Principal's Page
Kia Ora - Kia Ora Friends
This week has been an exceptionally busy one for me, so more photos and fewer words for this week's newsletter.
This week we ran a Lockdown Practice at school.
We have two different Lockdown signals that we use. One is called Safely Inside - this is one we use, for example, if there has been a swarm of bees within our school grounds or an aggressive dog has come onto our school grounds. If children hear this signal, they all go inside and close the doors behind them.
The other Lockdown signal is for a Full Lockdown. We use this one when there is a serious safety issue for our school. It could be there is a dangerous criminal on the run nearby. It could be the Armed Offenders have been called out to an address near our school or that a dangerous person has entered our school. In this instance, everyone has to get inside calmly but immediately. All doors and windows are locked, curtains are closed, and everyone gets down low below window level. Everyone faces away from the windows, and teachers quietly talk to their children - perhaps telling a story - to distract them from anything possibly happening outside and to keep them calm and reassured.
Our practice went really well. It showed us a couple of places where the intercom wasn't functioning as it should be. One was a software fix, the other required us to bring in ethernet cablers to lay cable across to our old swimming pool changing rooms - now used for our Perceptual Motor Programme for small groups of juniors.
We will get some additional windows tinted as this is the most effective way of preventing an intruder from seeing inside a classroom.
I was proud of how calm and efficient everyone in our school was for this drill. They were faultless. Our hope and expectation are that neither of these drills wills will be needed for a real-life problem. However, if ever it should, we are thoroughly prepared.
A final point of clarification. Apparently, there have been some stories doing the rounds that schools can be locked down so that the Ministry can come in and administer medication. This is NOT true. No such legislation exists.
Most importantly, I give our community my solemn and absolute promise that we would never allow any such thing to ever happen at our school. We fully respect parents' rights to make their own best decisions regarding their children's health, safety and well-being. We aim to be 100% transparent in all we do here, and we seek to do everything in the way that a loving and caring parent would do for their child. This has been my personal philosophy and approach since day one here, and I will not waver from it.
As always - if you have questions or concerns about anything school-related - email me at macash@mac.com, and I will get back to you asap.
My very best regards to you all,
Ash Maindonald
Principal.
