Update 1 April - Fun Day

He mihi nui ki a koutou katoa.

It is great to see families continuing to return to Freeville and we look forward to catching up with those who are yet to return.

We were treated to a fantastic fun afternoon yesterday thanks to the generosity and organisation of the Youth Alive Trust. The trust which is based at Grace Vineyard Church in New Brighton is running these fun afternoons for many of the schools in our area. It was very well run with a variety of different activities, a sausage sizzle and performances. The smiles on the faces of the children told the story. Our sincere thanks to James and his team.

Buildings Update:

We had another project team meeting yesterday afternoon. The following is the gist of the discussions and an update on what will be happening in the foreseeable future.

From our point of view we put forward our desire to get as much playground area as possible back into use before the onset of winter. To enable this to happen the following will be happening over the next week or so:

1. The demolition site of Rooms 5-8 will be tidied up and the rubble buried. It will then have topsoil put on top and be planted in grass. We will then (Once note 2 and 3 have been done) be able to alter the fence line to give access to the court.
2. The two containers that we need to have regular access to (the shelved one and the one we will use as a PE shed) will be moved to sit back to back parallel to the drain in front of Rooms 3 & 4. We are going to have in interior door put into the resource one so that the heavy doors don't have to be opened and closed every time we need to get some resources out. The other two containers will be moved off the court to sit on the grass by the fence next to the court. The containers are being moved at 9.30am Monday morning.
3. The asphalt on the court will be peeled off as the court is not worth repairing. Base course will be laid and compacted. Children will then be able to use this area. It won't be perfect but it will be usable.
4. The ball wall and concrete pad are will be ripped up and taken away. This will then be grassed.

In regard to other matters:

1. The car park by Steve's shed will be patched and then staff will be able to use it. The entry between the PE shed and the end of Room 4 will remain closed. Only staff will be able to enter through the staff car park as we need to maintain a child free buffer zone at the end of Room 4 and around the boiler room.
2. Rooms 3 & 4, Library etc: Still no word on the future of this block.
3. Portaloos: The MOE want us to keep them all on site in case we lose water again. Steve will purchase padlocks so that they can be locked when not needed.
4. We expect that we will now have access to the relocatables on Tuesday. We are arranging for our whiteboards, screens and projectors from the demo'ed block to be installed.
5. There was a lot of head scratching about what to do with the unfinished area in front of the Learning Studio. We have an issue because the ground has shifted there and we now don't have fall to the drain. Essentially our choices are to grass, basecourse or asphalt this area. Given that the ground is still changing, the whole hard court area needs to be ripped up and repaired, paths redone etc we have decided to base course it rather than go to the expense of asphalting it to then have to rip it up again UNLESS we can get insurance to pay for asphalting. At this point we are waiting to hear back from the insurance assessor.
6. We had a discussion around a timeline for rebuilding. The Ministry is not able to give us one at this point. They anticipate that they will have to work in with CERA (The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority). It is also clear to me that they intend reviewing the school network in regard to demographics and roll numbers before making any decisions. Our MOE contact is confident that we will be OK and believes that our case is pretty straight forward - we have lost four classrooms (so far), they are insured and need to be replaced. While we would like to get on with planning a rebuild we are not able to do that yet. Patience is a virtue they say.

Have a great weekend.

John