School Closure - Update 2

Dear Team,

We hope you and your family are all well and managing to catch up on some rest in between cleaning up your homes! Please remember to make contact with Rob or Cherie if you require assistance of any sort and we can put you in touch with those who can help.

In conjunction with the Ministry of Education, Fulton Hogan, the Selwyn District Council and School Support (who manage our property development), we are conducting safety assessments of the school this afternoon. These assessments include the following:

• Structural integrity of buildings, structures such as playgrounds, fencing, walls, etc.
• Water supply and quality
• Electrical circuitry
• Communications - phone system, etc.
• Glass, windows, other fixtures such as shelving and items hanging, etc.

Once this is done we will be in a position for deciding the process for clean up of the school and re-opening. Until that time, no one is to enter the school or buildings or grounds under any circumstance.

Rob Clarke, Principal

Angela Colenso, Board of Trustees Chairperson

Burnham School is closed for Mon 6 & Tues 7 September

We are evaluating safety of buildings and services (e.g. water, electricity) and will decide whether the school can open for Wednesday. We will text and email families, as well as put updates on this web site. The school phone system is not working. Please update your contact details, particularly email, here...

If you require assistance, text Rob on 021 590 572 or Cherie on 021 245 5099. Further information here...

Updated: 6pm Sunday 5th

Being safe, responsible and ethical

During our recent Web Safety Seminar Dean Stewart from Web Safety NZ Ltd talked about three major areas of concern with the internet:

1. Content - the sorts of information our young people can access has changed dramatically and it is much more readily available. Due to technology changing so rapidly, the variety and types of content available has increased dramatically. At school we use lots of different types of content to engage children in their learning, from blogs, to photos and video. This is just a start in this exciting area at Burnham School.
2. Contact - this idea relates to who children have contact with, or who is able to make contact with our children. At school we don't allow children to make contact with anyone on the internet (ie. other schools, parents, organisations) without direct teacher supervision. We teach children to be very careful about what personal information they share. We suggest you encourage children to only ever allow themselves to be 'friends' with people they already know in person. Dean suggests that if your child has a Facebook account, then YOU should also have a Facebook account as their parent AND be connected to them as a friend. Children are only allowed to have a Facebook account when they are 13 years of age.
3. Conduct - the range of activities that we can take part in online has grown significantly. People can chat, email, IM, brainstorm, video, audio conference, just to name a few! Mobile devices will change the way that people interact with the internet and the number of ways to interact is increasing all the time. At school we encourage children to be ethical and responsible in their communication. This means that children need to be taught that how they interact when online is equally important to how they interact when they are face to face with other people. 

Further to the point about conduct, it is important we model that being ethical means never using digital means to deal with problems - ie. we model speaking to the person concerned first. We believe this is really important and that all problems are best solved by talking to the right person, in the right forum. Our procedures for dealing with issues reinforce this concept.

For further reading about what we do at school check our Web Safety Tips page above.

Cultural Festival Dress Rehearsal Movie

Cultural Festival here we come

Today our kapa haka had a full dress rehearsal in their preparations for the Christchurch Schools Cultural Festival performance on Friday 3 September - only one week away! The tamariki did a great job. Below are some shots taken of earlier practises leading up to today's shots taken during the rehearsal. Thanks Nicola for helping with this:

We are incredibly appreciative of Matua Joe Murray who is supporting us towards this important event for our kura. I would also like to thank Whaiea Karina for supporting our wahine to learn their poi routine and Tama Andrew for the amazing lyrics and programme he has put together.

Success! Lowering the Speed Zone on Godley Road

AWESOME!!!!

We've just been informed that the Selwyn District Council (SDC) have moved to lower the speed zone around all schools in our district to 50km/hour! This is a major achievement in improving the safety of our school community.

Ironic - the site I got this image
from reports a lowering of speed zones
dating back to 2001... hmmm.

This has been a long, drawn-out issue which has not had success for a number of years for our school. I'm delighted to announce that we've finally done it. A huge thank you to Amy Adams, MP for Selwyn District, for her tireless support and in championing this safety issue for our schools and community. Thank you also to everyone in our community who signed the 4,100 strong petition (across the district) and Commander Phil McKee who also supports our cause.

Click the title of this post or here to download the report from SDC explaining the decision.

Further reading and more here...

Photo from our unsuccessful meeting at SDC earlier this year.

Web Safety Seminar

Next Thursday we are holding our first ever Web Safety seminar just for parents and caregivers. This evening seminar starts at 7pm in the hall and will go until approximately 8pm, with tea and coffee provided.

We have an internet safety specialist, Dean Stewart, from Web Safety NZ, facilitate the session which is free. To RSVP to this event please go to:

www.burnham.school.nz/rsvp

Senior Ski Trip Photos

Here are some shots from our recent ski trip to Porter Heights for our seniors. A huge thank you to Kelly Sheppard, Gemma Odering and Melissa Lawler for their organisation and determination to make this such a successful experience for our tamariki.

It was awesome to see the rapid improvement in confidence and skill of our children on the slopes. Only a small number of children had been skiing or snowboarding before, so this was another great 'first' for Burnham School!

Sickness Update 3 August

Dear parents/caregivers,

This week we have as many as 30 students away sick on any one day with a variety of ailments. This number is a large proportion of our student body and so we want to ensure that it doesn't continue to rise. Some of these symptoms are 'flu-like' and so we need to remind parents/caregivers of the importance of keeping their child(ren) at home if they are not 100%. If your child is away sick, please let us know what is causing this.

At school we are reminding children of good personal hygiene practices, such as washing hands with soap, covering your mouth with your elbow when coughing or sneezing and facing away from others. We will be contacting parents as per our normal procedure if their child(ren) fall sick while at school. We are also in close contact with our local public health service regarding any possibilities of flu entering our community. We will keep you updated.

Thank you,
Rob Clarke
Principal