You will be aware that Minister of Education Chris Hipkins announced the move to Orange at 11:59pm last night.

The Ministry of Education advises that the decision to move to Orange has been made on public health advice and reflects that we are moving past the peak of cases and our health system is able to cope. They say we are seeing that cases are declining due to high levels of vaccination and natural immunity after infection.

I wanted to give you an update on what the move to Orange means for our school.

At Orange, face masks are no longer required at school. However public health advice is that masks continue to be strongly encouraged in schools when indoors. Wearing a mask is a key health measure that slows the spread of COVID-19 in indoor settings. For that reason, we ask that visitors to the school, including parents and whānau, wear a mask whenever they are indoors on school grounds. I note that over 600 students and 100 staff on site have not yet had covid and masks have been a significant protective factor over the last term.

At Orange, students aged 12 and above are still required to wear a face mask on school or public transport.

We will continue to keep all the other health measures in place at school that we know slow the spread of COVID-19. These include ensuring our indoor spaces are well-ventilated (where possible), maintaining good hand hygiene and cough and sneeze etiquette, appropriate physical distancing whenever we can and, most importantly, staying home if we are sick.

Our school-based approach at Orange will be to return to as much normality as possible with a risk-based assessment approach. For example, we are likely to begin full year level assemblies immediately and return to full school assemblies only after we have run those. This also enables students and staff to adjust to larger gatherings and new mask rules. Open Day is likely to be a blended online and on-site approach but we will advise more on that early next term. There will be opportunities where we continue to retain both an online and in person approach because it offers choice and practicality. For example, parents of junior students will have a choice to undertake parent teacher interviews online or on-site in person.

In terms of mitigating student and staff isolation absence we will have to wait and see what case numbers look like on return. At this stage school will run five days a week per normal for all our students.

We are looking forward to a few less restrictions and returning to school life that is a bit closer to normal.

Best wishes everyone for a happy Easter celebration!

Ngā mihi

Christine O’Neill