Tena koutou katoa – Hello Everyone I hope you, and all your whānau have been able to ready yourselves for this quick move to Alert Level 4.

We are now all in Alert Level 4 which means that our school will not be open for the next three days for any students. This follows someone being identified with COVID-19 and who has been in the Auckland and Coromandel communities while believed to be infectious.

It is really important we do everything we can to keep our community safe. Alert Level 4 means we need to stay home in our bubbles and avoid any travelling as much as possible. Supermarkets, pharmacies, foodbanks and other essential services will be open – but remember to wear a face covering if you are out and about (even a scarf wrapped around your mouth and nose will help). Check in using the NZ COVID Tracer App wherever you go and please also keep a distance from people you don’t know and wash your hands well and often, especially before and after using any public facilities.

From 11:59pm tonight, we are not able to access any resources or devices from school, and there is no exemption process to allow us to do so. This means many children will not have devices at home, and we are not able to distribute devices or hard packs at this stage. The Ministry of Education will advise us when we can safely go into school. 

Our learning from home plan will be put into action over the next few days. Our experience from last year means we are confident in our systems and if required, will be able to have this in place by the end of the week. Tomorrow your child’s teacher will email to ask about the devices you have available for them to use. On Thursday, teachers will be in contact, via email, to give you some ideas for home learning activities. These will be similar to last year while we wait to find out more about how long we can expect to be in lock down. Here is the link to Home Learning TV which may be useful over the next few days. 

Please go to the Ministry of Health website if you have been in Auckland or the Coromandel region, recently. There is a list of locations the confirmed case has visited while they were considered to be infectious. If you were at one of those locations and at the same time as specified on the website, then please follow the relevant instructions to isolate and potentially to get tested. Please keep checking that webpage as new locations may be identified over time. 

Our focus as always will be to support the learning, safety and wellbeing of our children / tamariki and we continue to be here to support you as well. 

Please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s teacher or me, if there is something you need assistance with. 

Noho ora mai – stay well 

Sue Elley 

Tumuaki – Principal