As from today, the new COVID-19 Protection Framework (CPF) replaces the previous Alert Level system.

Schools are no longer required to maintain a student vaccine register and, under the new CPF system, all children and young people can continue to attend onsite at school at any setting (Red, Orange, or Green) regardless of their vaccination status.

Now that we are operating under the CPF system, our kura will face a new set of requirements when contracting staff, or using facilities across a range of offsite activities, in particular, our Education Outside the Classroom (EOTC) programmes and sporting activities. In these situations, external providers may choose to implement the requirement of vaccination certificates and our kura has no influence in their decisions. This will have implications for any student eligible for vaccination who does not have a vaccine pass (or similar evidence of vaccination).

Our staff have been very proactive in recent weeks by contacting organisations daily, such as Department of Conservation, Wellington Regional Council, and Interislander to provide our community with any information or advance warning of vaccination mandates. Unfortunately, all these organisations were in the process of reviewing their guidelines and were not forthcoming with any information relating to timelines or vaccination requirements. We received the relevant information from most of these organisations by nationwide press releases this week.

Our staff are meeting early next week to focus on the ramifications of the vaccination requirements across a range of school activities, including the camps at the start of next year. We will update the school community with further information later next week