I would like to share with you, a prayer that is displayed in various places within the school.  

Be it known to all who 

Enter here that 

JESUS

Is the reason for this school.

He is the unseen

Yet ever present

Teacher in its classes

He is the model of its 

Community

And the inspiration of its 

Children and teachers

As a staff we revisited this prayer earlier this week and reflected on, 'how do we make this our Truth'? 

For all of us, I invite us to think about and discuss, how are our actions inspired by our faith and the presence of Jesus in our lives?

Let's make time to pause and reflect. 

Each day I try to spend five minutes sitting quietly at my desk before I go home, to process the day that has been and think about the things to celebrate or the special moments; this practice helps me to clear my mind and have a positive end to the day.

I would like to share with you some of the special moments that I have reflected upon in the past week:

• Two of our senior students found a wallet on the ground on their way to school. They brought the wallet to the office and said, "We didn't know what to do with it so we brought it to school".  We located a bank card - and I contacted the bank who phoned the owner and within an hour she was here at school to collect her wallet and thank the girls.

What a wonderful example of "Living The Holy Cross WAY" - certainly something to celebrate!

• Our wonderful flags!  As mentioned in a previous newsletter, each morning (weather permitting) one of our wonderful parents puts up two flags of significance.  Often these flags reflect a culture within our school community or a day of significance. Over the past two weeks I have seen the absolute pride shown when children and whānau have seen a flag flying that represents their cultural heritage.  Today we had a family new to the school come in for a visit and coincidentally the German flag was flying -this is the country in which one of the parents was born! Our desire is that Holy Cross School is a place where everyone feels welcome and experiences a sense of belonging.  We LOVE seeing different flags each day.
• On 18th August it was my Mother's first anniversary.  As a family we marked the day visiting some of her special places, and remembering her with love. So many of the staff and students showed kindness and I know offered special prayers for her also.
• Each night I offer prayers of thanks for a mother who was provided such a wonderful example of a life of filled with love, faith and family.  Each day I pray for members of our community who have lost loved ones also or who may be experiencing difficult times. 
• We well know that some of us are morning people and some are not!  Yesterday morning one of our junior students walked through the gate dragging his feet and his bag somewhat... I greeted him with a "Good morning, how are you today?" His reply, "Ah... well mornings are mornings for me..."  - Love the honesty!
• As you know each morning and afternoon we have staff at the gates to welcome and farewell students.  An absolute joy for me is also having an opportunity to greet some of our four legged familiy members!  

Following the recent announcement from the Prime Minister we will remain at Alert Level 2.
 
Just a reminder that while everyone is onsite at Alert Level 2, we must adhere to key health measures including:

• Good hand hygiene and cough and sneeze etiquette
• Staying away if sick
• Keeping the appropriate physical distance from others
• Cleaning and disinfecting our high touch surfaces daily
• Displaying QR code posters at our entrances and encouraging all of our community to download the NZ COVID Tracer App and use it if they come onsite
• Keeping a visitor register for anyone who cannot use the app and for other visitors who come onsite for a period of time.

We know all these things will help to keep our community as safe as possible. Because of these measures, your child does not need to wear a face covering while at school (see further message below). 
 
For those of you who might be finding things more difficult than usual, a reminder that there is a large range of support available for businesses and the community. We encourage you to go to the covid19.govt.nz for more information, or get in touch and we will help you to find the information and support you need.
 

Update of recent changes

Further update on some changes taking place next week and what they mean for your children and whānau.

You are probably aware the Prime Minister has announced that face coverings will be required on public transport from next Monday, at Alert Level 2 and above. This does not apply to any child who is under 12 years of age and does not apply to school transport (we have good systems in place to manage safety on school transport).

Public Health officials have advised that children under the age of 6 should not wear face coverings.

Children and young people do not need to wear face coverings at school. Other public health control measures are in place including children and staff staying home if they are sick, contact tracing, and hygiene requirements.

 If your child doesn’t need to wear a face covering but they want to, that’s fine.

Face coverings are another way we can help keep ourselves and others safe, along with good hand hygiene, cough and sneeze etiquette, appropriate physical distancing when out and about and staying home if we are sick.

We’re continuing contact tracing by having QR code posters at our office entrance, so please check in every time you come onsite.

If you haven’t already downloaded the NZ COVID Tracer app the Ministry of Health’s website has information to help you do that. We’ll also keep a visitor register for anyone who doesn’t have the app and also for anyone who comes onsite for a period of time. This will help us with contact tracing in the unlikely case it is needed.

If you have any questions about face coverings or anything else, please get in touch.

Keeping Our Children Safe 

Our school takes very seriously cyber safety and our responsibilities to protect our children while using technology.  We have very strong filtering systems to ensure that inappropriate content is not available to our students and all classes have age-appropriate lessons around online safety and what to do should they have any concerns about anything to do with technology.  Parents may find it useful to visit Netsafe’s pages (https://www.netsafe.org.nz/advice/parenting/) for further information about online safety for children and teens in the home setting.

Last year staff from Netsafe to run a help and information evening for parents and we are currently awaiting date confirmation to offer this opportunity again. 

Keeping Ourselves Safe Programme

As you may know we regularly run the Keeping Ourselves Safe (KOS) programme in our school in association with the Police.  This age-appropriate programme is run in schools throughout the country and consists of a comprehensive range of child protection resources to help students learn and apply a range of safety skills that they can use when interacting with others.  KOS was implemented in 2019 for our junior students and it is currently being revisited. Two weeks ago we held a meeting to outline the programme and answer any questions parents might have. If you were unable to attend but would like to know more, there are resources available for parents on the KOS portal https://www.police.govt.nz/advice/personal-and-community-advice/school-portal/resources/successful-relationships/keeping-1.

Behaviour management is another key aspect of keeping our children safe.  We have processes in place to manage and respond to student behaviour and we seek to address all matters well, whether low level or more serious.  If needed, we seek advice from experts to ensure that we are doing our very best for our students.  We have clear expectations around anti-bullying and take a very firm stance around this to ensure children feel emotionally safe in the school environment.

Our physical environment is closely monitored to identify hazards so these can then be addressed quickly and properly.   

While there are many other ways we keep our children healthy, safe and well at Holy Cross School, we find the key to maintaining a great environment for our children is through clear expectations, appropriate action and great communication links between parents and the school. 

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, concerns or feedback at any time about this or any other aspect of our school.

We welcome Antonio to Holy Cross School who started this week in room 11.

We hope you have had a great week at school.