Hero photograph
 
Photo by Daniel Wilson

Covid-19 Update, School Closed

Daniel Wilson —

From Tuesday 24 March, Nayland College will be closed for most students.

Dear parents/caregivers

With today’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, you may wish to send your child to school tomorrow.  These students will be supervised in the library.  You may wish to check if you are considered an essential worker -  however those roles include doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and police. We continue to ask that students who are not well, do not come on site.

The government has changed the school holiday dates to fit around the four week lock-down period.  In summary:

  • For the remainder of this week (Tuesday 24 – Friday 27 March) there is an expectation that if at all possible students will be required to work from home.
  • From next week we will technically be in ‘holiday’ mode (30 March – 14 April).
  • From the 15-22 April students will be expected to be engaged in distance learning.
  • From April 23 school may resume as usual, however this date may yet be pushed out further.

Online learning

We will be supporting their learning from home using the Microsoft platform as our main communication tool.  Teachers will be emailing their students over the coming few days with instructions on how to access their set work.  They will provide a range of tasks, including possible live chat and/or video conference features, that mimic the classroom environment as much as possible. 

Some teachers are available tomorrow to collect resources and set work from classrooms or the Student Centre.  These teachers will contact their students directly. 

It is expected that students spend the same amount of time on each subject as they would do in school, usually 3-4 hours per week.

Laptops for families

We have a limited number of laptops that we are able to issue to families to assist with online learning.  We regrettably advise that we are limited to one device per family.  We ask that, if possible, you ask family and friends if they have a computer available for your child to borrow.  If not, the library will be open from 10:00am-1:00pm tomorrow to issue devices to students.  If you do not have home internet some service providers are now offering unlimited 4G data tethering to assist families.  Please contact your provider for more information.  

Library books

We are opening the library from 10:00am - 1:00pm tomorrow for students that wish to borrow a library book.  If you are coming on site please ensure physical distancing. 

School transport

All busses have now ceased running until school resumes again.

International students

Our international team will continue to support our students as best they can in the current situation. Please spare a thought for these young people who are stuck on the other side of the world during this difficult time.

Isolation groups

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. 

Ngā mihi nui


Daniel Wilson
Principal