It is fantastic to be back for the new school year, and be surrounded by all our enthusiastic learners.

A special welcome to all our new students and their families. I have enjoyed watching them settle in this week and make new friends so quickly. I look forward to getting to know all our new students and their families better as the year progresses.

It has been quite an unusual start to the school year as we have had to manage a few additional restrictions under alert level RED. I have been so impressed by the resilience and practical attitude of our staff and students. Even though we don't like wearing masks, everyone has just got on with it, and found ways to make it manageable. The consideration for others, and the willingness to help to ensure we keep everyone as healthy as possible at school has been phenomenal. I am proud to be part of such a caring and considerate school community.

Our primary goal for the year is to ensure all our students are provided with a rich learning programme that is targeted to their specific needs. Under the current climate, we are not sure what this will look like, but we are hoping to provide as much uninterrupted learning as possible. To enable this to happen, we need to ensure we keep our staff and students healthy, so they can be at school as often as possible.

In line with Ministry of Education guidelines, we have the following procedures in place to ensure the health of staff and students.

Masks- all staff and students Year 4 and up are wearing masks at school while inside. Any visitors who come onto the school site are also expected to wear a mask.

Reducing opportunities for large gatherings

We are trialling separate morning tea and lunch times for our junior and senior students. This means we have less children in the playground at any one time, so the children are able to be more spread out.

We are also avoiding situations where 2 classes combine, and large gatherings like assembly.

Limiting non-essential personnel at school

We are working to ensure that our students have limited contact with people outside their class bubble. Only people essential to our learning programmes will have access to our classrooms.

Thank you to all our wonderful parents who have been staying out of the classrooms. We are looking forward to having our families more involved in our learning once we drop back down to orange.

Ensuring good quality air in our classrooms

With this warmer weather we have been able to have all the doors and windows open to help keep the fresh air circulating. The MOE has provided us with a CO2 monitor so we can track the quality of the air in the classrooms. We also have a very generous school family who have offered to loan us some air purifiers.

At this stage, we have no COVID cases in South Otago and some may be questioning the need to stick to these protocols. The added advantage of all our additional safety precautions is that we are able to decrease the chances of our staff and students catching any Summer coughs and colds. Unwell staff are not able to come to school under the current restrictions, and staff absences will have an impact on our learning programmes, If we can keep our staff healthy, our students learning will benefit!

Ngā mihi nui,

Vicki Neave

Parent interviews will be held next Wednesday (face to face) and Thursday (zoom) after school. If you are coming in for a face-to-face meeting on Wednesday, please wear a mask and ensure you scan in at the office. You do not need to show a vaccine pass to meet with the class teacher.

To book a "face to face" interview on Wednesday 9 February (3.20pm to 7pm) - click the link below (if you need to enter an event code it is tehkw) or go to

https://www.schoolinterviews.co.nz/code/tehkw

To book a "zoom" interview on Thursday 10 February (after school), please email your child's classroom teacher.

If you have any questions or would like some support with making a booking, please contact the school office (03) 4190103.

Welcome to...Scarlett and Corey Newport, Watson and Dannielle Kelly, Lucas Hill, Isabella Cooper-Blackie, Sophie, Olivia and Lucy Jack, Neave and Beauden Bisset, Ella-Zay and Kodie Burrows-Morrell, Elliot Black, Kade Faddes, Ethan Rooney and Frank Warden.

Welcome back to 2022, although covid will interrupt a number of sports we are still looking forward to the sporting events that can happen.

This year Tania Arthur will be in charge of BPS sports. If you have any questions you can contact Tania by email at sports@balclutha.school.nz

Term 1

- Touch starts on Thursday 24th February - notices for touch were sent home and emailed to those who are on the sports data base on Wednesday.

- Super Smash cricket years 2-6 notices have been sent out.

- Athletics - BPS will be running their own school athletics on Monday 21st of February. More information about how this will be run will come out at a later date.

Swim safe course

For anyone interested in attending a Swim Safe session please register your interest here - https://forms.office.com/r/8G9YSbYQwt Last day for registering is Friday 11 February.

Karen, from Swim NZ, who is running the sessions, will be travelling down here and this will assist greatly with our planning.

Date and time will be advised when we know numbers after the 11th.

If you would like to be added to the sports database please email sports@balclutha.school.nz

We are looking to go paperless with our notices meaning notices will be emailed out and put on seesaw. Notices will then be able to be returned by email or via a written note or you can request a paper copy.

Karen Robins

Sports Co ordinator

Whānau and School Update

Welcome back!! We hope you all had a great summer holiday so nice to see the children excited to be back at school.

We are kicking off our first fundraiser for the year this week and we are selling Foodwrap and Kitchen Consumables, great products and something everyone always needs. Please have all orders back to school by Monday 28th February.

Please note: it would be great if all orders just come in one payment via our Whānau and School bank account and under your name as on the order form. Any questions please just let me know via email balcluthapta@gmail.com or Sara on 02102372282.

Please see the form attached and there will also be a print out given to all families.

Enjoy the long weekend.

Take care

Sara Sutherland and Carleigh Frisby

Whanau and School Co-Presidents

We worked on our cutting skills and made a spider.

Room 2 have had a busy first week settling in and getting used to their new classroom. We celebrated the sunny week by making our own suns and writing our names on the rays.

Room 11 students and teacher have spent the first week of school adjusting to working with a mask on, finding every opportunity to shift our learning to the great outdoors. Here we are with our novels, chosen from our school library. Our maths is on the board behind us focusing on collecting data and presenting it in a graph.

if you would prefer to order and pay online - go to

https://www.scholastic.co.nz/toolkit/

click on the "Are you a Parent" link and register (if you haven't already) and then place your order before Wednesday 16 February.

Whether you order online or by returning to school - your order will be delivered to school and sent home with your child(ren), usually about a week after orders close at school.

• School Saveloys, sport fees and all camp fundraising and donations - 02 0900 0000 452 00
• Whānau and School, fundraising, school uniforms (2nd hand and new) -
• 03 1734 0006449 00