19 October 2021

Newsletter Articles

Principals supporting Principals… Principals supporting Principles!

Kia Ora

Welcome to your Monday Mailing on a Tuesday.

Nga Mihi
Chrissy Wakeman
Orini Combined School

A message from Lesley

E ngā mana, e ngā iwi, e ngā reo

Tēnā tātou katoa.

Welcome to Term 4, 2021 - a somewhat unusual start to the term for many of us in te rohe o Waikato. Some of us are operating at Alert Level 2, so it is pretty much business as usual for the beginning of the term and some of us are operating at Alert Level 3 with learning bubbles in operation at our school sites. It has been a challenging week for principals, deciphering the key messages from the Ministry of Education and working to give our students the best possible start to the term whether they are learning from home or learning at school.

I have relied heavily on the support of my colleagues over the past week, phoning them to work out some of the initial ambiguity of the communications that we received so that Ministry guidelines were followed as we prepared for the beginning of the school term. I am grateful that we work in a sector where our colleagues are open, collaborative and willing to share their advice and experience. I hope this term goes well for us all, no matter what our context is, as we navigate the impact of the Covid-19 Delta variant on our schools and our lives.

Yesterday the decision was made by the WPA executive that we would cancel our term 4 Connections day at Claudelands. Hamilton remains at Alert Level 3 for at least another week and it is difficult to continue on with event arrangements with the current level of uncertainty about changes to Alert levels. However, we are still planning for a WPA end of year dinner for December and hope that this will be an occasion where we can get together and see each other again.

In the meantime, kia haumaru te noho, stay safe and well.

Ngā manaakitanga

Lesley Lomas
Interim President

Contacts for support

Your WPA Exec is here to support you if needed! Please do not hesitate to contact us. You can find all of our emails via our WPA website below by clicking on our photos.

Learning Lab

The Covid19 Pandemic has placed a lot of extra pressure on us as educators and leaders. As the year comes to a close, I have noted on the NZ Primary facebook page the anxieties of teachers who feel they are failing or cannot lift achievement as much as they would be able to within the classroom, there is also a lot of discussion around the ability to write reports. While we within the Waikato have not been in lockdown as long as Auckland, I feel these anxieties may still be very real for some teachers within our kura. This article outlines some ideas to develop a plan around how to support teachers who are feeling anxious or overwhelmed.

Round the Bridges - Postponed

This event has been postponed to the 13th February, 2022

There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes between the Government and the Event Industry, so we are confident that there will be good large scale outdoor event processes and practises in place by February to ensure we can hold an event of this size safely and successfully!

With our new date, it means our entry period has now been extended to Friday 4th February 2022. We would very much appreciate if you could please pass on to your principals, for them to pass on to their schools that they now have longer to register their place in one of the Waikato’s most iconic events!

For those schools who have already registered a team, the registration is VALID for our new date. There is no need to have your registration re-issued. If that date does not suit, we are issuing refunds, and all entrants will have received an email detailing how to go about requesting that.

We would like to thank you for your support through this very challenging time. We are very fortunate to have amazing support from Lugtons, The Hamilton Harriers and all our partners and suppliers, to ensure we can have a successful event in February.

Over the next couple of weeks, we expect to hear the Government’s confirmed policy in mandating the vaccination certificate to be part of and enjoy large scale events. We will be encouraging participants and spectators over the ages of 12, to get vaccinated if they wish to participate in Lugton’s Round the Bridges as we expect this will be a compulsory requirement for all events moving forward.

Thank you again for your continued support of Lugtons Round the Bridges… we hope our young people keep up the training, and encourage their friends and whanau to get entered!

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