29 October 2021

As my nephew heads back to secondary school in Auckland this week, I'm wondering how it's all going for the students and, more so, the staff. While it has been a raft of messaging and information and ever evolving 'stuff' for other schools to navigate, we just don't know lockdown and education in NZ like Auckland does and hopefully we won't.

Last week, I spoke of what ifs......, this week, I still have a number more puzzles to solve and hopefully we will be able to clarify as many end of year arrangements as we can, all things being equal.

Not being out of school for very long this year, we have been able to complete all of our assessments, our overall teacher judgments, have full coverage in our reporting... and on it goes. You will be able to have a complete Progress Report in the next few weeks as to how your child/ren has tracked since the Interim Reporting in Term 2. I hold fast to the 'no surprises' mantra. You should not be hearing anything for the first time in a report that you didn't know or that hasn't been raised already. As you will receive the report in electronic copy before the meeting with the Base Group teacher, you will hopefully be able to have a fruitful conversation about the standouts, the questions, the strengths, the areas of most need... rather than a read through a document you haven't seen before.

Progress Meetings are scheduled over Weeks 6 to 8 (22 November to 6 December) and these will be available for booking online soon. Look out for this in the Newsletter and Dates to Diary.

This term's focus for Principal's Awards is "I am connected". I recognise it is harder to be connected through a mask or with less social engagements at school. That means, we probably need to exert more effort into keeping the home school relationship thriving. We all can, even if it's 10%.

And, this week, something for our Auckland friends...

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”—Christopher Robin to Pooh, A.A. Milne