Kia ora Parents and Caregivers,

It’s been a very energetic week with our students back in class, and enthusiastically embracing school activities. Our students have quickly settled back into school routines, and are looking forward with optimism to upcoming events.

As a school, we understand the unpredictability of our current climate, and endeavour to constantly refine our online teaching methods. Feedback from students is vital, so this week I sent a survey to all 2,200 of our students to better understand their learning experience during last week’s lockdown.

While data is still being gathered (do encourage your daughter to complete the survey if she hasn’t already), preliminary feedback shows that most students enjoyed good contact with their teachers, received the right amount of feedback, but also found the workload slightly overwhelming. Once we have a clearer picture, we will use the data to inform decisions moving forward.

Once again, I thank you for your support over lockdown. We really appreciate our Westlake whānau and understand it isn’t easy with the entire family sharing study and work spaces!

With the move to Level 1 announced today, we look forward to hosting our Year 11 NCEA Parent Information Evening on Tuesday, our Year 9 Parent Information Evening on Wednesday, and our Whānau Evening on Thursday. With Class and ID photos also onsite, it’s going to be a busy week. We were disappointed with the need to postpone our Diversity Picnic and Pasifika Fono this week, however the picnic is now rescheduled, and we will shortly have a new date for our Fono. I know other trips and events were also affected and we will work hard to ensure as many as possible can still proceed.

I hope you have a lovely week end, void of Alert Level restrictions.

Jane Stanley

Principal