Hi everyone, A quick reminder that the farewell party is on today at Lifepoint Church and this is the rough programme schedule:
(11am – 1pm Garage sale happening in the Background. There are a lot of things on sale! Don’t forget to bring cash.)
11.10am- NiHao Welcome songs – sing together in a huge group 😁
11.20am- Games – kids involved and parents will be asked to join too!!!
12pm- Start the shared meal, opening up the BYO finger food 😋
12.30pm- Thank you speeches and the chance for children or families to say thank you to their teachers if they wish. Unfortunately, Lizzie is not able to attend, but Xue will be.
12.50pm- George Ezra Shotgun song & general Goodbye song sung as a huge group 🥳
I couldn’t organise any coffee cart in time so please BYO your morning coffee if needed 😉
P.S. Some have been asking if teachers can take private classes:
Ay Dih is working full time and will be unavailable for any further teaching.
Cecilia may be interested for late Term 3 or Term 4, but will be unavailable for the next few weeks due to other commitments. It needs to be noted that she would need to be planning lessons from scratch, so a private teacher’s cost of time for all this as well as admin, room hire and teaching may mean near 1.5-2x the current fees. (NiHaoCC has been subsidising family’s term fees from actual costs of the programme for the past 6 years).
Any private classes run by other teachers would not be a continuation of the stair-casing curriculum or part of the the NiHaoCC programme. You will need to contact Cecilia separately / not via NiHaoCC if you wish to explore private tuition with her further.
NiHaoCC is planning on having the programme eventually distributed as an educational product in the future. This would mean all term’s lesson plans, writing book, songs, etc could be purchased online by the term. The students/families would just need find their own tutor to teach to it to a group.
However, this educational product model will not be ready until probably 2021? It depends on time and if we have any volunteer help with getting this done 🙂
NiHaoCC will send more details and a survey later about this as we seek your ideas and work out a way forward to continue supporting families learning Mandarin.
Term 2 will be the last term of classes for 2020, under both the Current/Old and Proposed New Model that we had initial plans for.
End of Term Party / Farewell – Save the Date
The last official day of Term 2 is Saturday 27 June. Instead of classes, we will hold a Farewell Party from 11am to 1pm, at Lifepoint.
Party games in Mandarin for the kids (separate groups for the school aged and younger ones)
BYO Finger food
Garage sale (bring cash) – sale of all our pretend food, musical toys, dress ups, games (Guess Who, Twister, building blocks), Mandarin cartoons DVDs.
I’ll see if we can organise a coffee cart, ice cream van, or other cart. (Or let me know if you know anyone?)
Children can use this opportunity to bring thank you cards and drawings for the teachers.
I’ll ask if Lizzie can attend 🙂 Unfortunately, both Qiubo and Nan are in China still. We’ll also be extending the invitation to all ex-students and supporters.
Future
The Board are currently looking at ways to support your children’s ongoing language learning and will be in touch with more information in the near future.
Hi all, I’ll try to keep this shorter due to the email influx of school & activities all trying to restart!
Saturday 6 June:
In-person classes will begin at Lifepoint on 6 June. Times will be the same as current online times.
Early Learners classes will NOT re-start this term.
6 June start is subject to Level 2 staying/reducing. We’ll email the week before to confirm in-person classes will start.
Prep classes in Room 4.
All School Age Levels are in the large Community Room at this stage.
Health & safety for in-person classes:
Students should bring their own water bottle, pencil case (pencils, eraser), booklet.
No food or personal toys are allowed in the classroom.
Students must wash their hands with soap before & after class.
If anyone is unwell, please do not come along to class.
Anyone 70 years and older is advised to stay away.
Sign in & contact tracing:
Parents do not enter / do not stay the classroom. Please drop off your children outside the classroom door. The exception is Prep class – one parent will be asked by the teacher to remain as back up assistance.
No sign in is needed. The teachers use the EnrolMy App to mark attendance and trace students.
You’re welcome to stay in the Lifepoint Room 1 to wait. Please do NOT use the Impact Room (the one with the lounge suite and tables).
Invoices:
Thanks for the payments so far. I’m aware some invoices are missing and will need to check up on these.
The teachers are really looking forward to seeing the children again 🙂
Using COVID-19 to pivot and do things differently!
Before the NZ lockdown happened, we made the decision to run the last two weeks of Term 1 as online classes. It was a new experience for the teachers and children!
Classes were live & interactive, via Zoom video conferencing. It went well, there was good feedback, so we’re encouraged and keen to continue providing a good online learning experience for the children.
This means that we’re moving classes to an online video conferencing format for the rest of 2020.
Our focus remains the same, offline and online: to learn by doing. Children will continue to be able to speak during class, and learn Mandarin Chinese as a new additional language through social interaction, conversation, games, song and movement.
