Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Thank you for your support today as Kereru, Ruru and Tui started school again! We have so many happy children and not one single tear as they arrived! We can hear chatter and laughter at school again and it’s wonderful!

Drop off

A reminder Bubble School kids drop off is 8:45am and the rest of the students and the rest of the students are not onsite until 9am. If we can keep children from congregating outside the gates before 9am it will keep them much safer.

Counselling

Hi my name is Theresa Bruce. I am the school counsellor at Orewa Beach School as the kids go back to school and with the government's restrictions on who is allowed in schools and so forth. I will not be onsite for counselling but am more than happy to talk to the children or parents over zoom or on the phone whichever suits best. Please feel free to contact me on 0273246646 or email on cascadecounsellingnz@gmail.com. These are interesting times we live in and remember all we can do is our best. Have lots of compassion on yourselves and your family. We will get through this and do our best in these unprecedented times. Have fun making memories with your kids. Theresa

Masks Year 4-6

We completely understand there is apprehension about Year 4, 5 and 6 wearing masks and thank you for your support, we are only doing what the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education have directed us to do. This decision is out of our hands and we appreciate you working with us.

The Ministry has put this requirement in to keep your children safe. This is for children to be onsite at Level 3.

We want your children safe so we are doing our job and doing what we legally have to do.

For medical reasons you can apply for an exemption or you can keep your child at home with our online learning.

We are happy to take official exemptions please email them directly to me.

The ministry advice is written below in blue and the new clause was sent to you yesterday.

Ministry of Education advice as well as the clause to the new public health order sent yesterday.

Face coverings at Alert Level 3

Year 4 to 8 students and staff will now be required to wear face coverings when indoors as an added layer of protection. This requirement will be included in an updated Public Health Response Order soon.

From 17 November students cannot attend school if they will not wear a face covering when indoors unless they are exempted from doing so (for example some people who have a disability or health condition that would prevent them from wearing a face covering).

A face covering is defined as “a covering of any type that covers the nose and mouth of a person”.

Because face coverings have not been a requirement for those under 12 until now, parents and caregivers may not yet have applied for an exemption card for their child.

Schools will be best placed to make a pragmatic decision about enforcing the face covering requirement for those who you consider would genuinely meet the exemption criteria, while they wait for an exemption card to come through. Otherwise they may be able to provide a letter or medical certificate from a health practitioner or GP to support this.

Let’s concentrate on doing what we need to do to keep our community and most importantly your children safe and focus on how lovely it is to have them back at school at all in these present times.

Working together, being patient, being kind and considerate will make this return to school the best experience for everyone.

Warm regards,

Katherine Pascoe - Principal

Orewa Beach School

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

We have been given further information from the Ministry of Education on staff and students in years 4-6 wearing masks.

All staff and students in years 4-6 will need to wear a mask when indoors unless they have a medical exemption, please see the legislation below.

17 Clause 23 amended (Additional face covering requirements for individuals in alert level 3 area)

(1) Revoke clause 23(4).

(2) After clause 23(5), insert:

Persons indoors in registered schools

(5A) A person must wear a face covering while indoors in a registered school in the alert level 3 area if the person is—

(a) a staff member working to provide, or support the provision of, education to students in years 4 to 13 who are not in a specified composite class; or

(b) a student in years 4 to 13 who is not in a specified composite class.

(5B) For the purposes of subclause (5A), specified composite class means a class in which more than half of the students are in years 1 to 3.

https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2021/0364/latest/LMS595804.html

Many thanks

Katherine Pascoe - Principal

Monday 8th November

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

As you may be aware we are undertaking a curriculum review and creating a localised curriculum for our students at Orewa Beach School. This learning also dovetails well into the NZ Histories curriculum that launches in 2022.

We have started this journey of Professional Development with our staff and would like to share the decisions we have made with you and ask for your ideas and feedback so we can create this together for our children.

We will be teaching a conceptual curriculum across the school. This is ​​a curriculum that teaches broad concepts like change, balance, identity and systems. It recognizes that facts and topics are really important in student learning, but that there are other levels of learning above them that we can define and design. ... Concepts are the big ideas.

A concept-based curriculum teaches broad concepts like change, balance, identity and systems. It recognizes that facts and topics are really important in student learning, but that there are other levels of learning above them that we can define and design. ... Concepts are the big ideas

We will do this through an Inquiry model based on “ Know, Understand and Do”

We would really appreciate you completing the following questions to help us consolidate and complete this learning: Please click on the link

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdmPjoy81y_xbJYOs58PrXYsXT6yNfX1-Sf5aeOpd0o3zWcNA/viewform?usp=pp_url

We really value and appreciate your feedback,

Warm Regards,

Orewa Beach School Board of Trustees Orewa Beach School

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

We wanted to touch base as there are so many wonderings going on at the moment in this current climate and wanted to hopefully create one less worry for you.

Learning this year….

Our biggest priority will always be your children, regardless of what the media are saying. We are working with the Ministry to get our students back as soon as possible safely, we of course want our very special school back together where we all look after each other- this is such a strength of our community.

Our staff would love to see your children back, they miss them and want to be able to reconnect with them as soon as it’s safe.

We need to continue as we are until we hear otherwise!

Some of our staff onsite are going to start reading to students Monday to Thursday 9:10am-9:30am.

We have had to cancel our school events for the rest of the year such as our Fun Run, End of Year BBQ, End of Year Assembly, Athletics, Camp and Year 5 tramp. We too are so very disappointed we’ve had to do this. We are hoping we can get some form of a graduation for our Year 6 children!

What we need now is reassurance as everything around is so uncertain.

2022

In light of this we have decided to share our plans for next year. In some cases we have been able to keep students with their current teacher next year. See below.

Year 1 2022 Teachers

Mrs Michaela Hansen (Team Leader), Miss Joanna Blake, Mrs Louise Boot and Mrs Sarah Thornhill.

Year 2 2022 Teachers

Mrs Debbie Waller (Team Leader), Miss Jessica Keating, Miss Grace Mills and Miss Ellie Levy (Y1/2 class).

We are working on these classes and keeping students with the same teacher where possible.

Year 3/4 2022 Teachers

Mrs Madeline Lockie (Team Leader), Mrs Cindi Meyer, Mrs Renee Maurice/Mrs Sarah Plummer and Mrs Rhonda Beet

Current Year 3 students will stay with their current teacher in 2022 as Year 4 students. Mrs Oxbourough will be taking her current Year 3 students with her into Year 4 now.

Year 4-5 2022 Teachers

Mrs Selena Oxbourough (Team Leader), Mrs Rebecca Coombe, Mrs Helen Jury.

Mrs Oxbourough will have her current Year 3 students as Year 4’s we will place Year 5’s into this class.

Year 6 2022 Teachers

Mrs Ngaire Burrell (Team Leader), Mr Terry Gillolly, Mrs Jenna Le- Mouton.

These teachers will all keep their current Year 5 students and we will share Mr Ross and Mrs Coombe’s current Year 5 students into these classes for 2022.

All our teachers are amazing, they all work so very hard for the best for your children.

Hours and hours go into the placements of students, looking at the social aspect, academic, friendships, and teacher fit: all these aspects play a crucial part.

Please DO NOT make teacher requests, as our class lists are finalised. We have already asked for any extenuating circumstances.

We really hope this letter helps alleviate any worries as this was our intention.

Kind regards,

Katherine Pascoe - Principal

Orewa Beach School