REMOTE LEARNING - TERM 2

Kia ora koutou,

I hope everyone is well and that you have settled into a reasonably effective rhythm of family life during this lockdown period.

Many of our teachers will have been in contact with your children at some stage over the Term 1 holidays. When Term 2 begins on Wednesday, 15 April, all teachers will make electronic contact home regarding learning activities – usually on the normal day of your son or daughter’s timetabled lessons.

All Whanganui High School teachers use Google Classroom and all of our students are familiar with using Google Classroom at school and many are familiar with using it at home. Google Classroom and emails will be our two main communication platforms with students and parents during our time of remote learning. Teachers will indicate to students when they will be available for student support and guidance regarding set learning activities; students will also be able to ask questions and seek answers from their teachers using the Chat feature in Google Classroom and by emails.

The Head of Digital Technologies and our Network Administration Manager are working with me remotely at present to ensure that we make our technological learning opportunities as equitable as possible for all of our students: we are identifying as accurately as we can any students without access to digital devices at home; identifying as accurately as possible students who live in homes without internet access; identifying students without any known email contact at home. There are, of course, a range of variable factors involved – shared custody arrangements; students living at homes other than their normal home residence during the lockdown period and so on.

At the heart of everything, we want to ensure that our connections with you and your children are kept alive and that your children are able to continue engaging in meaningful and worthwhile learning activities with our teachers.

The best way to contact any staff member is by email. The school email address for each staff member is as follows: surname.initial@whs.ac.nz – please check the staff list on the Whanganui High School website to see the names of all current staff members. Our pastoral support networks will be running as close to normal as possible – our two full-time guidance counsellors have been in contact with many students over the holiday period and will continue to be available to all students electronically when Term 2 begins. Our SENCO will continue to be in contact with the families of students with high learning needs.

House Form teachers will make email contact from time-to-time over the lockdown period and please feel welcome to contact the relevant House Deans and Senior Leadership Team members if you have any learning or pastoral concerns.

I fully realise that everyone’s home circumstances will be different and individual to the context in which you currently find yourself. Please contact me at principal@whs.ac.nz if I can be of any help to you and your family.

Thank you very much for your support and hopefully we will return back to near normality soon.

Take care – all the best.

Martin McAllen
Principal
Whanganui High School

13/4/20