Kia ora koutou - Well done to our students and community. We have successfully navigated through a challenging week for everyone. We are very pleased how well our students have responded to the wearing of the face masks. Fortunately the weather has played its part in allowing the learning to be taken outdoors, and windows to be opened for ventilation.

TRAFFIC LIGHT SYSTEM: A NEW SCHOOL WEBSITE:

We have added an extra page to our website where we will put all our updates, and other news relating to Covid for easy access. Please refer to this page regularly for the latest updates.

RED LEVEL GUIDELINES

We strongly urge all parents/caregivers to read our Red Level Guidelines.

NPS COVID RESPONSE STAGES

We are currently drafting our response plan should Covid run rapid within our community, which will be shared with you asap. 

• The overarching consideration will be given to the safety of students and staff, and whether the school will be able to function on limited staff, in extreme cases.

• Staff, in consultation with the board, will shift to Stage 2 due to high absences (students and staff).

• The board, in consultation with staff, will make the decision to switch over to home learning (Stage 3) should it no longer be possible to run school-based learning programmes.

• The Ministry of Education will instruct schools to shut down (Stage 4) in the event of a regional/local or national pandemic event.

CHANNEL YOUR CONCERNS TO THE RIGHT PLACE, I.E. THE SCHOOL

• Our staff team has successfully managed the school through 2 rounds of lockdowns. And the current Red level will be no different.

• Our guidelines are developed from the information we receive from the MOH/MOE. It is our responsibility to understand them and apply them to our unique context.

• Social media is not the appropriate medium to answer your queries. It often causes panic and hysteria amongst our community. In most cases, the answer lies at school.

• If you do have any queries or concerns, please get in touch with me immediately (principal@ngatea.school.nz). Should we not be able to answer your query, we will take it further to the MOE/MOH.

Once again, with your individual and our community’s continued support to our school, staff and Board, we will be able to navigate our way through the challenges lying ahead. We’ve done this before.

Ngā mihi nui

Neil