Rāhui - Term 1 and 2

 At the end of term one we had no idea what was ahead of us as we went into Rāhui (NZ wide isolation) and we began term two we had even more questions and unknowns. 2020 - what a year to start a teaching career. I have learnt so much about being flexible in my teaching and planning and how to be a consistent role model for my tamariki in uncertain times. 

My time at home was spend on zoom with my team planning and creating learning experiences for our tamariki who were able to access online learning and began planning for term two as much as we can. It was a special to be able to call all our whānau and to check in on how they were going. I valued the chats I was able to have with many mātua (parents) and to be able to hear how tamariki were going and spending their time at home. I recorded some videos of myself reading pukapuka and made these available for my my class while we were not able to be together. I got great feedback from whānau as tamariki enjoyed listening to these at home and getting to see my face!

Our team created a website of online learning for tamariki to access. Each week a different kaiako would be in charge of a different learning area. Tamariki would sent in their work via email to their classroom kaiako.

Over this time our team did our best to stay in touch with our ākonga by making some fun videos to update them on what was happening at school and let them know we were thinking of them! And sometimes they were just for us to have a wee bit of fun!

When we got into level 3, I was so excited to be back at school and be in with the tamariki whose parents who doing the hard mahi as essential workers. It was even more exciting to be back in my own classroom with my wonderful class in level 2.