Rotorua Boys’ High SchoolPRINCIPAL: A.C. GRINTER BA(Hons), DipTchg

Pukuatua Street, Rotorua 3010, PO Box 10148, Rotorua 3046, New Zealand. Telephone: 64 7 348 6169. Facsimile: 64 7 346 1270.Email: info@rbhs.school.nz www.rbhs.school.nz

Pukuatua Street, Rotorua 3010, PO Box 10148, Rotorua 3046, New Zealand. Telephone: +64 7 348 6169. Facsimile: +64 7 346 1270.Email: info@rbhs.school.nz www.rbhs.school.nz

13 April 2020

To All Parents/Caregivers

Re : Easter Newsletter

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou me te tangi hoki ki a rātou kua riro atu

Kia hiwa rā! Kia hiwa rā!Kia hiwa rā ki te kōnukutanga o te rāWhakaara rā! Whakaara rā!Whakaara rā te Ihu Ātāmai, te Ihu MāneaKāore ā te Ihu WarewareMaringi noa te iti kahurangiKia hiwa rā! Kia hiwa rā!

Easter Greetings and I hope you are all well and enjoying the differences and positives of living under lockdown in your family bubbles. Thankfully it seems Rotorua has to date been largely spared from this terrible virus.

As you will be aware school reopens for Term 2 on Wednesday 15 April 2020, although we will be working online through until the end of the lockdown period on Wednesday 22 April 2020. The Prime Minister has advised that decisions following lockdown will be made on Monday 20 April 2020. Hopefully from Thursday 23 April 2020 school will be back to normal but this has not yet been confirmed and school could well be closed for a further period or it may only be certain year levels in attendance. The Ministry of Education has recently indicated that Wednesday 29 April 2020 (following a Teacher Only Day on Tuesday 28 April) could be our first day with some of our students.

We must therefore plan and prepare for a further extension of lockdown and for a continuation of online learning. I will advise as soon as I hear exactly what our situation will be. In the meantime however we must plan firstly to commence online Teaching and Learning from Wednesday 15 April 2020 until further notice.

All teaching staff have been asked to connect with each of their timetabled classes from Wednesday 15 April 2020 and we hope in this way all students will be able to get on with some valuable work during this online period.

Devices at HomeI am concerned that some of our students will not have access to a device at home for this online period or will not have internet connectivity. Any student that does not have a device that they can use at home or an internet connection should email the school with urgency. We will do what we can to help.

Ministry of Education Support Recently the Ministry has provided details around various support options available : 1.) Online support for distance learning The Ministry has launched its Learning From Home and Ki Te Ao Mārama websites which provide advice and resources to support parents, whānau and teachers. The websites will help early learning centres, schools and kura to develop online learning plans that they can share with their parents and whānau. We have set up a Connected Learning Advisory helpdesk to assist leaders, teachers, kaiako and whānau to make full use of the online environments and resources, as they provide for a continuity of learning for their students and tamariki. CORE Education, which runs the helpdesk, will provide this and other online support from 8 am to 5 pm on business days.

• To contact the Helpdesk, call 0800 700 401. To speak with the Helpdesk in te reo Māori, call 0508 294 462

• The Helpdesk numbers are available on https://learningfromhome.govt.nz/updates/helping-you-distance-learning Support includes:

• Technical advice for teachers and whānau in response to their Helpdesk enquiries • Online support to assist:

o whānau to understand how to use the IT tools they have and how to engage safely in collaborative spaces

o principals, leadership teams and teachers to select and use appropriate tools and strategies to communicate, maintain learning programmes effectively across their community, and manage online safety

• Community liaison: connecting early learning services/school/kura leaders and whānau with networks and resources.

2.) The Ministry has also advised of wellbeing support for whānau : Wellbeing information updated including new tip sheets for families, caregivers and whānau We have slightly updated the wellbeing information on our website to better reflect how the COVID-19 response has changed over the last weeks. Included in there are three new tip sheets for parents, caregivers and teachers:

• Tips for teachers, parents and caregivers – supporting toddlers • Tips for teachers, parents and caregivers – supporting children • Tips for teachers, parents and caregivers – supporting young people

If you know someone who might be struggling in your school or early learning service community, there are a large range of supports in place that may be able to assist including:

• Mental wellbeing • Supporting children and young people at home • Managing self-isolation • Care options for children of essential workers • Financial support for employers and employees • Staying safe online • Preventing harm from bullying • Family harm

• Responding to discrimination – through the Human Rights Commission • Accessing healthcare • For people vulnerable to COVID-19

3.) In terms of welfare support the following information has also been supplied by the Ministry : Welfare If you are aware there are people in your community who cannot get access to essential goods such as food, they can contact the local Emergency Coordination Centres (ECC), part of Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Groups. These groups coordinate the regional multi-agency response and provide a range of support activities. This is intended for people who don’t have any other options available to them and operates 7 days a week from 7am to 7pm - https://www.civildefence.govt.nz/resources/news-and-events/news/cdem-group-0800-numbers-for-supporting-communities/ You can also email the following people/contacts:

• Waikato - Irving.Young@waikatoregion.govt.nz; Inger.Vos@waikatoregion.govt.nz; Gecc.welfare@waikatoregion.govt.nz

• Bay of Plenty - angela.reade@embop.govt.nz; nicky.parker@embop.govt.nz; welfare@bopcivildefence.govt.nz

