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

Kia ora koutou

With today’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 tomorrow morning from 8:30am. Children may wear mufti, and we ask ALL children to go to Kōwhai on arrival and sign in there with Paulette. 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. We continue to ask that children who are not well, do not attend school. This option will also be available on Wednesday. After that, as the country moves into Level 4 of our COVID19 plan, school will be completely closed for attendance.

For all other children, school is now closed.

The government have advised that the holidays have been brought forward to begin on Monday 30th March. From tomorrow evening, we will have a page of optional learning activities available for you to select from for the rest of this week.

We will be supporting children's learning from your home with a menu of opportunities that you can select from. Our teachers have been beginning to develop a framework for this, and tomorrow and Wednesday will see our staff putting some of these ideas together in a place you can access them.

The learning options will be linked from our school website, and will include both 'online' and 'offline' options with plenty of choice available for families to select what will work for them.

We are aware that 'being connected' will support families with learning and with social connection.

To support learning, we have a small number of Chromebooks at school that we can loan to families who might need them for learning, particularly for older children. If you think this might be your family, please click on this link to let us know via a brief survey. You need to complete this BEFORE 3ppm tomorrow (Tuesday), so that we can work out how to allocate these on Wednesday and let you know to come in and pick them up on Wednesday.

The following information has come directly from the Ministry of Education and clarifies what support you can put in place around child care whilst the country is at a Level 4 position:
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.

Please look out for more emails from school over the duration of this nationwide effort to keep our population safe and healthy. We will also post on our school Facebook page. We will continue to communicate with you during this time.

Thank you for your ongoing support of our school staff and school community.

Ngā mini nui, koutou

Sandy, and the amazing team, at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto