Update 6 May 2020 – English Courses
ESOL courses start next week 11 May. These will be offered via Zoom first, then classes will return to the classroom when it is safe. You can see a list of our courses here. Email us on info@selwyncomed.school.nz to find out more.
Update 29 April 2020
Again, thanks for your ongoing patience as we interpret new covid19 updates and what they mean for our programme.
We are well progressed in dealing with courses that were scheduled to start from 30 April to 15 May and have communicated with most classes already. We expect to finish our emails to all other classes this week. The process of changing information on our website is time consuming so not all changes listed below have yet been updated on the website.
The following courses will run via Zoom video conferencing for Term 2:
- Te Reo Beginners (Saturdays, Mondays, Wednesdays)
- Te Reo Level 2 (Wednesdays)
- Spanish Travellers Level 1
- Spanish Level 2
- Spanish Level 3
- Spanish Level 4
- Spanish Conversation Level 5
- Yoga @ Remuera starting 30 April will commence with Zoom and return to St Marks when possible
- Yoga Continuing with Liza starting 4 May will commence with Zoom and return to the classroom at Selwyn College when possible
- Many ESOL courses will commence on Zoom, returning to the classroom when safe to do so
- Ukulele classes
- How to Make Money and Think Like an Entrepreneur
The following course start dates have been deferred until June:
- Sewing
- Watercolours
- Date Night Cooking
- Self Hypnosis for Self-Healing and Growth
- Ayurvedic Nutrition and Cooking
- Excel Beginners
- Painting with Acrylics
- Pattern Alteration and Design
- Guitar
- Photography
- Indesign
- Intro to Microsoft
- Think Talks
- Argentine Tango & Shake Rattle n Roll
- Upholster Footstool
- Walking Tour of Ponsonby
- Accounting Basics
- Intro to Psychology
- Pruning
The following course have been deferred until Term 3 (late July) or later:
- Flavours of the Cinque Terre
- Italian with Fiorella
- Woodworking
- Pottery
- Drawing People
- Interior Design Basics
- Maori Art History
- Word Beginners
- Moroccan Cuisine
- Korean Cuisine
- Russian Beginners
- Chinese Mandarin Beginners
- Tivaevae Cook Island Quilting
- Japanese Language
- Retirement Basics
- Secrets of Italian Architecture
- Turning Points in Popular Music
- Watching Sex and the City
- Hindi Beginners
- Excel Advanced
The following regular term classes have been cancelled for Term 2:
- All Tai Chi
- Pilates
- Flashback Dance
- NIA Dance
- Dancercise 40+
- Dancefit
- Drama for Children
- Art Making for Children
- Some yoga classes
We are still waiting for more information about lockdown levels to know when it will be safe to resume incomplete Term 1 courses. We hope this will be towards the end of May. Most 28-29 March weekend courses are being transferred to the weekend 6-7 June or later and we are communicating these changes as tutors confirm availability. At that time we are seeking your approval with the changes or assisting you with new arrangements as needed.
We have a weekend programme scheduled to run over the weekend 23-24 May. We believe we can deliver most of these courses face to face within Covid Level 2 safety specifications. After the announcement on 11 May we will be in a better position to make decisions.
We ask for your ongoing patience with communication delays. At present, emails are arriving faster than we can handle them. Our time needs to go initially to communicating information about upcoming scheduled courses. We are dealing with individual enquiries as we can manage.
Thanks, Anne, Helen & Mandy and tutors
Update: 23 April 2020
Firstly, we would like to thank our loyal customers for their ongoing patience. With the announcement of a change to Lockdown Level 3 on 29 April, this gives us some dates to start planning towards.
At present, we are undertaking several blocks of work for the following categories of courses:
- Courses that were incomplete at the time of the lockdown and final lessons need to be arranged
- Courses that were due to start during the lockdown (eg weekend courses 28 – 29 March)
- Courses due to start in Term 2 (mostly during the week 4 May)
As a general guideline, courses that have incomplete lessons will have the opportunity for ‘make up’ lessons just as soon as it is safe to meet face-to-face again (eg pottery, woodwork). Some courses (eg many language classes) completed the term via video conferencing. It is possible that some other courses may be completed via video conferencing.
