@Mahora School
Response to Covid-19
To our Mahora Community
Welcome to our distance learning page for our school during the current situation. The purpose of this page is to assist you so you know what the plan is, who to contact if you have a query, some links to useful sites and also some community support options.
Term 2 starts on Wednesday 15th April. We really want to stress that this process needs to work for your family. We know it's a very different time currently with all sorts of different pressures. We have developed our programme in the hope it is suitable for you all at home...and that includes you parents. Do what you can, when you can!
We do not expect that all children will be involved in distance learning every day from 9am-3pm. It needs to be balanced between some activities on offer from your teachers, what you are doing at home and some of the links below. Our staff will be available each day and will respond to feedback and postings when they can.
Please contact us if you need help, if it's not working, have ideas or just want to connect and ask a query. Please see the for help section to start with the right person.
All of our students are enrolled in Seesaw as a home to school communication tool, and most of our students and whānau have some experience in using it. Alongside this, our Year 5 & 6 students will continue to use Google tools to support their learning on their devices.
For the Seesaw platform to work, there is a parent log in, and also a home learning code. When students are sharing their learning, we ask that they use the home learning/ student code, and then parents can continue to comment on their child’s work using their parent log in.
This is a new way of learning, so things will continue to evolve. We will continue to keep you up to date with any changes. Communication from school will continue to be via our School Facebook page, School App and from teachers’ via Class Seesaw pages.
A great way to connect with whānau and get your brain ready for learning, is some kind of physical exercise in the morning, or during some part of the day. Remember to have those brain breaks too. Keep a look out for some physical exercise suggestions or whānau challenges that will be shared soon via the class Seesaw pages.
Learning opportunities will also be provided on the new television channels that the Ministry of Education is getting ready to roll out. This may be an ‘extra’ that your child enjoys engaging in. Youtube, also provides a lot of stories and other educational videos. Whānau, you will need to supervise your children when using Youtube, to ensure the content is appropriate.
“Piki Haere from the Mahora School Team”
Quick links
How will it work?
Team’s 1 and 2 - New Entrant, Year 1 and 2
Rooms 1, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Each week a grid will be shared with whānau on Monday via Seesaw. The grid will contain a range of learning activities around a chosen topic that students can do each day in any order. Some tasks will take a short time and can be done independently, and others will take longer and may need whānau help. Children and families can choose the number of activities that they complete.
When students have finished a task, they can post it to their Seesaw journal, (e.g. with a photograph and a voice over explanation) using their home learning code. Your children will need your support to do this.
Staff connections
Team 1 & 2 staff are contactable via the Seesaw Class app or email throughout the school day. Staff will provide feedback, answer questions and try to support some tasks with video modelling via Seesaw. To be able to provide feedback we would love to get daily updates from our students via Seesaw if this works for your family.
Team 3 - Year 3 and 4
Room’s 9 (Kotahitanga), 19, 20 (Kōhanga)
We are going to provide activities on Seesaw which your child is capable of using independently. There will be a range of activities covering all areas of the curriculum. They will also encourage perseverance, problem-solving and creativity. Students can choose the activities they do, when they do them and they can do as many as they like. These activities can be done independently but you are more than welcome to help out. Each activity will have both written and oral instructions.
When they have finished the activity they can choose to take a photo or video, and add a written or voice caption, then post into their Seesaw Journal, if this works for you. They all know how to upload to their Journal, but we are here to help if there are queries. We will begin with 7 activities starting Wednesday 15th and continue to add more each week.
Staff connections
Team 3 staff are contactable via the Seesaw Class app or email throughout the school day. Staff will be adding comments and feedback to student posts and you are more than welcome to add comments to your child’s posts as well. Any feedback, questions or suggestions are very welcome.
Team 4 - Year 5 and 6
Room’s 4, 5 16
Each class in Team 4 will provide learning activities via Seesaw which the children will complete and upload onto Seesaw. We will also use the Hapara Dashboard (Google tools) which all children have access to and are familiar with. This will be used to add extra resources they may need to complete the activities, for example, how to add videos and links to websites.
