Kia Ora and welcome back to Term 2,

I trust the last 3 weeks in your ‘bubbles’ have not been too bad and that you are ready to rip into ‘virtual schooling’ again! I am excited to see what new and amazing teaching and learning experiences we will see this Term. I know our teachers have been working extremely hard in preparation for Term 2. The big question on everyone’s minds is of course ‘how long this will last?’ To be fair none of us know the answer to that and so we just take a day at a time and ensure our students get the best possible education we can give them. ‘School from home’ is not easy and the well-known phrase of it taking a ‘village to raise a child’ has never been more appropriate or true as it is right now! I want to say a huge thanks in advance to all our parents, students and teachers for the support that you have given and will continue to give our learners this Term. We are very fortunate indeed.

You may or may not be aware that as a result of the extreme financial pressures that OSG is under, Teacher Aides and Learning Centre Administrators across NZ will not be starting this Term with us. These staff are being retained for the next 12 weeks under the Government’s wage subsidy scheme. Many of these staff have volunteered to ‘come to work’ and so we may see some of them from time to time. My thoughts are with Miss Alcock, Mrs Woods and Mrs Snow. A massive thanks for all they do for us and I certainly hope that ‘normal service’ can resume asap.  We will do everything we can to ensure all of our students have their needs met as best as we possibly can.

The daily programme for Term 2 will not look any different from how we ended last Term.

• Years 9-13 start each day at 8:40am by logging into the daily student briefing/roll check. Timaru pin 838 714 150, Dunedin pin 695 047 455 and Invercargill pin 434 744 938. It is really important that we see each student at this time. We are still required to take an attendance roll and it also gives us a chance to give students messages and touch base at the start of each day.
• The South Virtual Learning Centre will be open again from 9am-3pm on pin 633 940 224 and will be staffed by Mr Hunter and myself. Please note it will be closed during interval and lunchtimes.
• Years 3-8 will continue with their ‘3 teaching sessions’ per day i.e.: 9am, 11am and 1:20pm. Teachers will be in touch directly with more details for these classes.

Our first day back will see a full school assembly for all year levels at 9am. This will be a great way to kick start Term 2. Please note that we still require Year 9-13 to log into roll check/daily briefing at 8:40am. Juniors will log into their classes after assembly.

A key message that we keep hearing at the moment is the importance of communication. In fact the term ‘over communicate’ is being used a lot. I think this is very important. Please keep the communication channels open with school and with myself. Feel free to contact me at anytime and don’t ever be shy about communicating with teachers. We are all here to ensure that our students reach their goals and strive for personal excellence in everything that they do.

Thanks again everyone and I look forward to a really positive start to Term 2 tomorrow.

Mr Morrison

Campus Principal