Published by Hokowhitu School

While we are aware that the number of people wearing masks is waning across the motu, we are continuing to follow MOE advice.
The advice from the Secretary of Education in this week’s bulletin was ‘we continue to strongly recommend that your staff and students in Year 4 and above wear masks when indoors. It will go a long way in protecting the vulnerable among you, everyone wearing masks helps protect those of your students and teachers who are at greater risk of infection, we know, for example, that the parents of some children with disabilities have felt that their children are less safe at school because of the lack of masks.’

There are a number of nasty ‘influenza’ type viruses circulating, as well as COVID, so it is our intention to follow the advice given and offer masks to everyone indoors in Years 4 and above. We appreciate that many children have their own masks and encourage them to bring them to school themselves.
If you do NOT wish your child (Years 4-6) to wear a mask indoors, please advise their whānau teacher by email over the weekend.

We are doing our very best to restrict sudden widespread illness and absences - you will be aware that MANY schools are having to/or have had to restrict the number of days’ children can attend, or have had to split classes up. Our stance has avoided this situation so far, and we very much hope it can stay this way. My staff are absolutely essential to us being able to remain fully open, so we thank you for your support with this. 

REMINDERS

START OF THE DAY TIMES:
A reminder that the bell rings for the start of the day at 8.50am. Please try to ensure that your tamariki arrive at school between 8.30am and 8.45am. This allows time for them to come in, complete morning routines and be ready to start their learning. We ALL have occasions where something doesn’t go to plan and children need to arrive late - that’s understandable. However, regularly arriving after the bell means wasted time for everyone as missed instructions and learning needs to be repeated.
ATTENDANCE:
Children enrolled in school are expected to attend regularly unless they are genuinely medically unwell. The Ministry of Education regards 90% attendance as the minimum threshold for regular attendance. We are currently reviewing our attendance records and will be making contact to offer additional support to those not meeting these guidelines.

Thank you for your support. 

THANK YOU

Last week we thanked everyone who had supported the recent fundraising events by purchasing pies/lamingtons and/or a pizza lunch.
This week I’d like to say a HUGE thank you to Amy Westergaard and her band of helpers (both PTA members and others who are happy to just help on the day) who have done all the ‘behind the scenes’ work to ensure that the food was tallied and ordered and then put together a team to sort and distribute. Every little bit of help is appreciated, otherwise the load falls too heavily on a few people.

The old saying ‘many hands make light work’ is definitely true - we thank you for your help and look forward to even more helpers in the future. 

Thank you to the 162 families that responded to our survey regarding the end of the day times. As 80% of the respondents were in favour of retaining the ‘split’ end of day times, we will be continuing with this practice. 2.45pm TKW and TKP tamariki (and if required, their siblings) are released from their meet and greet points. They must be released to a parent/caregiver, not sent to wait somewhere.

3.00pm TKM, TKA and TKT tamariki are released from their meet and greet points.

TKW and TKP parents can request a regular 3.00pm pick up if 2.45pm is challenging. We do ask that you select the preferred pick up time and stay with it. It’s very confusing to everyone if it chops and changes day to day or from week to week. Please email your child’s whānau teacher with your selected time in the coming days. Thanks for your participation in the survey and thank you for your ongoing support.