Your AJHS eNewsletter has arrived – Week 1

Kia ora koutou parents, caregivers, whānau and students,

We hope you and your family have had a positive start to our new term. With the change of COVID-19 setting to Orange, in many ways it feels like the start of the year again. It is wonderful to see more smiling faces interact more spontaneously, and start to enjoy school activities to their fullest capacity. Thank you to everyone for making this transition so easily. 

As we have continued signs of recovery through the omicron outbreak, we are very encouraged to see our students making informed decisions around mask wearing. It has been a prolonged complex time responding to COVID-19, but we are very happy to see that mutual respect is consistently present in our school community. Our student attendance is much higher than at the end of last term (although teacher attendance has declined this term due to Covid), so it’s very important we continue to take gradual steps focusing on being calm, kind and understanding. 

Our new school tuck shop provider Nutri Kids has had a very enthusiastic response from our students this week. If you would like to order lunch for your child, please log into your Kindo account and order lunches through the portal. Alternatively students can just purchase directly at our tuck shop counter located by our Performing Arts Centre. 

This week we were delighted to learn that former students Liam Stone and Luke Sipkes were selected in the New Zealand Diving team to participate in the World Championships in Budapest this June. They are also joined by former student Cordelia Norris who is one of the accompanying coaches. We are very proud of these alumni who will be representing our country. 

Next Friday 13 May, we have our first scheduled Ministry of Education Teacher Only Day. 

Thank you for your ongoing support. Have a restful weekend and take care whanau.

Cushla Shepherd

Principal, Albany Junior High School