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Strengthening the Bonds throughout the McGlashan Community Dear Parents and Caregivers, As New Zealand has entered Alert Level 2, we can now accept all students back to physical classes at John McGlashan College. We are going to start with the younger year levels. The process of reopening is phased over a two-day period, starting on Monday May 18. Boarders will start arriving back to the hostel from Sunday May 17. Please read this entire message as there is some very important information to be aware of. We recognise that we will need to maintain a safe and healthy environment for everyone once boys and staff are back on site. Therefore, we ask everyone to be aware, support the procedures below and communicate any concerns that may arise. We also need to support any students who are nervous about returning to school or about any concerns that they may be experiencing. Compared to other countries around the world, New Zealand’s time in distance learning has not been that long, however, we are aware that some boys have found this time challenging. Below are the dates when each year level will return to school: • Years 7 - 10 will start back at school on Monday May 18. They will meet in their form classes at 8:50am. • Year 11 – 13 will start back at school on Tuesday May 19. They too will meet in the form classes at 8:50am. Social Distancing during Alert Level 2: • Students and staff will maintain social distancing at school. This includes classrooms where desks will be spaced, play areas and the dining hall. • All students should arrive after 8:40am and go directly to their form class on their first day back. • Gatherings or groupings of individuals, including students, must be kept to a minimum and respect social distancing. • The dining hall will only be open to boarders to begin with. All day boys will need to bring a packed lunch as the canteen will be closed. Maintaining a Healthy Environment: • On the first day of return and at the beginning of each day, teachers will inform and repeat the message to students about the importance of healthy habits and routines at school. • These habits and routines will be reinforced by posters and visual cues around the school. • Each boy must bring his own personal drink bottle with his name on it. This needs to be washed each evening. • If possible, each day boys should bring their own named personal hand sanitiser. There will be sanitizer gel located around the school, however, we only have a limited amount. Boarders will be given their own hand sanitiser when they arrive back to the boarding house. • Students who have any type of illness or who have a temperature of over 37 degrees need to remain at home. Please contact reception if this is the case. • All students will be reminded to wash their hands at the beginning of each school day, during the day and before and after eating. • All students need to bring their own resources (laptop, pencils, pens, glue etc.) as there should be no sharing of resources. • All teachers will have their own spray bottle of disinfectant which they will use to clean all surfaces regularly. • High contact areas such as door handles and stair handrails will be cleaned regularly. • After normal hours each day, cleaners will clean classrooms and toilets with a bleach solution. • The library will be closed at the start of Level 2. • The canteen will also be closed at the start of Level 2. Boys that depend on buying food at the canteen will need to bring their own lunch. School Calendar: • The Term 2 calendar has been revised and a number of events have been postponed or cancelled. • At this stage we will not be holding any large gatherings such as assemblies or chapels during Level 2. We are very much looking forward to seeing the boys (and Columba girls) back at John McGlashan College in the very near future. Please get in touch if you have any questions or concerns. Neil Garry Principal

John Veitch Deputy Principal

FROM THE BOARDS On behalf of the Board of Trustees and Board of Proprietors, we would like to offer a heartfelt thank you to Neil, the Senior Management Team, and all of the staff for delivering a seamless distance learning programme over recent weeks. These have been most unusual times and the circumstances have been challenging. Everyone is to be commended on the quality of the distance learning programme delivered and, whilst there is no doubt the boys are looking forward to being back at school, the continuation of the curriculum delivery has been a huge success. In relation to the administration team, grounds and boarding house staff, we also want to extend our sincere appreciation as everyone has played a part in making sure that the College continued to function and be maintained and ready for a full return once that was possible. It will be great to see the College up and running again next week, together with the boarding house, which will welcome back all our boarders. We want to thank all boys and their families for the support they have shown to McGlashan throughout this time by way of eager participation into the distance learning programme and support of the wider College. To all of the boys who have engaged in self-motivated learning, you are to be congratulated, and we look forward to seeing everyone back in classrooms next week. Finally, a friendly reminder in relation to dress-code from Monday next week – pyjamas are not recognised as school uniform! Very best wishes to all McGlashan families; we hope that you are all safe and well and looking forward to slowly returning to more normality. Take care. Tim Hannagan and Tony Sycamore

