School Newsletter – 22 March 2022

Dear Parents and Caregivers

I do hope that you and your household survived the tremendous downpours of rain yesterday morning. It was certainly a different beginning to the week. 

My thanks go to our road patrollers and supervising parents who went out there to ensure that we could all cross safely into the school. Well done you guys. Thanks to parents who supported children to get into school as dry as possible. I know that you managed parking and movements around the school with extra caution. This was appreciated. 

We are hearing that the Covid cases in Auckland are reducing and that we are over the big numbers being reported over the last few weeks. At Kohimarama School we are maintaining an average of 81% of our students attending onsite during this time. Our school staff are averaging 85% of our teacher, learner assistants and admin staff working onsite during this time. As you can appreciate, staffing is being managed daily and successful planning for relief teachers to be available while staff are away. This has meant that we are currently in the position of keeping all classes operating. We hope that this remains the case for the remainder of the term.

In order to mitigate the risks, Kohimarama School continues to maintain all Public Health measures including sanitising, ventilation, use of masks, social distancing and cough and sneeze etiquette.

You can help us to manage the school’s response by informing us if your child tests positive for COVID-19 including the date of the test, or if they are a household contact.  Please continue to monitor for any COVID-19 symptoms and to keep your child home if they are unwell.

Thank you for supporting us in maintaining a safe environment for all our learners.

Assessment for Learning

The school is working through its assessment processes at this time with a view to hold an Assessment Snapshot meeting with parents in the final week of this term. Given that over the last 18months, and with schools being in and out of lockdowns, formal assessment was not able to be completed as we would normally expect. Our goal in having an Assessment Snapshot meeting is to have up to date information on your child and their next steps in learning. As you are aware assessment informs the next steps for learning and sharing this with you will maximise the learning opportunities over the remainder of this year.  More information on this will be in the next newsletter. 

School Counsellors

As mentioned previously, our school is fortunate to have the services of two counsellors to support our students particularly over times like this when our world is in a state of uncertainty. The counsellors work at school on a Tuesday and have their sessions privately in the Admin area of the school. If you feel that you would like to explore this service please email them on counsellor@kohimarama.schiool.nz

Ministry of Education Property Development

The Ministry of Education is finally beginning to address our property deficit. 

We have begun working on a Master Plan for the school which will ensure that the school site is developed in a way that supports the numbers of students we are seeing living in the zone and wanting to attend.  

The process requires that we engage with the Ministry appointed architects to develop this plan. This process is set to take the next few months to develop. As you know, we have had some new modular buildings placed on site as a temporary measure. These are due to be here for approx 4 years.