FRIDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2022

Kia ora, Talofa Lava, Greetings, Malo e Lelei, Kia Orana, Bonjour, Nǐ hǎo, Hallo, Hola, Kon'nichiwa, Namaste, As-salāmu ʿalaykum

We extend a warm welcome to all our new students:

Maukau Meister in Rm 9; Levi Lagas and Molly Carroll in Rm 23; Ben Neilson Rm 10; Zach Neilson, Mason Kereopa Rm 22; Lennox Carroll Rm 15; Lutzie Zandi, Amelia Kereopa and Keilan Cross in Rm 11; Oscar Evans Rm 8; Olive Wintringham Rm 6; Douglas Wilkie Rm 9; Eleanor Wilkie Rm 14; Cash Cross Rm 15;

Leo Maritz, Ramon Medina, Dylan Hayward, Wade Brooker, Emily Peterson, Florence Taylor, Arlo Drager, Rmy Andrew and Emily Halley in Rm 2 and Matai Webby Rm 1


FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Kia ora whānau

As we come to the end of week 3, I feel so much pride when I tell you just how well our learners and staff have adapted to our new health and safety procedures at RED.  Our year 4-8 learners are wearing their masks well, and I appreciate the messages you are delivering at home too around us all helping keep our Muritai team as safe and as well as can be by masking up, keeping our rooms well ventilated and our usual clean hands and cough and sneeze etiquette. 

Thank you to all of our parent community who have been an enormous help by dropping children to the gates and staying out of the school unless absolutely necessary to drop children to the classroom door.  Please do remember during ‘RED’ to not enter any classroom or space at school.  This helps keep our interactions with staff and students to a minimum, and keeps us very clear on who our close contacts are if we need to report these at any time. Please note that all of our restrictions and processes follow the Ministry of Health and Education guidelines at all times.  We appreciate your support with this. 

Learning Partnership Meetings Term 1 2022

The start of the year is a key time in our classrooms as the class culture is developed and relationships are created amongst our classes.  A key relationship too is the relationship between teachers and whānau.  This term we are going to need to do things a bit differently than our usual get togethers in Term 1.  The teachers will create a personalised movie introduction about themselves and the class, and we will send this to you in Week 5.  Our usual learning partnership sheet about your child will be sent to you to complete.  As always, please feel free to connect with the teachers via email if you have any questions or concerns anytime throughout the year.  

Communications Focus Group - 2022

This year I would like to invite parents who are interested to join me in a consultation/focus group to assist with thoughts and ideas around having effective communication with our school community.   Feedback from parents in the past has shown that either there is too much communication from the school,  or that there is not enough communication from the school.  We would like to consider ways of improving and perhaps streamlining our communication, to ensure it is meeting the needs of our parent community -  especially in a year where we are likely to spend some of it distanced, as we are at present.  If you would like to be included in my focus group, please email me at principal@muritai.school.nz I look forward to hearing from you, and setting the date for our first (online) meeting.  

Structured Literacy

Our successful years of Maths Professional Learning as a staff have come to an end,  and Muritai staff are now moving on to a new venture together.  For the next few years our professional learning focus is going to be on literacy.  This year all of our staff including all teachers and teacher aides began our journey learning about Structured Literacy. 

The Science of Reading is a vast body of evidence-based research that has been collated from various disciplines, e.g. cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, education, linguistics, neuroscience, etc. The SoR has demystified how we learn to read and what our instruction should look like to complement this. 

Structured Literacy approaches are aligned with the SoR. Structured Literacy approaches are diagnostic, systematic, and cumulative in nature, with explicit instruction being used.

As a staff we are excited to find out more, and we will bring you updates as we progress.

CO2 Monitors and Air Purifiers

Once again I am blown away by the talents, assistance and generosity of our parent community! Over term 4 and the summer break I was pleased to connect with a parent, Oliver Seiler, who has built and installed bespoke and effective CO2 monitors in every single one of our classrooms and spaces.  These have provided us with an additional layer of safety as we ensure our classrooms and spaces have good air ventilation and along with opening our doors and windows, help to slow the spread of COVID in our school community.  Thank you so much Oliver - what a talent! I’d also like to acknowledge a new parent, Dr Caroline Shorter, who has provided expertise and assistance to me around CO2 and ventilation.  Thank you Caroline  for your help!