We have had to pivot due to the COVID-19 situation and had our first online group classes via video / Zoom for the last two Saturdays of Term 1.
The classes have gone surprisingly well for something so new! The kids, especially the school aged ones, were good at talking & interacting on screen with the teacher and their classmates 🙂 Thank you to everyone for participating and to those who also provided their feedback.
Here are some screen snapshots of a few of last Saturday’s (4 April) classes. There were lots of screenshots and videos that we wanted to take of the kids while they were talking and interacting but due to privacy, we have not done so.
Snaps from the Early Learners class (3 years old and under)
Snaps from the Prep class (4 years old to School Year 1)
Hi families! Here is a massive update on how the current situation will be affecting our learning community.
Summary
Video summary from Li Ling highlighting the 3 big items, 19 March (5 mins)
From this Saturday 21 March:
Parents and children attending class must wash their hands with soap before and after class. The teachers will be doing the same.
Parents will have to sign in at drop off / before attending classes to make a declaration about their and their child’s health and that they have not been overseas or in close contact with anyone back from overseas in the past 14 days.
Change in classes for next Saturday 28 March and Saturday 4 April (last day of Term 1):
Classes will be online interactive videos held at the SAME class time on Saturdays, via Zoom. Parents and children attending will be expected to interact on the video with the teacher and with each other. And yes, we expect to be moving (or dancing) in front of the cameras!
We have provided links below with some additional info on NZ support for accessing affordable internet at home if that is a barrier to your family.
Online learning resources:
Li Ling has been working on setting up NiHaoCC and shifting audio files and resources to the student engagement app Seesaw. Many NZ schools are using this awesome app!
We would really appreciate your patience with everything that is happening now, especially as Li Ling is doing this voluntarily in her after-hours, so there is a constraint to what can be done by one person. (There has never been sufficient funding for staff to do much else apart from teaching and some prep – and there is much more happening behind the scenes!)
Saturday 21 March classes
We are fortunate that Ni Hao Children’s Community is lower risk compared to some larger places, as we have a maximum of 10 children in each class and our student population is young! We also have a lot less than a total of 100 people in & out of the classes over the Saturday school day.
However, to be extra careful, health & safety measures have been tightened up for classes and these will be immediately effective from this coming Saturday 21 March:
1.Parents will need to sign in at drop off / arrival to class to declare that to the best of their knowledge,
the parent and child attending class are well (have no virus symptoms), AND
the parent and child have not been overseas in the past 14 days, AND
the parent and child have not had close contact with anyone who has been overseas in the past 14 days.
2. Parents and children attending class MUST wash their hands before attending class, AND wash their hands after the class has finished. The teachers will be doing the same.
We think this is a great idea as school happens much better in person! However, because it is a high risk for NiHaoCC with only two teachers available and no other relievers if they are sick, no cash reserves and heavy reliance on Li Ling volunteering time to keep this going, NiHaoCC will be taking a slightly different and innovative route for the last two weeks of term, and going forward 🙂
Things are changing very fast in New Zealand with the Covid-19 situation, especially as it’s only just starting now, and we want to be proactive about this. So, NiHaoCC will move to a live video format through Zoom from Saturday 28 March! Please download Zoom onto your laptops or devices over this week.
It is expected that students will be interacting and talking online with the teachers and others in class. Some elements of the lessons will change (it will be a little tricky to play “tag” on video) but we will keep to the NiHaoCC philosophy and have all classes as interactive and engaging as possible, doing the best in this current COVID-19 situation!
There are positives about this!
This will prepare everyone for any possible social distancing, quarantines and lock downs in the future, seeing as things are just starting in NZ now and will be continuing a long / unknown period.
Even if you or your child is sniffly (which may or may not be a Covid virus!) and are stuck at home, they can still attend class, learn and interact with the others.
Video conferencing will probably open up classes to families where travel to Mt Cook has been a barrier for them. Others living outside of Wellington could potentially attend as well.
If you have any financial barriers to having internet access at home:
Spark Foundation offer Spark Jump, which is for families with no home internet connection and have children under the age of 18. You’ll also need to meet the lower income and eligibility criteria. It costs $10 for a pre-paid 30 GB data pack and you get a loan wireless broadband modem; the data-pack expires after 30 days and can then be topped up.
We are in the process of setting up Seesaw for NiHaoCC. This is a great learning engagement app for students and families, and widely used by NZ primary schools. Students are able to record what they do, teachers can assign activities and home learning resources to their classes, and parents can see what’s happening.
The set up is taking a while as we have to set up the 6 different classes / levels, upload resources and also add all the students to Seesaw.
