J E N Z N E W S
Message from Jen
Our hearts go out to the people of Canterbury, and those of us who have friends and family in Christchurch, in the wake of the devastating earthquake as they recover, reclaim and rebuild their lives. This is a poignant event for Jenz as a service provider, to be prepared and confident in our emergency procedures. It is essential that we plan for the unknown to offer direction amongst chaos. Thank you to those families that attended our parent meeting to discuss emergency planning. I must admit however, it is somewhat disappointing that more parents could not attend as this is a very important area for our planning and parent input is vital as we are planning for the best care of your children in an emergency situation. If you missed the meeting and are not aware of our emergency procedures, they are displayed on the left hand side of the wall as you walk in to the classroom.
Home Emergency Plan
We urge our families to devise your own emergency plans. Think of things such as agreed meeting points; this could be a position within your home or boundary, a meeting point at school, or at a family member or friend’s house. The reality is a disaster could strike at any time so having specific meeting points could help aid the search for people. Also have agreed family emergency contact numbers, and of possible friends or family your children could go with should you be out of contact. As we have observed with the ChCh earthquake texting seems a more likely way of staying in contact as phone lines overload. It is vital to keep a home emergency kit with all the essentials and store it in a place that is easy to grab in a hurry, some key items are:
- Portable battery powered radio and batteries
- Bottled drinking water
- Torches and batteries
- Cellphone and charger
- First Aid kit
- Canned food and tin opener
- Essential medications
- Blankets / warm clothing
- Pet supplies
This list is not exhaustive and you can tailor yours to meet the needs of your family. Remember, it needs to be easily accessible and not too cumbersome. When devising a home emergency plan involve all of the family and ensure everyone knows what to do and what to expect (appropriate to age).
Parent and Emergency Contact details
Another important aspect of emergencies is ensuring we have your most current contact phone numbers; this includes home, cell and work, and your address details. Also if you have people we can call in absence of yourself in an emergency please ensure we have these and that they are up to date. If in doubt please pop into the office or phone to check.
Trial Evacuation to Rudolf Steiner
Following our parent meeting and a follow up staff meeting, we decided against initiating a full-blown off-site trial evacuation to Rudolf Steiner with the children. The logistics and planning of this has proved quite a challenge and instead we have decided to train staff well in this procedure. Staff will familiarize the fastest and safest route, visit the location, leave a bin of supplies with the Kindergarten and fine tune a plan to gather and transport children and essential items, and what to do once at the location. Please remember, we have well practiced on-site emergency procedures for fire, earthquake and disaster, the journey to Rudolf Steiner would be orchestrated where and if possible according to circumstances, time and logistical factors.
Jenz Emergency Supplies
We have purchased a green wheelie-bin for our off-site emergency supplies and will leave it in the cloak room for a week or two. If families could kindly donate one item each we would greatly appreciate this. We need non-perishable food items, nappies, wipes, bottled water, rubbish bags, D2 and AA batteries for our torch and radio. We will drop off the bin to Rudolf Steiner Kindergarten as part of our staff off-site evacuation trial. The bin will be replenished annually.
Welcome ~ Nau mai, Haere Mai!
We warmly welcome Wilbur Whyte to Jenz who is Phoebe’s younger brother. It is comforting see the baton passed down through siblings.
Farewell ~ Haere Ra...
We farewell Rainnah Frogley who turns five and heads off to Te Mata Primary School. We look forward to hearing about your new adventures Rainnah and coming back to visit us!
Updates/Events
Self Control
Self control is a familiar concept we teach the children, for example, if they are running inside they can recognize this for themselves and stop and walk, and say to themselves, “I’ve got self control”. This is a virtue that can easily be reinforced at home and discussed amongst each other; other examples can be speaking instead of shouting, talking instead of hitting and waiting instead of interrupting.
Change of Season
As the season changes and we experience cooler and damper mornings and nights, children may be more susceptible to bugs, of which a number of children presently have runny noses and coughs. We teach the children to cough into their elbows to stop spreading germs and to wipe their noses and keep their hands clean. This is a time to dose up on vitamin c at home to strengthen immune systems, and ensure children wear layers particularly in the mornings and evenings.
Staffing
We have had a number of primary teachers come to visit the centre interested in relieving of which we have had three in to relieve so far, which is keeping our present staffing buoyant. We also have Sulu Fa-alogo-Sega covering the majority of the relieving. Sulu is a registered early childhood teacher from Wellington and is new to Hawkes Bay and handy to Jenz as she lives locally in Clive.
MANZ Membership Fee Increase
The 2011 membership rate increased from $10.50 to $11.00 per family per term. This increase will be effective and applied to invoices week beginning 14 March 2011 covering term one, and applied thereafter each term. Please visit http://www.montessori.org.nz/join-manz.
Reminders
Attendance Register
Please sign your child in on the Attendance Register when you arrive in the morning, and out when you collect them in the afternoon. We must have these records as they are linked to Ministry funding. It is a lot of extra work chasing up people who haven’t signed in or out.
Late arrivals
If you arrive after 9.00am you will need to assist your child to get their name tag and choose a tray, and then allow your child to quietly choose an activity to do at a table.
Late fee at pick-up time
A late fee of $5 per five minutes after 3.30pm will be charged to invoices.
Stork Report!
We extend a warm welcome to Jasper Howard's new baby sister Lucinda born Monday 21st February.
Blessings from everyone at Jenz.
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