Wednesday 9 February 2022 Newsletter

9 February 2022

Kia ora, Talofa, Malo e leleli, Kia orana, Fakalofa lahi Atu, Taloha Ni, Ni sa bula, 你好, Namaste, 안녕하세요, Hola, Xin chao. 

Welcome Back

Welcome back everyone who is returning to Silverdale School. A HUGE welcome to our new families. It was great to see so many happy faces coming into school on Tuesday. Please contact your child’s teacher if you have any concerns. All staff email addresses are on our website. www.silverdaleprimary.school.nz.  

Our Mission 

To actively prepare each child to take responsibility for their own life-long learning, values and behaviour, in partnership with the home and community.

Our Values

Our new Silverdale School values are:

Kindness/ Atawhai

Excellence/ Hiranga

Respect/ Whakaute

Integrity/ Ngākau pono

As a school we strive to support our whanau and community to establish strong values in our children. We look forward to working together with you to instil these wonderful values in our tamariki.

Welcome 

Welcome to our new staff:

Diane Pretty – Room 23

Alex Franklin – Room 7

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to Dru King, Elton Fan, Kyla Kettle-Williams, Noah Peters, Julia Chen, Cy Buchanan, Josiah Toka, Max Briant and Shawn Wang.

Car Parking

There is no parent parking on the school site, an option during drop off and pick up is to park away from the school and walk to school, a great way of building you and your child’s fitness and help reduce the carbon footprint at the same time.

The drop off zone that borders the sloping bank will be a ‘manned’ stop, drop and go area from 8.30am to 8.55am and again from 3.00pm to 3.15pm. In the morning our staff will greet your vehicle and, if necessary, escort your child/ren to their class. This means you will be able to stop, drop and go in a minimum of time. You do not need to get out of your car. In the afternoon your children will wait for you on the bank to be retrieved. The teacher on duty will pop your child in your vehicle and you can quickly depart. You do not need to get out of your car.

Our mobility car parks are in operation in both carparks, so please ensure that these are used only for the purpose they were designed. Unless you have a mobility card and the card holder is in the car then the spaces must be kept clear.

A couple of reminders:

1. Both car parks are for staff cars only, please do not park in any of the carparks.
2. No parking in the stop, drop and go area until after 2.45pm.
3. At stop, drop and go please do not get out of your car.

Dental Clinic Parking

A reminder to parents that you must not use the dental clinic car park to drop off or pick up children, thanks for your cooperation in this.

Hats 

Please make sure that your child has their school hat at school. The wearing of the school hat is compulsory during term 1. Children not wearing a school hat will have to sit in a shaded area during play and lunch times.

Getting to and from School

If your child/ren are walking/biking/scootering to or from school can you please go over with them how to do this safety. Below are some general tips.

How to stay safe when walking

• Use pedestrian crossings or cross at traffic signals.
• Stop and check at every driveway.
• Walk on the footpath, close to the houses and away from the road.
• Hold hands if walking with a young child near roads or in carparks.

Crossing the road, when there’s no pedestrian crossing

• be patient and cross the road only when it’s safe to do so (it takes time for a vehicle to stop)
• then use the kerb drill:

1. Stop one step back from the kerb.
2. Look and listen for traffic coming from all directions.
3. If there is traffic coming, wait until it has passed and then look and listen for traffic again.
4. If there is no traffic coming, walk quickly straight across the road.
5. While crossing, look and listen for traffic, wherever it may come from.

When using a pedestrian crossing

• Use official crossings where possible – in fact, if you’re within 20 metres of a pedestrian crossing, the law requires you to use it.
• Check that approaching vehicles have seen you and can stop before you step out.
• Cross as quickly as you are able.
• For crossings with signals, only cross when the green person or message shows.

School Donations

Our school donation is $200 per child. This money was used to pay for a large number of additional curriculum resources, subsidise a number of school wide activities such as swimming, production, art, dance and drama resources, sporting functions, developmental material and related photocopying and other essential resources.  No child was excluded from using these resources but it does seem that quite a number of families relied on the goodwill of others to support their child.

Each term the BOT puts all the names of those donations that have been made into a draw to give one child the chance to have their fees paid for the following term. The families that have received these in the past have been very grateful. We understand that a donation is voluntary and that it can be at times very difficult to manage. Mrs Reid in the office, is very happy to discuss possible arrangements for meeting this cost for your child.  Each small contribution adds up across the course of time and helps to enhance the substance of this school.   

A huge thank you to all those families who paid their donation last year.

Newsletters  

Newsletters will be sent home each Wednesday. We will be emailing newsletters to each family.  If you wish to have a paper copy please let your child’s teacher know. If your email address has changed from last year please send us your new email address so we can update our records. 

 2022 Term Dates

Pick Up and Drop off Students

Scheduled Appointments

If you have a scheduled appointment  for your child during school hours please follow these instructions:

1. Email the teacher (all teachers emails are on the School Website) before 8.30am with the time you will be collecting your child. 
2. You will pick your child up from the carpark by Gate 1.
3. Please stay in the car and the teacher will release your child at the specified time that you have requested.
4. Please call or text this number 0273369199 telling us that you have your child.

Early Pick Up

If you need to pick your child up from school before 3.00pm please follow these instructions:

1. Email the office what time you need to pick up your child. office@silverdaleprimary.school.nz
2. You will pick up your child from the carpark by Gate 1.
3. Please stay in your car and call or text this number 0273369199 telling us you are at school.
4. We will send your child to you, please stay in your car.
5. Please call or text this number 0273369199 telling us that you have your child.

Late Drop Off

If you are dropping your child to school late, please do not get out of your car just send your child to their classroom, they do not need to go to the office.

Protecting our tamariki/children from Omicron

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, public health advice has noted that our experience in New Zealand and overseas with COVID-19 shows that it does not affect children and teens in the same way it does adults.

While the role our tamariki play in transmitting COVID-19 is still unclear and is changing as new variants evolve and older populations become increasingly vaccinated, as of 28 January the Ministry of Health has advised “no new evidence has emerged yet on the transmission risk to or from children in light of Omicron … it is likely that children continue to pose a lower risk of transmission”.

As such, the Ministry of Health’s current advice is that transmission within school settings continues to be limited and is influenced by broader transmission in the community and household settings. That is, although children are susceptible to infection, transmission is more likely to occur between adults and from adults to children; the risk of child-to-child or child-to-adult transmission is considerably less.

Commonly, children have mild or no symptoms of COVID-19 with a short duration of illness that includes headache, fever, cough, nasal congestion and fatigue. Those more at risk are those living with pre-existing health conditions such as asthma, diabetes and obesity and socioeconomic barriers to accessing health care.

We can protect our tamariki through key interventions such as wearing masks, good ventilation, spatial distancing, ‘stay at home if sick’ policies and good hand hygiene. Encouraging good behaviours that will adhere to the COVID-19 Protection Framework outside of school hours, will also help to reduce risk for tamariki, their friends and whānau.

For more detailed information about the Omicron variant go to the Ministry of Health website.

Thank you to our Newsletter Sponsors

Community Notices