Events at the school in the first days of this week have been dominated by the earthquake on Tuesday. These continuing shocks are a good reminder, should we ever need it, of some fundamental beliefs of our school. These are:
1 We are all here for the children and their wellbeing is important. Keeping the school routines going and having 'normal' life continuing is part of our approach to managing the stresses and strains caused by these earthquakes.
2 Yes it is fine to ring the office and check if your child or family are safe. It may become hard to get through sometimes, however we will try to get to every caller. We will also try to update our set messages when we can. It does help us if you understand we can be flooding with calls sometimes. It also helps if you can hold off your call into the school.
3 Yes, you can come down to the school to make contact with your kids! [Please come past the office first just so we know who is where in the school].
4 Yes, you can come into the classrooms to see them [as above, just so we know who is in the school].
5 Yes, of course you can take your children out of school.
6 Yes, we check our buildings regularly to make sure they are safe.
7 Yes, the children appear very happy to be among their friends here at the school.
8 Yes, if anything happens we will do everything in our power to ensure the children are safe and we will not send them home if there is a possibility of further risk.
and finally yes, difficult but true,
8 The children watch us to see how we are managing and often copy our reactions. If we show fear and panic, they will be less likely to manage any situation with ease. If we appear calm and controlled they are more likely to be comfortable and able to handle the events. So yes, one of our roles here at the school is to remain as calm as we possibly can be and to ensure this is visible to the children.

Being an adult at times like this can be difficult. We have to put on a brave front for the children. We need to be aware that talking about our fears and concerns in front of children can be counterproductive. Often it may be necessary to do this out of their hearing. We also need to understand that fear and panic are two emotions that are easily transferred to others.

When we finally get over this testing period no doubt we can look back and say 'remember when..' or 'I was there when..' We have to be certain we are building our kids for tomorrow. It might help if we focus on that.

Welcome back to the new term.

In my visits to the classrooms this morning I was pleased to see the children so clearly happy to be back in the familiar surroundings of their classroom.
An extra surprise today has been the Ranfurly Shiled making a special visit to Room 3. It's great to see things are returning to their rightful place!
Our children have a busy term with the music festival next week and our choir children perform on Thursday.

Other events coming up include: tennis coaching, athletics, digital kids, our PTA disco, market day, orientation for Intermediate and our cycle safety. The dates and more specific details about these events will be included in our newsletters nearer the time of each event. Enjoy the term and roll on the summer!