Week 3 NEWSLETTER

from the principal

COVID-19 - What a difference a week makes!

Wow…this time last week I was writing about our COVID prep, and the home learning packs that had gone out ‘just in case’…and now a week later we have cases in multiple schools in town. Our time will come at some stage…I’m not delusional about that…but we have done a heap of work to be prepared for this inevitability. At this stage we have had a handful of close contacts, but once again I will confirm…no actual cases connected to DPS. We have a plan, and will follow this plan to inform you all when the time comes.

Once again I’d like to thank you all as a community for your support…you’ve been awesome. Sending your kids along daily with a smile, giving us a wave at the gate, contacting us with your questions and sending along emails and messages with positive praise for what we have done. We appreciate it all.

Will the school shut down when you get a case?

We’ve structured the school into 4 tight bubbles. No students and no staff are crossing bubbles at any stage during the day. Break times are staggered and teams play in separate areas. Staff in bubbles keep the required distance from each other, and we are spending precious few minutes in the staffroom (and never more than 2 bubbles of staff in there at once). So for us, when we get a case it will be contained to the teaching team the case is in…and it is that team who will have to head home while contact tracing is completed. That's not to say we won’t close…the Ministries of Health and Education will advise us on that…but we feel like we have enough systems in place to ensure we don’t have to shut the gates!

Home Learning - When will it start?

When we reach the point of large numbers of staff or children away, our hybrid learning plan will kick in. This will see us teaching the children onsite, as well as providing teaching to those unable to be onsite. Teaching teams will use our platforms (HERO, SeeSaw and Google) to get content out to the children.

Home Learning - What will it look like?

Twice a week content will come out for reading, writing and maths. This will be in the form of short videos of the teachers teaching a lesson, and introducing an activity to support that learning. Videos will be roughly 5 minutes in length. Having them as videos will mean that whānau can plan their day as suits them, and also means that the learning is ‘rewindable’...if your child doesn’t quite understand the new skill, they can rewind and watch again.

The content will be spaced across the week based on the reality of the moment (by that I mean we may have some teachers onsite teaching, some offsite…so the plan will be flexible)

This could be as simple as:

Monday/Wednesday: Videos come out for reading, writing and maths. They will be levelled, so some of the content will be ‘easy’ through to stuff that will be ‘hard’. An example of a lesson is below.

Tuesday/Thursday: Children complete independent work inside the online programmes we have set up…egs some maths in Maths Buddy, and some reading in Lexia or Reading Eggs. They use some of the hard pack content as well.

Friday: Some of the ‘other’ curriculum areas…some waiata, a PRIDE lesson, some science, some play/making etc.

But, as I said, the reality is that having a strict plan may not work. We will push out that amount of content…but the daily routine may look different week to week, team to team.

All of this will be supported by a page on our website that will be up soon (www.douglaspark.school.nz). The page will be a handy ‘portal’ for you…with links to all the places and things we are using, as well as extra ideas for whānau.

Home Learning - Can I use the hard pack stuff now?

Yes and No! We have made the packs available to everyone now so that we are prepared, but ideally they should only be used now by children who are unable to come to school…i.e close contacts.

However…inside the pack is a heap of information about our online platforms (Lexia Reading, Maths Buddy, Reading Eggs, PM eReaders) and you are more than welcome to get your child/ren started on this mahi. If they have been at school, they have been using them here onsite and at least will be a little bit familiar with them. All the links, web addresses, app information, logins and passwords are inside your packs…get in there, and get going!

School Sport @ DPS

As you’ll be aware, the local sports cluster and associations have canceled most of the school sports available this term. While this is a real shame, we acknowledge that they have made the right call.

Douglas Park is a school that values sport highly, and we always have amazing participation rates in these local competitions…and…we have a plan to ensure that your children still get to take part.

As we are a large school we are going to run our own internal teeball, mod softball and touch/rippa rugby competitions. These will be run inside teaching teams (to protect our bubbles) and will be at lunchtimes. Extra teachers will be out on duty to make this happen. We will start with teeball and mod softball for 4 weeks starting next week. Teams will be formed next week and a weekly game will be held…just like in non-COVID times. While this isn’t as great as competing against other schools…at least our DPS kids are getting those weekly sporting opportunities.

If you are keen for your child to take part…make sure you chat to them, and encourage them to put their hand up for it!

Year 5/6 Camp

We’ve made the decision to postpone (not cancel) our camp, due to be held soon, until later in the year. We feel given the current RED settings, and the risk of COVID impacting our stay in some form, the right course of action is to mitigate the risk by going to camp later on. As it stands, we couldn’t go ahead with our normal camp…as Rātā and Kahikatea are two separate bubbles who aren’t mixing. I understand and appreciate that students and whānau might be disappointed…but it is just a postponement at this stage.

To be clear…we fully intend to take our children to camp this year as long as it is possible. Worst case scenario, if we cannot stay overnight we will complete a series of day trips so children can still have opportunities to complete the same sorts of camp activities.

You can continue to pay money into the school account for camp over the next couple of terms. If we do end up cancelling, we will of course refund your money to you.

Check out what our wonderful Rimu learners have been up to this week!