Term 2 @Tahuna

By: Karyn Hearn | Posted: Tuesday April 14, 2020

Welcome to Term 2, 2020

Dear Parents/Caregivers.

As you will be aware School resumes tomorrow Wednesday, 15th of April. Due to Alert Level 4 restrictions this will be happening remotely. Tahuna staff have been preparing for this since the end of term when the COVID-19 Alert Level 4 was announced and teachers will be uploading schoolwork and activities fully online from tomorrow.

Please ensure your child has accepted their invitation to Google Classroom located in their Gmail account and signed into online services which have been shared by their teacher.

Home Learning Packs and Devices -

For those families who requested Home Learning Packs and/or Devices, they have been ordered for you from the Ministry of Education, who are managing this phase. Please do not expect a Home Learning pack and/or device to arrive at your address immediately. We have been advised that there is a priority weighting, beginning with senior secondary school students undertaking NCEA, then moving on to students in Year 10 and gradually moving down the year levels. The Ministry will also be ensuring that children in more deprived areas of the country and those with the most need, will receive this resource first.

Remote learning instructions for parents

What does this mean to you and your family? Over the last few weeks we have been working on remote learning plans to ensure that classroom learning can continue in as normal a fashion as possible. This means that learning will continue to happen during the regular school hours. Your child will have classwork and assignments to complete. They will be able to access scheduled face to face teaching with their classroom teacher. We will be using tools such as Google Classroom and Zoom video conferencing. Many of our students are familiar with these tools as they may have used them in their classrooms previously.

Our goal is to provide distance learning activities that are -

  • Valid, realistic, engaging and stress free for all

  • Flexible and manageable for staff and families - able to fit with what's going on in your home at any given time

  • Involve a variety of tasks that are physical, creative, online, indoors, outdoors, quiet, hands-on, play-based and undertaken at times of the day that are best suited to you

  • Supported by resources, activities and suggestions provided by our teachers

For further Home learning advice click on this link

To facilitate learning from home, Tahuna Normal Intermediate will be using two main platforms.

  1. Google Classroom: This will be your child’s digital hub for learning. They will be able to access notices, messages, assignments and classwork from their classroom teacher. This can be accessed on a variety of devices.

    1. PC, Laptop or Chromebook: visit classroom.google.com in your browser.

    2. iOS: Download the Google Classroom app from the App Store

    3. Android: Download the Google Classroom app from the Google Play Store

  2. Zoom Video Conferencing: This will be used for face to face sessions with students.

    1. Download Zoom Mobile Apps for iPhone or Android

    2. Download Zoom Client for Meetings for PC

    3. Chromebooks can join meetings from the Chrome browser at zoom.us. Select ‘Join a meeting’. This will be used from the 15th of April onwards. Zoom Etiquette

  3. TVNZ and their Demand app will have Educational Programmes daily for students aged 5-15 years, so check this out.


Your child’s teacher may also be using Seesaw Learning Journal, E-ako, Readworks, Education Perfect or Epic!. They will be sending home instructions on how to access and use these tools.

From Wednesday, our teachers will be in contact with the children in their classes. This contact will be about welcoming them to the new term, explaining how they can access learning suggestions and describing ways in which they can discuss together what they're working on.

We acknowledge at this challenging time that it is the personal, physical, mental and emotional health of our students, staff and families that is the most important thing. We are all in this together. We thank you for your patience as we work collaboratively to make the best of this situation.

If you have any queries or need any assistance please do not hesitate to contact the school

Nāku noa, nā

Kind regards,

Tahuna Normal Intermediate School Staff