We are presently rescheduling the weekend programme 28 – 29 March. Most courses will run 6 – 7 June instead as we are reasonably confident we’ll be back to Level 2 by then. Once we have confirmation from the tutors on their availability, then we will be in touch with each individual class and registrant to make arrangements.
For upcoming courses, we are deferring some courses to start in late May (on the assumption we’ll be back to Level 2 by then). We will cancel some courses where we are unable to manage the health risks. Other courses will be run via video conferencing.
In all cases, we are dealing with each course on a case-by-case basis so we ask for your continued patience as we undertake the vast workload created by these changes. We expect to have contacted most students by next week.
Keep safe in your bubbles.
Update: 16 April 2020
Today’s Covid-19 update has given us some small hope that we’re getting closer to some certainty. Then we’ll make decisions about outstanding course delivery and dates for upcoming courses. And, of course, we’ll communicate this to you. We continue to develop the infrastructure for delivering virtual courses (via video conferencing) and hope to have something to report early next week. In the meantime, here’s a message from our bubble to yours.
Update: 6 April 2020
We are currently working on some online options until our fabulous face-to-face classes resume. We will let you know via email, facebook, newsletter and here, when we have details available. Don’t forget about our current Facebook comp – post a photo of something you’ve created from a course to go into the draw for a supermarket voucher. You can visit our facebook page here.
Update: 24 March 2020
With the current Covid-19 Alert Level 3 status, moving to Level 4 tomorrow, we are deferring all physical courses.
Do not attend any evening or weekend courses for now. This includes:
ESOL, Yoga, cooking, excel, mosaics, Calmer You, photography, Korean, Xero, French, Italian, ballroom dancing, salsa dancing, ukulele, pilates, dancercise, art, NIA, painting, sewing, pattern making, guitar, tai chi, drama, woodwork, pottery, Microsoft intro.
We will be in touch to restart these courses and continue your learning once it is safe to do so. We hope this will be in early May.
For Spanish and Te Reo, your tutors are making special efforts to continue your courses via online classrooms. They will be/have been in touch with you directly.
A few other tutors are also getting organised with online learning and will contact you to offer this option if applicable.
For anyone who is unable to attend those classes, we will arrange ‘make up’ classes for you next term to complete your courses.
28 – 29 March weekend courses.
NO courses will run 28 – 29 March. We plan to defer these courses to the weekend of 8 – 9 May instead. Some courses may defer to the weekend of 23 – 24 May, or later, dependent on tutor availability.
We also understand the need to stay fluid with our planning in the event that Covid-19 remains a high risk in the community and we need to defer courses a second time.
As we reschedule courses, we will transfer your registration to the new date. Closer to the time of the scheduled course, we will recheck your availability to attend the new date. At that time, we can offer you a transfer to a future course, a credit or a refund of your course fee as appropriate.
April Holiday courses (15 – 24 April)
All courses have been cancelled.
Courses starting in Term 2 (May) 2020
We’re hopeful that the environment will be safe enough for us to resume scheduled courses in Term 2 (most of these start around 4 May). However, we will review the situation two or three weeks beforehand and decide whether these need to be postponed further. We’ll be in touch with everyone as soon as we have something to report.
How you can help us.
As a non-essential service, our office will close from Wednesday 25 March (or sooner) when the alert level raises to 4. Working from home, we will try to maintain a basic level of service. Please note that our capacity will be reduced.
You will understand that there is a large amount of work in the re-organisation of classes, so we ask for your patience during this time. If you can avoid contacting us, please do so for the time being. We will handle emails as we can, prioritised for urgency. The fewer phone calls and emails we need to action, the faster we can complete this work.
How we can help you.
We understand that for many of you, community classes are important for connection, health, learning and entertainment. We will resume our normal operation as soon as it is safe to do so. Once we have completed the work to reschedule classes, we will consider how we can stay in touch and add value to the community at this time. We are fortunate to belong to a strong community. Please be kind to each other and stay well.
Anne Cave, Selwyn Community Education Programme Director
Leave a Comment