BOARDING UPDATE The boarding house is getting ready for all the boys to come back. Housemasters, cleaners and kitchen staff have met over the rest week to ensure they are ready to go on Sunday. All boarding parents should have received an email this week outlining the boarding house plan and processes to start up again. Please get hold of Drew if you have any further questions. Boarding Arrival Process: DATE

TIME

DETAILS

Sunday 17 May

12:00 - 2:30 pm

Year 9 return

Sunday 17 May Monday 18 May

2:30 - 5:00 pm 10:00 am - 12:30 pm

Year 10 return Year 11 return

Monday 18 May Monday 18 May

12:30 - 3:00 pm 3:00 - 6:00 pm

Year 12 return Year 13 return

• Please follow the return date and time allocated so that we can carry out the process of reorientation and follow social distancing requirements. Based upon our guidelines, parents may not enter the boarding facilities. • Siblings are welcome to return at the time allocated to the first returner, please let me know if you are going to do this.

LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT When you walk into a language classroom at John McGlashan College, you will not only see the language displayed all around the classroom, you will also hear the language being spoken, often from all students at the same time. Language learning is opened up to everyone through various and varied learning activities and you will see students moving around to do their activities, solving puzzles, playing games, finding information and throughout all of this; using the language they are learning. The language classroom is probably one of the few classrooms where we want students to speak as much as they can, often all at once, as long as it is in Te Reo, Spanish or German. This is something we have very much missed during this lockdown period and look forward to seeing and hearing again next week. The other thing we have missed, and what you will often already smell as you walk into the ELC on a normal school day, is the food we experience with our students in the classroom. While the online learning has been going well and boys have been doing fantastic work and getting on with things, we invited them to participate in a cooking challenge as well, just in time for Mother’s Day - and also to commemorate the “Cinco de Mayo” day. We hope the dishes were well received. We were impressed with the variety of the food and the presentation, and might just have to ask the boys to make some for the classroom... Max Simpson made Tacos de carne (beef tacos)

Hamish McIntyre made tacos and gaucamole

WIll Stevens made Migas, a Spanish dish with bread, pork-belly, and chirizo, spiced with garlic and paprika.

Luka BarsonMcLean made Enchiladas

Sam Price made Totopos (corn chips), limonade and tacos

William Parks (Y9) made Schneckennudeln, a German cinnamon scroll (twice) and Brezeln.

Ben Monaghan (Y13) made Wiener Schnitzel, Apfelstrudel and Kaiserschmarren (Viennese Schnitzel, apple strudel and a cut up, sugared pancake with raisins).

Harold Gao (Y11) made Bratwurst with Sauerkraut and Kartoffelbrei (sausage with fermented cabbage and mashed potatoes).

LIBRARY RESOURCES

Good news! From Monday May 18, you will be able to get books from the library using 'Click and Collect'. Choose the books you want from the library web app, drop us an email and we will notify you when they are ready for collection from the table in front of the library doors. Returns can be dropped into the plastic bin underneath the table and will be set aside for sanitising before being put back into circulation. We have prepared over 100 new books during the lockdown so look out for them on the web app. We're really looking forward to getting some of our great books back into your hands again next week.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING DURING LOCKDOWN? Back to the real world next week - I may need to set two very loud alarm clocks! Harvey O'Neill (year 9) It's safe to say lockdown hasn't been very enjoyable. But it's almost over and we've definitely come out the other side. I thought I'd share some things that have got me through this uncertain stage in life. And one of those things is cooking. Lots of different foods have been cooked. There's been an international variety of foods in our house. Another thing has been exercise. It's amazing for your body physically and mentally. So these are the things that have got me through. Mitchell Lobb (Year 11) I consider myself lucky to have spent lockdown in Warrington. The beach is only a 5-minute walk from my house. I have been down there almost daily, either walking, running, exploring the rocks, by myself or with my family bubble. I’ve even taken my football down there for a kick around. As awesome as the beach is, I am really looking forward to going back to school to see my mates. And Jeremy Cuthbert looks to be in a lovely spot! Well for us it's been great fun and nice to unwind some. The fact that the weather didn't catch covid helped. The animals were initially weirded out by all the attention but they got used to it. I did manage some classic animal training and managed to train one of our cats to look ridiculously obvious while trying to stalk fantails in our new acacia trees. (ref photo.) See you all soon by the looks. The PFA (Parents and Friends) continued to meet while under lockdown - there is no doubting the huge amount of time and effort these volunteers all do for the College to help fund those "extras" for the students. THANK YOU!

