when we have our next Welcome Assembly on site!

Ngā mihi nui
Sandy and the (changing) team

Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

We have started into a new phase of New Zealand’s response to COVID-19 and it is very different than anything most of us have ever experienced.  I wanted to reassure you that school staff and Board of Trustees will continue to be available to support your child’s learning and wellbeing in the next weeks.

Thank you for your understanding of our very generalised learning support over the days this week since school formally closed on Monday. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday with most of the staff at school, preparing for the lockdown. This included developing plans for continuing to upskill teachers around what digital learning might look like, and helping all teachers to develop the skills for uploading videos, using online tools such as Google hangouts for team meetings and exploring options for linking up with students next term.

You will understand the importance of routine for your family. If your routine has been shaken up, like you’re now working from home, it’s good to structure your time. Routines are reassuring, and promote health and physical wellbeing. The below timetable (targeted at children) could be something your household adapts to use over the next weeks. A school holiday version will likely look a little different, but some form of routine will still be important as we go through the lockdown period. Obviously, this is just one example, and what it might look like for each family will be different, depending on your situation.



If you need to get in contact with anyone from school over the next two weeks of holidays, please email me using principal@beckenham.school.nz
Our teachers will be communicating during school hours, once the term starts again on Wed 15th April. Please also bear in mind that teachers have their own lockdown lives to manage too. Like many of you, some have children and other whānau in their homes, and may also be trying to share a workspace with others on their kitchen tables!
We would ask that you use email as the primary way to contact teachers during the lockdown, rather than texting or phoning, in the first instance. This means that teachers can manage their time and schedule work time at home too.

Some good news to support you either working at home and/or studying at home - Spark, Vodafone, Vocus/Slingshot, 2Degrees and Trustpower have all advised they have removed their data caps and the possibility of any extra charges based on usage.

If you do not have a data plan at home, Skinny Jump is flexible prepaid broadband: Only $5 for 30GB of data, no contracts or credit checks. https://www.skinny.co.nz/jump/home.html Skinny Jump is a not-for-profit service supporting those most at risk of digital exclusion, including families with children, job seekers, seniors, people with disabilities, refugees and migrant communities, those in social housing. If you think this sounds like a plan can support you, or someone in our community please share with them and make contact with Skinny Jump

For our Pacific families, if you are not aware the Ministry for Pacific Peoples’ has been working to ensure useful information is available to Pacific peoples. A one-hour special will be aired on Tagata Pasifika’s segment on Saturday at 9am; and on Sunday at 7.35am, Tagata Pasifika will share messages from community leaders. The Ministry is asking you to reach out to all your family members, community groups, friends and group chats to ensure our Pacific community groups are watching the programming on both days.

A big thank you to all of you for taking the lockdown so seriously. As the Prime Minister has noted staying at home will break the chain and save lives; breaking the rules could risk someone close to you and if the rules are not complied with, this could risk the lock down period being extended or could risk the virus being spread to thousands

Ngā mini nui
Sandy and the team!

I am getting daily, lengthy email bulletins from the Ministry of Education, much of which contains reminders for our community about what the Level 4 lockdown means. These have included the following for whānau and community:

Update on the provision of home-based supervision and care for the children (aged 0-14 years) of essential workers

The Government has agreed that three large home-based providers (Barnardos, Edubase and PORSE) will provide additional support to essential service workers, where workers are not able to make their own arrangements. These providers have national coverage.

The level of demand from essential service workers is not yet clear and we are exploring all options to make sure that essential service workers can do the important work necessary. In particular we are working with the wider network of home based providers to identify additional carers in areas of high demand.

Essential workers should still continue to contact one of the following three providers if they have been unable to make their own arrangements:
Barnardos - covid19enquiries@barnardos.org.nz
Edubase - Home Grown Kids & Kids at Home 0508 44 54 37 or info@hgk.co.nz
PORSE - porse.co.nz 0800 023 456

Access to school sites

Further information to support wellbeing