Kia ora Aidanfield whanau
Merry Christmas!
It has been a pleasure to serve you this year as a school.
A year’s review
At the last Board meeting of the year, I presented an overview of the learning progress across the school. The PowerPoint PDF is attached if you are interested to see how we have gone as a school. It makes for some very encouraging reading!
Don’t forget to have your say
The Boards survey on how we are going is still open. If you have not had a chance to fill it in, please feel free to add your comments to the growing list of feedback. So far only 34 people have responded. Your thoughts really do count. If you copy and paste this link into your browser you should arrive at the survey. The link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KLPH9JD
Looking into 2022 – the vaccination issue
You may be aware that vaccinations have been cleared for the 5 to 12 year old age group. Be assured that it is a parents/caregivers choice as to whether their child is vaccinated and I believe there will not be an expectation nor mandate for children to be vaccinated. There will not be any requirement for vaccination for a child to attend school and ACS and be involved in school-based learning and this will not change. Parents are still welcome to attend school meetings, interviews and drop off and pick up their children without a vaccination certificate. There is a requirement for anyone who works or volunteers at a school to be vaccinated and this must be kept in mind. We are likely to have to adapt some of our learning experiences outside the classroom due to other organisations making their own expectations and we will work through these in the new year.
Our school is working towards unity, respecting each family’s position. We look forward to continuing this journey with you in the new year as we all figure out what the new normal looks like.
And finally
As a staff, we wish you a very merry Christmas. May you know the grace and peace of our Saviour as you head into the festive season. We are very aware that for some the season of celebrating Christmas is a difficult time for many different reasons. There are those of us that have lost loved ones and their absence is keenly felt, for others illness or a myriad of stress points weigh heavy during the season of celebration. For others, Christmas is a time of celebration, fun and laughter. No matter what your situation this Christmas, may I encourage you to reflect on the message of the biblical story.
As I mentioned at a number of our 11 different awards assemblies this last week, Jesus did not wait for our world to be fixed before He came. God did not choose to make things right before stepping into creation, He stepped into the middle of the chaos, the difficulties and the brokenness and declared that He was here to be our foundation, our strength and our joy in whatever situation. It was because he was born into this world that he was able to say and then demonstrate that,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me (the Messiah), Because He has anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent Me to announce release (pardon, forgiveness) to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed (downtrodden, bruised, crushed by tragedy), to proclaim the favourable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the favour of God abound greatly]” (Luke 4:17-19).
May I take the opportunity as we head into the Christmas period to remind you to reflect on the power and the presence of our God and to invite him to be a part of whatever your situation is this week.
2021 EOY Varience Report to the BOT
Grace and peace
Mark Richardson