Lastly, a very special thank you to Kurt Renner and Bronwyn Barrington, who have very generously donated some air purifiers to school as another extra layer of protection against the spread of COVID-19.   WOW!

Not every school has the talents, resources and generosity that we are privileged to have from our Muritai parent community. We are so lucky.   Thank you to Oliver, Caroline, Kurt and Brownyn for your thoughtfulness and assistance in helping us ensure we can add extra layers of protection to our response, and keep working together with extra layers of protection for the betterment of all of us at Muritai School.  

COVID-19 - RED Phase 2 Update

This ‘RED Phase 2’ update is to set us all up for success for the next weeks to come, as the effects of Omicron are beginning to impact our community.  Please note we are not the health experts, however I understand there may be delays in gaining information from the Ministry of Health in the coming days and weeks. 

We do not have notification of a positive case here at Muritai School, but we should prepare ourselves since this is unlikely to continue to be the case. This information is to offer advice as to what to do should someone in your household be affected.

If someone in your household tests positive to COVID-19 (Positive Case notification):

Regardless of vaccination status, all household members need to stay at home and self-isolate for 10 days

Household members must get tested for COVID-19 on Day 3 and on Day 8 following Positive Case notification

The isolation period ends after 10 days following the Positive Case notification if no one in your household has COVID-19 symptoms and if everyone's Day 8 test was negative

If someone in your household has been identified as a Close Contact:

Regardless of vaccination status, the close contact needs to stay at home and self-isolate for 7 days

Close contacts must get tested for COVID-19 on Day 5 following Close Contact exposure

The isolation period ends after 7 days following the Close Contact exposure if no one in your household has COVID-19 symptoms and if everyone's Day 5 test was negative

If someone in your household has been identified as a Secondary or Casual Plus Contact:

If symptom-free, there is no requirement to self-isolate or to be tested

Please watch for symptoms of COVID-19:

Less common symptoms of COVID-19 may include diarrhoea, headache, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, malaise, chest pain, abdominal pain, joint pain or confusion/irritability. These almost always occur with one or more of the common symptoms: 

new or worsening cough

sneezing and runny nose

fever

temporary loss of smell or altered sense of taste

sore throat

shortness of breath

If you are worried, call your GP or Healthline on 0800 358 5453.  Healthline is a free service available 24/7 and has interpreters available. To find your local testing station visit Healthpoint

Please be assured that we will communicate with you directly should there be a case in the Muritai School community, and we will provide further information at that time via email. 

We’ve created two diagrams to summarise all of the information - the first diagram ‘School Community Plan’  includes  the likely steps for when we have a positive case at Muritai - noting that the change under ‘RED - Phase 2’ is that parents now inform the school, we will now not hear about any positive cases until you tell us. The second diagram has FAQ’s that might be useful if you are faced with a personal exposure notification in the coming weeks.  

Please note that these are current as of today, and we will update information to you if there are any changes. 

Once again, I thank you all for your continued understanding and support as we all work together in doing our very best to keep our Muritai School community well, and I thank you all for assisting us to launch another wonderful albeit slightly different year at Muriati School. 

Ngā mihi

Bec Power

Principal



FROM THE SCHOOL

Home & School

The Muritai Home and School committee is an enthusiastic group of parents who support the school by organising social events and fundraising for things not covered by Government funding. We meet once or twice a term so joining the Committee is not a big commitment and is a great way to support the school community while also getting to know a great bunch of parents. We are always keen for new ideas for fundraisers and ways to connect the home with school via family social events.

The Home and School Committee will be meeting on Thursday 24 February in the Still Room at 7.30pm.  All are very welcome.  We look forward to meeting you.



COMMUNITY NOTICES  - Please  Note the following notices have been requested to be published and are not necessarily  endorsed by us as a school.  In the spirit of community we include these digitally for you to peruse. 


Come and join your local family club for a season of soccer!!  Register your children to play for Eastbourne Football Club 

The EFC Club Committee is excited to announce that registrations for the fast-approaching 2022 soccer season are open! 

Junior Season Dates are: 7 May – 10 Sept 2022

For more information about how to sign up, please email Morag (Houston) at info@efc.org.nz or T. 021 150 7997.

For more EFC Club information, see: http://efc.org.nz/; or www.facebook.com/eastbournefootballclub.

For Junior enquiries, contact Jeremy Field or Morag Houston.








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