It’s amazing for your body physically and mentally.

So these are the things that have got me through.

Another thing has been exercise.

MS FRIDD’S RECIPE OF THE WEEK Focaccia classica al rosmarino (Rosemary focaccia) Anyone who knows me well, knows I love to cook. I’m not just passionate about the arts. Growing up in Alexandra, my Mother instilled in us her love for cooking. Fittingly, she wrote a weekly cooking column for the Central Otago News. Every week her cooking column would feature one or two recipes, photos taken by my father (who was the Chief Reporter/Photographer for the Central Otago News), and an intro of a couple of paragraphs about what our family had been up to during that particular week. My friends at school took great delight in knowing exactly what our family was up too. Keep in mind that this was pre-Facebook times… my Mother’s cooking columns were like her publicly sharing a week’s worth of our status updates! My old school friends still reminisce about my Mother’s old newspaper columns and her recipes. I come from a family of foodies and Mediterranean cuisine and the slow-food movement have always been a focus. My Brother-in-Law is Greek Cypriot, so we have a family connection to the beautiful island of Cyprus. We have all perfected our Greek Pita bread making and grilling of halloumi while he’s been in the family. Whether it be Greek or Italian cuisine… I love the way Mediterranean food is connected with family, slowing down, and enjoying quality meals and conversation together. During the COVID-19 lockdown, this extra time at home has been perfect for rolling up sleeves and getting into the kitchen to knock out some Italian family favourites and perfecting time-consuming (but ohso-worth-it) recipes like gnocchi and focaccia. Italy is one of my favourite places in the world, so I have to share an ultimate focaccia recipe. There is nothing more satisfying than standing at your kitchen bench, kneading dough. It is the ultimate stress-reliever. This extra time at home during lockdown has also meant quality family time with my 11 and 12-year-old daughters. My youngest has become my Sous-Chef, my number #2 in the kitchen, and she’s helped knead bread dough, form gnocchi, and knock out pita bread. This focaccia recipe is also a great one to get your whole family involved and take turns kneading the dough. It’s a great workout for your arms! Focaccia classica al rosmarino (Rosemary focaccia) comes from Gino D’Acampo’s brilliant book, Italian Home Baking. You might recognise Gino from the hit TV show, Gordon, Gino, & Fred’s Road Trip. Gino’s baking book is one of my top picks and it is always out on my kitchen bench… covered in flour.

Ingredients: 500g of strong white bread flour 7g of fast-acting dried yeast 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil 300ml (or so) of warm water 2 teaspoons of fine salt 1 tablespoon of sea salt 2 tablespoons of fresh rosemary leaves Method: • Sift the flour into a large bowl and stir in the yeast. • Make a well in the middle and pour in three tablespoons of the olive oil, along with the water. • Add the fine salt and, with a wooden spoon mix together until the ingredients are well combined into a soft dough. • Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or so until the dough is soft, smooth and elastic. • Fold the edges of the dough underneath to form a smooth, rounded top. • Brush with a little olive oil and place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm place, away from draughts, for one hour. • Place the risen dough on an oiled baking tray and flatten out into an oval shape, about 3cm thick. • Make indentations in the surface of the dough with your fingertips. • Brush with a little oil and cover with cling film. • Leave to rise in a warm place, away from draughts, for 40 minutes or so. • Preheat your oven to 220. • Once the dough has risen, gently press your fingertips into the dough to make more indentations. Tuck the rosemary leaves into the surface, sprinkle with sea salt and drizzle the remaining three tablespoons of olive oil over the top. • Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes, until golden. Once cooked, cool on a wire rack so that the underside stays crisp. I served our focaccia warm, with hearty bowls of homemade vegetable and lentil soup. A perfect autumn meal. Enjoy.