You will have seen information in the weekly newsletter and in emails directly to school parents regarding the public health guidelines required in schools.

We have had generally fantastic support from our parents and from our students supporting these and adhering to them. We really appreciate that support. Our young people are showing a huge amount of rangatiratanga.

The purpose of the guidelines is to enable schools to operate as safely as possible in the COVID environment and to protect the health of all those within the school, adults and students alike. They also serve to help us keep our school open and operational for as long as possible and, hopefully, continuously. We have an added employer responsibility regarding the health and safety of our workforce. The need to adhere to these requirements is further highlighted with the infectiousness of the omicron variant. You would appreciate that the school is potentially at risk of a large outbreak with 1300 plus people on site every day were we not to adhere to these public health measures.

All parents want their young people protected as far as possible and I am sure you all want the school open and available for as long as possible. Therefore, we will adhere firmly to the requirements and thank you for supporting us in that. A key public health measure (not only in schools) is if sick or symptomatic stay at home and get tested.

Students are being sent home from school if they arrive symptomatic as are staff. You are required to come and collect them if asked to as soon as practically possible. This is for the benefit of all and is not negotiable. Please, if a staff member contacts you, in regards to this, we expect our staff to be treated respectfully and for you to respond and collect the student. I know this is not an easy time for all of us but we need to support each other.

I suggest that if the student has an ongoing health condition which produces covid-like symptoms that you ask your doctor to write a letter or certificate to provide to us so that we can all manage that in the best way. Please email pwl@cghs.school.nz in regards to that situation.

Our parent community and our students are to be congratulated on support for mask wearing and public health measures in our school. Let’s draw on that as we work our way through this so we can keep the school open for all our students to benefit for as long as possible, or continuously, through the omicron outbreak.

Warm regards

Christine O’Neill