Kia ora koutou
As you will appreciate this has continued to be another very challenging year for both our students and their families as well as the wider Edgewater College whānau in terms of supporting meaningful teaching and learning and dealing with the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Senior Leadership Team and I have been weighing up our options for the remainder of the term regarding supporting students with on-site learning and trying to staff the school in a way that still supports staff and student wellbeing. This is continuing to be very challenging with the high levels of both Covid-19 and other winter illnesses in the community. We want to avoid wherever possible having to roster home students as we did this week as we know it is not ideal from a teaching and learning perspective or for you as parents/caregivers/students.
With this in mind, we have decided to move to a new timetable from next Monday 30 May. We will be teaching our usual five-day timetable across Monday to Thursday, and free up Fridays for NCEA Assessment / Supervised learning on-site / Learning from home.
Students will now have four 70 min sessions on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday instead of the usual three 90 min sessions. Wednesdays will remain as they are currently with three 90 min sessions.
STUDENTS IN YEARS 11 TO 13
Fridays will now become NCEA Assessment days for Year 11 to 13 students. Senior students can choose to either be onsite completing NCEA requirements, OR supervised study onsite, OR learning from home. All teachers and support staff will be onsite. We will also look to run some of our ‘catch up credits’ workshops on those days. Senior students learning onsite will be required to be in full school uniform and sign in at the front office.
STUDENTS IN YEARS 9 AND 10
Junior students will learn from home on Fridays – although supervision will be available at school for those that need to attend. If you have a year 9 or 10 student that you wish to be at school for supervised learning on Fridays, please email [email protected] Students will be able to take their device home on Thursday evening to support their learning on Fridays, provided it is returned to school the following Monday morning.
The new timetable structure will be as follows:
New timetables will be emailed out to all students and parents/caregivers over the weekend. Paper copies will also be issued on Monday 30 May.
Thank you for your support as we continue trying to innovate to best meet the needs of all students. We will review this new structure at the end of the term to see how it is working and then make decisions for Term 3.
If you have any further questions, you can email your child’s Mentor or Dean, or alternatively please email [email protected]
Kind regards
Louise