Further update re: COVID 19

The information below in italics is from the Ministry of Education, with my added comments (not in italics).

With yesterday’s announcement by Government, we are implementing with urgency our plan to support your child’s learning from home. We appreciate this is a sudden and significant change, and will be heavily disruptive to many people in our community.

For children of essential workers, we look forward to seeing your child here at school tomorrow morning at 9.00am. You may wish to check if you are considered an essential worker – https:// covid19.govt.nz/government-actions/covid-19-alert-system/ however those roles include doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and police. We continue to ask that children who are not well, do not attend school.

For all other children, we will be supporting their learning from your home in the following ways: – through online learning
– provision of a learning pack for the remainder of the week
– teachers will be contacting their class through Google Classrooms, Class dojo and or individual email.

If there are any issues for your child please contact the teacher through the same methods that teachers will contact you.

I will be available if you ring/text school today and tomorrow and will inform you how to contact me once school is closed.

Please regularly check the school FaceBook page and website for further updates.

If you need to have your child cared for by someone else you will need to identify that person or people as part of your self-isolated group. This will need to be done by midnight Wednesday and the group must remain the same for the whole 4 week period. The caregiver’s own group (eg, their partner and children), your child and your own group (eg, your parents and other children) become one group. This group needs to be limited to minimise any risk of spread and should be no more than 20 people.

Your child will be looking to you for guidance about this decision. Parents, caregivers, whānau and teachers will have a particularly important part to play in reassuring children at this time. If you haven’t already done so, you may wish to read the information put together by the Ministry of Education to support your conversations with your children – Talking to children about COVID-19

As noted by the Prime Minister these restrictions are our best chance to slow the virus in New Zealand and to save lives. We all have a clear role here to slow the spread of COVID-19.

We will continue to communicate with you over the coming days. Thank you for your ongoing support of our school staff and school community.

Please observe the rules that have been put in place and keep your whanau and our community safe

Kia kaha Ngā mihi nui

Robyn Forsyth Principal