Royden Giles receiving his Principal's Awards from Mrs Mortimer.

Tēnā koutou katoa

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou

Kia ora koutou

Thank you for all of your understanding around our changing situation at school. As I have previously said, we are trying really hard to be as least disruptive as we can to our students' learning.

We (our Senior Leadership Team) will continue to monitor the attendance of our staff and we will be in touch with you as soon as we can if we have to make any changes.

COVID updates

Here is a link to helpful resources if you and/or your whānau are unwell and/or isolating

Household contacts testing positive at different times

The Ministry of Health has provided further clarity on when household contacts should isolate.

What does it mean if I am a household contact?

• For households where someone has COVID-19, the Ministry of Health recommends you apply the following guidance.

• If someone becomes a confirmed COVID-19 case, then that case and all other people in their household must isolate for seven days.

• If someone else in the household then tests positive for COVID-19 during those seven days:

• the isolation period for that person only re-sets – that person must isolate for an additional seven days from the day they test positive or symptoms begin

• other household contacts who do not test positive are still able to leave isolation after the original case has completed their seven days isolation.

• For the next 10 days after a household completes seven days isolation, evidence shows that due to their exposure to COVID-19 they are less likely to catch or transmit the virus. This means:

• if someone else in the household tests positive within those 10 days, the whole household will not have to re-isolate, only the positive case

• if someone else in the household tests positive and it has been more than 10 days since the household completed isolation, household contacts should re-isolate along with the new case for seven days.

• Any person who has had COVID-19 within the last 90 days/three months will not need to isolate as a household contact unless they become symptomatic and test positive again. This is because reinfection rates for people who have had COVID-19 are low for the three months after they have the virus.

• Remember, Day 0 for isolation is the day symptoms began or the day the positive test was taken (whichever came first). You should then count your seven days from there.

• ROSTERING HOME for Week 9 is detailed below.

• ANY SENIOR STUDENTS attending the Health & Safety and/or the First Aid courses in Week 9 are to attend.

Great Future Tours

We are still trying to continue to hold different events for our students, obviously following the Red Alert rules. Last week we were fortunate to hold our Great Futures Start Here tour “Tradie vs Trainee” for our Year 10s. Thank you to Tania Washer and her team at West Coast Trades Academy for organising this.

MSA induction at Burnham

Our Māwhera Services Academy were very fortunate to be in Burnham for seven days which we all agree is better than none!

Year 9 Top Team Challenge

This week we have run our Year 9 Top Team Challenge. Thanks to Maddy Crawford and her team of teachers and seniors who are helping out.

Sexwise

We have Sexwise visiting us on Thursday and Friday of Week 8. I have seen them many time before and they are engage our young people in very positive discussions about relationships and sexual health through drama and workshops. I am very much looking forward to seeing them again. https://sexwise.nz/

Vandalism

Recently there has been an increase in vandalism in the student toilets. We know that this is only a minority of students but is having a major effect on our cleaners and ground staff who work extremely hard to keep these open for our students.

We have identified some of the students involved and we are still investigating other damage. If your child has any information please let us know.

Instagram

We also have a new Greymouth High School Instagram account if you would like to follow it (@greymouthhighschool). Harriet Wise has taken on the role of running our school social media, liaising with local news outlets, organising our radio adverts and generally promoting our school.

We also have an Instragam page for Ngā Here Kahikatea (@ghs.ngaherekahikatea), Student Leaders (@ghs.studentleaders) and Arts Department (@ghs.arts).

Weekly Notes

We have discovered that there was a problem with the Kamar Weekly notes. Since week 4 of this term, students have received the same report each week. Kamar have now fixed this issue. Thank you to the parents who noticed and have informed us of this.

New Staff member

We would like to welcome Bram Mishalle to the Technology Department at Greymouth High School. He is going to teach hard materials. Bram has a background as a mechanic and a boat builder and we were are very happy that he is joining us. This week he has been spending time in the Technology department meeting students and doing a handover with the current teachers.

We would like to thank all of the teachers who have taken on classes to support us in the first term of this year until we found an extra technology teacher. Technology teachers are incredibly hard to find and Technology is very popular here at Grey High. We would especially like to thank one of our relievers Catherine Moffitt for taking one of the classes and we really appreciate her support of us at Grey High. We will be emailing you with the new class teachers when we have completed the new timetable.

“Whāea te iti kahurangi - strive for success”

Ngā mihi nui

Samantha Mortimer

Principal