Week 2, Term 2 Newsletter – Moving to Level 3

Thank You! again, to our amazing community who is embracing the Lockdown to eliminate COVID-19 and for the way you are catering for your own families and bubbles, without sending huge numbers back to school for next week. This will enable us to better cater to all students online for the next two weeks under Level 3. 

The Ministry is saying  “Where possible, students should remain at home connected to distance learning. Only those who need to go to school should be attending during Level 3.”

As we move into Level 3 next week, we are happy to look after our essential and worker’s children, if both parents are working away from the home. We will be providing online learning to all children in their homes and any students at school will continue with the same online learning, but there will be many limitations placed on these children, as explained below. 

Some classes may find their teachers are not able to provide such prompt responses or offer quite as much online support, as they will be onsite in classrooms with a different bubble of up to ten children, who will need time out and their own support. This will not be school as our students know it. 

Please read the guidelines on what will be happening for any students coming to school during Level 3:-

• Attendance:- Thank you for those who have filled in the form in last week’s newsletter. Special thanks to those who have since adapted their lives and taken children out for some days or catered for them in other ways. If you are working part-time, students can seamlessly have days at school and at home in the same week, or afternoons away, as they will have the same online learning happening and this enables us to have a few Bubbles on-site, with less than 10 in each. Now that your child is registered on the form we will expect them on the days you have indicated. Please email reception@tamahere.school.nz to let us know if arrangements change. 
• Prior enrolment only:- No student can just turn up at school randomly on the day, they need to have been pre-enrolled via our form click here. We will make arrangements and confirm with each family what the arrangements will be. 
• Entrance and exit:- The only gate of entry onto our school site will be at 37 Devine Road – the covered gateway near the School Office. The gate will be hooked ajar and ONLY Students may enter. At this point, they will be met and get a squirt of hand sanitiser before proceeding straight to their bubbles. 
• Timing:– Unfortunately Before and After School Care cannot operate due to restrictions and mingling of bubbles. The school gate will be open from 8:15 am to 8:30 am to allow spacing between students entering. The children will be ready – standing 2 metres apart, at the same gate to be picked up at 2:30 pm. 

• Cleaning:- The classrooms used for the Bubble groups will be in a similar geographic area for safety reasons and to ensure we thoroughly clean one area of the school with door handles, window catches and hard surfaces being cleaned regularly. 
• Equipment:- Under Level 3, no equipment is allowed to be used by multiple students and no balls are allowed to be used. We ask that for this period children bring their own devices, books and activities to school for their own use. Please bring plenty to do. 
• Food and Drink:- As normal, no food is to be shared. All children will need to bring their own drink bottles, as no drinking fountains can be used at this time. 
• Health:- All children joining a school bubble must be healthy and know, as best possible, how to minimise the spread of germs through thorough hand washing, social distancing and using tissues and the elbow to contain coughs and sneezes. All children will be required to use hand sanitiser before entering their classroom, as well as before entering the toilet area. Thorough hand washing and drying before eating and after using the toilets will also be required. 

• Bubbles:- Each bubble will have 2 teachers in the space to allow for breaks and for the teachers to continue to support their own classes with online learning. The bubbles will be age-based, but due to numbers will not always be our usual Syndicate age clusters. In some bubbles, brothers and sisters will be together. This will also lessen mixing. Allocated learning spaces will be kept 1 metre apart, while inside the classroom and the temperature has to be kept at over 18 degrees celsius.

• Breaks:- Our physical playgrounds and sports equipment will not be able to be used. Bubbles will have staggered break times and will not be able to mix. When outside children are expected to remain 2 metres apart.
• Uniform:- As this is really not what school is all about, students can come to school in their own clothes. This also means parents can if they want, change sets of clothes each day before families join back together and wash when it suits them. 
• Bus:-  Some buses will possibly be running for Middle and High School Students. These senior students will need to walk around the school to meet the bus. They will not be able to go across our site or leave their bikes on our site during this time. 

I am sorry that this all sounds so sad. It is only for 2 weeks – hopefully! 

Please can you try to explain to your children what a Level 3 School has to look like before they come next Wednesday? 

If you let us know beforehand, students can be picked up at any time during the day once a phone call or email is sent to the office with the details. Please note the office will be closed at this time and we ask all adults to remain outside the gate. 

What strange times we find ourselves in. Did you know that this year is the first year that there will be no public memorial services to celebrate Anzac Day in New Zealand? To encourage people to pause in their day and take a moment to remember, Maungatautari students have been creating decorations to place at their curbside this weekend. Here are some wonderful wreaths created by our Maungatautari students.

Lest we forget. 

The New Zealand Transport Agency has shared the following information regarding progress on the SH21 Underpass, which is part of the Cambridge to Hamilton section of the Te Awa shared path.

“Walkers and cyclists in the Tamahere community are another step closer to a safe crossing of State Highway 21 Airport Road, with design work underway on a proposed underpass near Wiremu Tamihana Drive. Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency is funding the underpass as part of its section of the Te Awa Cambridge to Hamilton shared path. 

As well as providing a safe crossing of SH21, the underpass will connect the community to key local facilities, including the Tamahere Village, Tamahere Country Club, Tamahere School and the Community Centre. On-site geotechnical investigations were completed prior to the Covid-19 lockdown and now detailed design is being progressed by staff working remotely. Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency is committed to working with community stakeholders to provide input into the design, to ensure a safe facility is built. In our next update, we will provide further detail of the design, including how you can share your thoughts and ideas on what we’re proposing. The location of the proposed underpass is shown in the map above. On the northern side of SH21, the underpass will connect to the existing shared path on Wiremu Tamihana Drive. On the southern side of SH21, the underpass will connect to the Tamahere Drive section of Te Awa, by going through the Tamahere Country Club.” 

You can click here to go to the website for more information on the Te Awa Shared Path project.