• Gisborne - fourshaw78@xtra.co.nz; CD.Welfare@gdc.govt.nz Further welfare supports include:

• The All of Government Welfare Number (0800 779 997) is available 7 days a week, providing welfare information and support for individuals in isolation

• Further information on MSD supports - https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/newsroom/2020/covid-19/supporting-providers-through-covid-19.html

• Carers NZ and IHC have launched wecare.kiwi to make it easy to care for and about each other. If you’re on your own during the lockdown, or caring for a vulnerable person, you may need some support – https://wecare.kiwi/

4.) Reminder from Oranga Tamariki about how to keep children and young people safe Families are spending lots more time together at the moment, which is a great chance to have fun together and offer each other support but some children and their whānau might be finding this time stressful. It’s important to know you can still contact us if you are worried about a child or young person. If you know a child is in immediate danger, please call NZ Police on 111. If you have ongoing concerns about a child’s safety, please call Oranga Tamariki on 0508 326 455. Further information about reporting a concern is available on the Oranga Tamariki website 5.) In terms of improving internet connectivity at home the Ministry have also provided some advice: Improving internet connectivity Our IT team has put together some tips for improved connectivity at home. For home internet connections It is important to eliminate performance/speed issues with the home wifi setup first, rather than assuming there is an issue with the connection from the house to the internet. To check this:

• Run a speed test at www.speedtest.net to establish a baseline, and repeat after making any change below to check for improvement

• Power off home router every morning, leave off for 30 secs before powering back on (don’t press the reset button this will reset the device settings!)

• Turn off, or disable Wi-Fi on, unused devices where possible, especially older devices that run at slower Wi-Fi speeds

• Decrease the physical distance between your device and the Wi-Fi router, line of sight is best • Use an Ethernet cable on devices where possible, to reduce Wi-Fi load (especially smart TVs,

gaming consoles) – plug these into a spare LAN port on your router

6.) In terms of addressing Data Allowance/ Cap Issues the following have been provided : Data Allowance/Cap issues

• Check you are not already on an uncapped data plan. • Some providers have made uncapped offers to rural and remote customers for off peak (night

time hours only). Consider shifting non time critical downloads such as computer patching to these time periods

• Check what options are available for the address at https://broadbandmap.nz/ and if not on the cheapest/best option suggest changing provider as an option (this is covered as an essential service)

In some remote areas speed of connection AND the amount of data is a hard technical constraint based on the capacity of the technology used such as satellite or “point to point” wireless.

• As a very rough indicator if it requires an externally mounted antenna or dish it probably falls into this category

7.) In terms of addressing mobile phone connections the following has been suggested : For mobile phone connections

• The data plan on mobile phones is NOT covered by the removal of data caps • Individual data plans vary significantly – high data usage on some plans over the allowance is

very expensive

• For personally owned phones consider changing to a different plan that better reflects new usage patterns. Often this can be done at no/little additional cost

• Use the app provided by your mobile phone supplier to track usage • “Hot spotting” from a mobile phone is less efficient than using home Wi-Fi (aerials are smaller) so

this will be slower

• If using for voice calls and running out of minutes consider alternatives where possible such us email/messaging systems.

8.) Working from home and maintaining good cyber security practices During COVID-19 Alert Level 4, please maintain good cyber security practices at home to help keep school and student information safe and secure. Device and information security

• Only use approved devices (laptop, tablet, or phone) to access systems on your school network, unless your school has a BYOD policy.

• Take the same precautions with your laptop, tablet, or phone as you would at school: o Lock the screen when away from the device o Take steps to secure the device when not in use e.g. lock your house if you go out and don’t

leave it unattended in your car o Maintain confidentiality of student information e.g. do not discuss student information with

family members or where they can hear it • Avoid using personal hard drives and USB sticks. These can introduce malware onto laptops. • Ensure that printed matter containing sensitive information is kept secure and is taken with you

when you return to school.

• Only dispose of printed matter containing sensitive or student information in secure document destruction bins at your school. Do not dispose of sensitive documents in your residential rubbish.

• The use of unsecured public Wi-Fi hotspots poses a cyber security risk and should be avoided. Sensitive data transmitted via these Wi-Fi networks may be intercepted and stolen.

Increase in phishing scams during heightened COVID-19 Alert Level • Expect more phishing emails and COVID-19-themed cyber-attacks. Criminals have increased

attempts to use the COVID-19 pandemic to trick people to download malware from COVID-19 maps, or enter their details into phishing websites. CERT has issued an advisory on this, which you can read here.

• Avoid clicking on any links in unsolicited emails and be very cautious of email attachments. • Do not provide personal or financial information in emails, texts, or instant messages and do not

respond to requests for this information. Conclusion So please I would like all our students to consider their personal timetables as being active as from Wednesday 15 April 2020 and our teachers connecting with each of their classes would clearly like to see a 100% online response from all students. As outlined there have been various ways that we have tried to ensure everyone has access and I would again urge anyone without a device to please make contact as soon as possible. I will keep in touch on a weekly basis as further details around the end of the lockdown period come to hand. In the meantime again, stay safe, be kind to each other and best wishes. I leave you with a little clip to brighten up your Easter and ease "The Weight" of Covid-19 on the shoulders of our world. Easter Tautoko Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui Ngā manākitanga A.C. Grinter Principal