Another update

Well, it has been a very busy day at Shirley Primary School.

Michael from DD Architects came in and did a site and building inspection. Once again, our buildings have 'passed the test.'

Thanks to Mr McKenzie and Mr Sim who spent the day shovelling silt (I did a wee bit but luckily my phone kept ringing so I had to keep stopping and then thought I was better inside!). Big thanks to Helen McLean, Tony and Zoe Turner who turned up with some shovels and a wheelbarrow, too, and to the crew from the Addington Rugby League Club - most appreciated.

As I type 4 people from the HITMEN are currently removing silt from the junior block entrance ways, office and Room 3 doorway, steam cleaning and de-contaminating the area. Mary, our cleaner from TPS, has been working, too.

We have had the plumbers and drainlayers checking the septic tanker.

In the morning we have a sweeper booked from City Care to spruce up the concrete areas as much as possible.

All of the staff will be back in sorting out their classrooms. We will also debrief as a staff as I know many of their homes have been affected again, too.

We are hoping that we will be able to re-open the following day on Thursday, 16 June. Thank you for your patience once again.

I will confirm tomorrow after speaking with the architects and the BoT.

Hopefully, we all have a good night's sleep tonight.
Sylvia

Post 13 June 2011

THANK YOU  to our amazing staff who were so calm and super organised yesterday. The children showed amazing levels of resilience, too. What superstars. The last children were picked up by 4.30.

We got home to no power and as it was cold and dark we decided to spend the night in a motel in Woodend. Unfortunately, the fish and chip shop was out of stock so we had bananas and potato chip sandwiches for dinner, what an adventure!

Anyway, I am in at work now with some of the BOT and we are just in meetings with the engineer so will update you soon....Big thanks to Mr McKenzie and Mr Sim who are currently shovelling silt away out front!

take care
Sylvia

Stars 4 Kids

We are very excited by the new fundraising initiative by one of our talented Mums - well done Mandy.
Check out http://tvnz.co.nz/news for more information.

Thanks once again to all of the other communities who have supported us - post quake, too.
Onerahi Primary School in Whangarei, Pillans Point School (and Room 2) in Tauranga, Epuni Primary in Lower Hutt, Frankton Primary in Frankton, the New Brighton Lions, Richie McCaw, Erin Simpson and the original Karate Kid.

Our students are doing really well but many of them have had to move and in some cases a couple of families are now living under one roof. Our children are resilient but there are still a significant number of children not sleeping through the night, who are experiencing anxiety and who have increased worries. Some children have not been able to continue learning an instrument or playing sport because of financial worries. We are doing all that we can to support our students and families and really appreciate everyone's letters and cards and contributions.

Please check out the links to Stars 4 kids and Trade me on the front page of the website (special thanks to Mr Gunn for all of his clever technical work with the blogging and links:) )

Take care and keep warm
Sylvia/Ms Fidow
x

Happy Term 2

We ended Term 1 with a really fun, Friday!

We had yummy food thanks to the New Brighton Lions, water from Richie McCaw, special guests Mr Ralph Machio (aka the original Karate kid) and theeeee Erin Simpson from the Erin Simpson show, bouncy castles courtesy of Mitre 10 Ferrymead and Hornby, candy floss, freshfruit, games, discos, wearable arts....it was a lovely way to end a shaky term!

We are now looking ahead to Term 2 with a focus on sustainable futures!The big question on everyone's mind will be 'how can we assist or what can we do?' to support our future?

The Year 5/6 students will be participating in swimming and winter sport and we have a whole school trip planned.

We will also be starting up our new Superstar Discovery programme on a Friday for all of the children.

So, hopefully everyone is having an early night tonight :)and have their school bags and uniforms all ready for tomorrow
see you there (here!)
x

Moving on...learning...celebrating

 It was great to open up part of our field for the children to play on today...(shame we will have to put the yellow closed flags up tomorrow because of the rain).
The children enjoyed running round on the field and were very interested in the patches with grass seed on them.

This week teachers have been released to meet with parents and the children to discuss goals for the year (you may remember these were scheduled for the 22nd February and had to be cancelled).

On Friday we are having a special celebration to acknowledge the bravery and resilience of our children. From 11.00 the school day will proceed as follows:

 11.00 Whole School Assembly
 11.45 Activity Station 1
 12.15 LUNCH cooked and provided by the Lions
 12.55 SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCE
 1.00  Activity Station 2
 1.30  Activity Station 3
 2.00  Activity Station 4
 2.30  Return to class

Each activity station will enable the children to participate in fun, challenging and exciting activities!!

We hope to see you there, and don't forget the children can wear mufti so leave the school uniforms at home! No gold coin required.

School's back...

It was great to re-open on Tuesday! Staff and children were all very happy to see each other. Being open has allowed our children, their families and us to have some sort of normality again. We had a few less children than we normally do, though.

Thanks to the parents who have rung or emailed me to update us on what your plans are. The children miss some of their old friends so email them either on info@shirleyprimary.school.nz or each class has their own email address, too. room.1@shirleyprimary.school.nz  room.5@shirleyprimary.school.nz etc.

One of the learning activities the children participated in this week was identifying some of the things that are the 'same' at school and some of the things that are 'different' -

• Same - happy, smiling faces
• Different - large round septic tank on-site
• Same - active, learning children
• Different - large green water tank on-site (don't confuse the two!)
• Same - exciting learning programmes
• Different - heaps more spongy bark in the playground!

Earthquake Update #11

Unfortunately local residents have just received notification that they should not use their toilets and that port-a-loos will be provided for them.

We have had our drains cleared of silt and drainlayers do not anticipate a problem with sewerage on the school site but a backlog in the local area might create problems for us.

The Ministry of Education are going to provide us with a septic tank which will suck away the effluent waste (from our toilets) so that it does not go into the local shirley pipes until they are fixed. The septic tank arrives on Wednesday.

As we are due to open tomorrow (Tuesday) the MOE are going to provide us with a temporary solution - port-a-loos -  which may be used for our staff and some senior students only (i.e. seniors who feel confident about using one). Junior students will still use the toilets. Minimal flushing should be fine over this short period of time (24 hours).

I am very sorry that this new late development has occurred but I hope that you will rest assured that we have done all that we can to minimise any potential problems.

See (some of you) tomorrow
Sylvia