Update 2/05/2020

Kia ora koutou

We wanted to give you a quick update on how we are doing under Alert Level 3.

Our distance learning is working well. While it will certainly have challenges for you at home, balancing work and care for your children, we are getting a lot of great feedback too. It is exciting to see the innovation that has been happening and some brilliant videos and photos have been coming through of what our students, families and whānau have been up to at home.

We were also excited to be able to reopen our premises for staff and students onsite this week and look forward to welcoming more of you in person very soon.

We also just wanted to provide some reassurance that our school is a safe place for your child to be and safe for our staff too.

We have closely followed the public health measures that have been put in place for Alert Level 3.  These were set by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education to minimise spread in the unlikely event that someone in our community is confirmed with COVID-19.

This means our small school bubbles are in place, our staff and students are staying 1 metre apart inside and 2 metres outside, our cleaning programme fully aligns with Health guidance, only essential visitors are coming into school.

We have hand sanitiser in classrooms and lots of reminders to students and staff to undertake good hygiene practices such as good cough and sneeze etiquette, and washing hands frequently. Most importantly, the children on site are enjoying being back with their peers, even though it is in quite a different way.

Just to remind you also that COVID-19 is not an illness that impacts heavily on children and young people.  An article by Dr Gary Payinda in the NZ Herald highlights this:

• The young are less likely to get infected, less likely to get seriously ill, and less likely to spread the infection to others.
• When kids are affected, the illness is almost always mild. Luckily, unlike flu or many other infectious diseases, children with Covid are not super-spreaders.
• Covid’s not measles or chickenpox; it doesn’t hang in the air for hours waiting to infect passers-by. It travels on invisible drops of spit. You don’t have to cross the street to avoid anyone. Just avoid getting in their ‘moist breath’ zone.
• Make hand hygiene a habit – more than being scared of runners passing by, touching groceries, or standing in queues at the supermarket, we should be afraid of our own hands.

You will also be interested to know there have been no confirmed instances of a person with COVID-19 who never developed symptoms spreading the virus. For more information on how COVID-19 is spread go to the Ministry of Health website.

Staying home if sick, physical distancing, good hand hygiene, not touching your face, good cough/sneeze etiquette and regular cleaning of high-touch surfaces minimises any potential spread of the virus, if we were to have a case in our community. Our school’s health and safety system is all set up to ensure this happens.

Please get in touch if you have any questions, including about our health and safety management for children, staff and visitors coming onsite.

Ngā mihi

(this is a template letter from the Ministry of Education)