We will be sending out unique QR codes for each child – you will not need to create any login to access Seesaw as will be able to scan the QR code on your device. It would be great preparation if you could download the Seesaw Student App (NOT the families app) from the Google Play or Apple Apple app store onto your device in the meantime.
Thank you for the patience
There is a lot happening and very much to be done by one person in limited after-hours, so we’d greatly appreciate your patience as we move into a different format and get things set up. Please send Li Ling an email if you have questions. Here’s wishing everyone good health – stay safe out there!
Yours in fun & engaged language learning,
the NiHaoCC team, Li Ling, Ay Dih, Yue, Chien-Chi
An after note, 21 March: News article on education going online worldwide! But our focus will always be on the kids and their learning, and tech will be a way of delivering it.
We’d like to warmly welcome and introduce a new member to our team, Yue (Cecilia) Pan 潘悦 Pān Yuè ! She is teaching our Early Learners and Prep classes on Saturdays while Nan is still stuck in China, though we are hoping that Yue will hopefully continue with us as an ongoing reliever / staff member too 😉
Yue joined our team in February 2020. She originally came from Mainland China, working as a journalist in Shanghai from 2002 to 2006. She moved to Wellington in 2006 and completed a graduate diploma in Psychology at Massey University in 2008. She then worked in a jewellery wholesale business until 2018 in Wellington, covering multiple roles including project management and office management. She loves the work she has been involved in and enjoys communicating with people.
Yue is a Wellingtonian, and has a husband and 8 year old son. She enjoys filling her spare time with a range of creative and active endeavours such as photography, video editing, reading and swimming. Yue is excited to be part of the team at Ni Hao Children’s Community and working alongside everyone to create and nurture a positive, uplifting, and successful collaborative learning environment.
The students of Level 2 and above will be learning George Ezra’s Shotgun song in Mandarin Chinese as the class song / project for 2020! It’s very catchy…
Here is the English version, to get the tune into mind, and we will be sharing our own translated lyrics and Mandarin audio files with students soon.
Mandatory Quarantine for recent travellers to China
Hi everyone!
Anyone who has travelled to the People’s Republic of China for holiday or transit (to be clear, this excludes Taiwan) from 1 December 2019 until now, or has been living with with someone who has, MUST stay away from our classes for at least 14 days.
Anyone with any flu-like symptoms should also stay away from classes until they are well.
We are taking very conservative precautions as we don’t want to take any risks!
Our current staff in Wellington have not been near China in this period. We will have a couple of relief teachers observing school tomorrow from 9am – 12:30pm. Both have not been near China recently either.
On a roll and I’m thankful for a public holiday to get through things!
Your child’s 2020 level was included in their 2019 end of year Report and here is a reminder of where they should be.
There are 2 different class times for the Prep and Level 3 classes due to the larger student numbers at these levels for 2020, so please enrol into the one that would work best for your family for the year. First come, first served!
As per 2019, enrolments are for a full school year, but fee payments are term by term. We are not taking any credit card payments, so if EnrolMy provide a credit card option, please ignore that. Only bank transfers per the charity’s account details on the invoice will be accepted. Please see our Fees page for payment dates too.
We have a backlog of people waiting to trial classes for 2020, but I don’t want to start that until returning families have done their 2020 enrolment and we know the remaining spaces available in each class.
Talk to your children about it…
Please assure your children that not moving up a level is not to be seen as a bad thing! The teachers have observed and assessed the children during the Term 4 classes in 2019. If the children don’t seem confident enough in the year’s materials, we prefer they are provided with further grounding in the level than be pushed to the next one prematurely. (On the flip side, if you think your child is not being challenged enough, please let the teacher know!)
We know children and families have their own timetables and demands that also affect language learning progress. For my children, sports tournaments on Saturdays made them miss far too many classes last year. They were initially a little disappointed to stay in the same level. I explained and they felt better and understood that language is not as straight forward to learn and upkeep as it is for sports and swimming! And it’s in their best interests to be at a level that suits them best and builds their confidence! 🙂
School Rolls 2020
Early Learners:
Walter
Ming Cheng
Lucas
Charlotte
Sara
Xiao Ling
Prep:
Emil
Annabelle
Isabella
George
Olympia
Misha
Zachary
Caitlin
Xavier
Phoebe
Level 1:
Elspeth
Declan
Amelia
Milan
Level 2:
Eleanor
Jet
Sienna
KJ
Leo
Calvin
Ryan
Level 3:
Jimmy
Ethan
Elyana
Eliza
Harriet
Hawea
Amelia Grace
Elizabeth
Tongtong
Maya
Angus
Xanthe
Level 4:
Matthew
Thomas
Medeah
Amanda
Caitlin
Gabriel
Please contact us if your child’s name is missing (hopefully it isn’t!).