To start with, we want to ensure that we connect on a regular basis, with as many as we can via the Google-Meet video conferencing tool. Links to these connection times will be sent out to the children via Seesaw. There are protocols around online video conferencing that we need to go over with the students, therefore, we will be restricting the amount of activities we are asking the children to complete and upload as we learn new tools. The activities will be created so that there will need to be as little whānau input as possible.
All of the adults your child works with at school will also be interacting with students through Seesaw. We invite you to view and comment on your child’s journal as often as you would like also, as the students love this interaction!
Staff connections
Team 4 teachers are contactable via the Seesaw Class app and email throughout the school day. There may be some video conferencing which will be held at various times during the day/ week, but there will be prior notice about this and you will be asked to connect if it works for your family.
Assistance and Support
Whole School
If you have queries about your child’s learning or tasks
Please contact your child's teacher via Seesaw, or email (firstname and first letter of surname@mahora.school.nz e.g. Joe Smith would be joes@mahora.school.nz) in the first instance.
If you feel like your child needs extra learning support, then please contact Dee, our LSC (Learning Support Coordinator) along with your child’s teacher. Her email is deew@mahora.school.nz
If you need technical help
Please contact Darren Robinson darrenr@mahora.school.nz or Racheal London racheall@mahora.school.nz
If you have enrolment to school queries
Please contact Kirsten Weir via kirstenw@mahora.school.nz
If you need anything else
Or some help to support the Hauora and Wellbeing of your family during these unprecedented times, then please email us on 2020@mahora.school.nz or call the School on 06-878 2622. Tessa and Rohan are monitoring this email address and will respond and provide support, access support or we will contact you and discuss...we are here to help.
Other Community Support
Agencies
Hawke’s Bay Welfare helpline 0800 422 923
Healthline 0800 358 5453
Government helpline 0800 779 997 (Ministry of Social Development)
Need to talk? Call or text 1737
Essential business enquiries essential@mbie.govt.nz or 0800 22 66 57
Concerns about high prices at supermarket can be reported to pricewatch@mbie.govt.nz
Local Support
Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga are still maintaining many Essential Services, and may be able to access kai packages - please call 0800 TAIWHENUA for more details.
Nourished for Nil (Karamu Road) are open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 4pm -5pm, and Thursday for 65 years plus between 10am and 11am. They currently have free apples outside.
We are directing people to WINZ for food or hardship grants
Kai packs through Civil Defence Welfare – 0800 422 923
Salvation Army Foodbank – 06 8765771
Hastings Foodbank - Phone 06 878 0530 between 9am – 11am Monday to Friday to register for a food parcel. Food parcels can be collected from BudgetFirst 111, Warren Street North Hastings between 11am – 12noon.
BudgetFirst is currently open for telephone appointments and we can assist families with budgeting, debt management and hardship applications. Phone 06 878 0530 or visit our website www.budgetfirst.co.nz to book an appointment.
Academic Learning Links
Ministry of Education Learning from home page - https://learningfromhome.govt.nz/
This will be continually updated, so please check for updates.
Ed TV - Click here for information on the TV channel.
If you are not already joined as a parent, please email your child’s teacher so they can join you to the class. All children have accounts.
A website where your child from Year 0-2 has their own login and they can listen and read to books at their level.
Instantly access 35,000 of the best books, learning videos, quizzes & more. Parents please create your own login to access this.
Mathematics, English, Science and more! A comprehensive program of online educational activities for students aged 4 to 12, mapped to the curriculum. Parents please create your own login to access this.
Motivate your child to work on maths, spelling and reading with our platform which is proven to accelerate growth, offering personalised practice for ages 5 to 14. Parents please create your own login to access this.
Science you can do at home. Parents please create your own login to access this.
Thousands of ‘brainercise’, dancing, strength and mindfulness videos
