The Connection Week 1 Term 1

Welcome back to our great school.

Today was our first day back with your children and it was just so good to see them again!

I always love that moment when we welcome them back to school and the children connect with their mates, new class members and their teacher. Walking through the rooms first thing this morning, staff were commenting how settled and secure the children were. Thank you for how you have supported and enabled the first day to go well. A reminder to parents we are asking parents not to walk through the school and enter rooms. Please use the internal school driveway and stay on the drive.

We welcome new families and children to our school. We also welcome five new staff:

• Kayla Matthews joining our Year 1 team

• Tracy Taylor joining our Year 2 team

• Sineaya Harnett joining our Year 3 & 4 team

• Jennifer Kim joining the Montessori Team

• Emma Davison joining our operations team

Working with staff in the lead up to our start of the year, there’s a great tone in our school and desire to not only manage this next COVID phase well, but see all the great things we have planned and the direction we are heading being realised in spite of COVID. We are determined to see our children and school continue doing what’s right and our vision of being the best we can be for our school, our community and our children.

John Petrie

Principal

• Friday 4th March - Teacher Only Day

Under Red, and with the likelihood of an outbreak of COVID (Omicron) things could become really interrupted and challenging. Communication is going to be really important. We are going to need to work together to manage what could potentially be significant interruptions.

Decisions around exemptions have been passed back to schools. Our desire is to see every child (Yr 4+) wearing a mask. If there is a solid reason why your children cannot align with this, please put this in writing to the school and we will adjust our management accordingly. Please e-mail: office@hds.school.nz

We have spare masks on site for children. We have adjusted our break times and created zones for playing. We are committed to doing all we can, creating an environment that is as safe as possible. We are balancing this with the reality of dealing with children and wanting to make school feel like a school should.

We are required under “Red” to restrict and manage non-essential personnel on site. Our view to limit parents to the gate is just as problematic. We are allowing parents on site but limited to the drive way only. Please do not walk through the school. If for some reason you require access to the classroom, please do so through the School Office. Contact tracing via the QR code scanning will be necessary. Masks are required to be worn by parents and visitors on site at all times.

To ensure we are keeping up with the best technology, we are moving to HERO Financials from 2022, in addition to the existing student KINDO portal currently in place.

Moving forward, all of your school related fees, donations, invoices etc will be available for payment via your HERO account. Statements will also be available. You will notice the Finance section available on the home page, when signed in to your HERO account. This section will contain financial information for all children under your care attending HDS.

PLEASE NOTE: we will still be using KINDO shop for anything external you purchase ie: school lunches and the HDS Hat. Also, anything prior to 2022 will still be available to pay via KINDO.

As we look to and anticipate this term, we have planning and organisation in place based on three scenarios:

(1) On site - our normal class programme based within our classrooms.

(2) Off site whole class - where a class has been directed to stay at home due to a close contact we will have online learning options in place and ready to go.

(3) Off site individual - where a child is required to stay at home but not a whole class ie: close contact. We will have support material available as a generic resource for children to use at home.

(4) We may have to develop a fourth option where there are children unable to return to school due to exemption or medical advice. We will monitor this.

If you are intending for your child not to return to school at the moment, your child(ren) require an exemption. Please share this and communicate with the school. We do not (currently) plan to deliver online learning for individuals electing not to return to school. Children staying away from school should be based on medical advice.

We have elected to send home with every Huapai District School child a NZ curriculum based book that can be used in the situation should they be required to work from home as an individual. This decision carries a significant cost to the school, but we are committed to our students’ education and wellbeing; we believe it to be the most effective tool to support where a child is required to stay at home.

This is not a book to be used when the entire class is home or as “additional homework”. It is to be kept for when your child is unable to be at school with their classmates due to being in isolation.

We are hoping you can support the school in recovering this cost through paying your school donation. School donations can be paid via your HERO account.

Last year we distributed all our school devices to students requiring these to work from home. If we need to do this again in 2022 they will be distributed from their individual class sets. If your child does not have access to a device, we need to know this so that we can plan to distribute our school devices. We do have limited resources. Though something we have not promoted, a good number of students do bring their own devices daily in Years 5 - 8. Right now this could be a significant help and advantage for children. While stocks appear to be limited, the Asus and Lenovo Chrome books are popular and range in price from $400 - $500 per unit.

A print run will be done early in Term 1 of 2022.

These can be purchased online through KINDO.

Orders will be closed off next Friday, 11th February 2022 at 3pm. There will be no further print runs done, so this will be your last chance to order.

*Note: This is for 2021 class photos. Please ensure you purchase the class photo of the room your child was in last year (2021). Class photos for 2022 will be taken closer to the end of this year.

We are working hard to keep our children as safe as possible while under school care. We have made the decision not to enter any school basketball teams this term due to the imminent presence of Omicron and its potential disruption. While we are passionate about having children involved in sport, basketball is an indoor sport where the children are often in the faces of other students from many different schools huffing and puffing. We feel this is a heightened risk and not an ideal situation when we are actively trying to minimise this behaviour here at school. If you would like to register your child for basketball season 1 (March - June) please contact the Massey YMCA directly. We are very hopeful to register teams for season 2 and will advertise for interest early term 2.

HERO

To see your child’s learning journey, report, and class newsletters and pay for any in-school related costs, please log into HERO.

HERO app - See below for login instructions.

You will only receive one form of notification when a community post or student learning post is published. If you log into the Hero mobile app you will receive an in-app notification. If you log into Hero via a web browser, you will receive an email notification.

If your child is away, to book Huapai Plus before and after school care, to pay fees, to see our newsletters or to order uniform please use our SchoolApps app.

Here is how you are able to download and install the App on your phone:

Step 1: Download the App

-The app is available on both iOS and Android devices.

-Please visit your app store to download SchoolAppsNZ

-Select our school - Huapai District School.

Step 2: Opt in to Alert Subscriptions

In order to receive any communication you need to subscribe to an alert group. To do this, tap on the menu icon (3 lines in the top left corner) - Alert Subscriptions.

Please select:

• Gereral/Important (must select)
  
• Classrooms - select your child/rens classroom (must select)
  
• Year Level (must select)

Official HDS Facebook Page

This is our official facebook page for us to join together to celebrate our children and special school events.

https://www.facebook.com/huapaidistrictschool

Huapai Family Network Facebook Page

This page is community driven -looking out for each other, creating fun family events and fundraising to support the school for the students.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/huapaifamilynetwork

Huapai Family Network - Sale, Lost and Found Page

Huapai Family Network: School items for sale, lost and found.

Our good friends at MusiqHub are looking forward to another awesome year of music in 2022 at Huapai School! They will have some slots available for Guitar, Drums, Piano and Ukulele lessons in Term 1. If you're interested, be sure to get in touch to reserve your spot or ask any questions you may have. Contact details below:

Drums - paul.barry@musiqhub.co.nz

Guitar, Keyboard and Ukulele - scott.wotherspoon@musiqhub.co.nz

Our 2022 Term dates are:

Term 1 - Thursday 3rd February - Friday 14th April

Term 2 - Monday 2nd May - Friday 8th July

Term 3 - Monday 25th July - Friday 30th September

Additional to this there are two planned Teacher only days:

• Friday 4th March

• Friday 3rd June (making Queens Birthday a 4 day option)

Email: office@hds.school.nz
Website: https://www.huapaidistrict.school.nz/
Location: Huapai District School 40 Station Rd, Kumeū, New Zealand
Phone: +64 09 412 5042
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/huapaidistrictschool