As you will be aware, today we moved to Phase 3. The key change being that at Phase 3, only household contacts of confirmed cases are required to self-isolate. The isolation period will be 10 days. All other contacts of COVID-positive people are not required to isolate, but they will need to monitor for symptoms.

esAlthough it is important to maintain the vast majority of health and safety measures the restrictions at break times can now be removed as well as the tight measures of groupings in classes. 

The rationale for the original parameters were based on:

• Contact tracing purposes
• Alignment with other schools and lessons learnt from schools who worked through a positive case to identity close contacts
• Minimising disruption caused by the isolating of close contacts.

Rationale for change.

• No requirement for identifying close contracts
• For students to access a wider groups of friend and companions from other teams. 
• Freedom to explore the school and access to wider playground opportunities and interact with teachers to build positive relationships.

We will be monitoring confined spaces closely and limiting numbers where required and grouping in area such as the Library. 

Processes and precautions will stay in place for staff to avoid disruption that could be caused by the spread of covid.

Of relevance in the media research from New South Wales about their recent Omicron outbreak shows that spread within the school setting is very low (less than 4% of cases at school infected someone else when at school). This is also the case in New Zealand.