Hero photograph
 
Photo by Jo Earl

Mask Wearing

Jo Earl —

Staff and children in Years 4 – 13 must wear face coverings when inside at school when we are at Red.

We are extending this to Year 3 because our Paiaka Hub has both of these year groups in it. While we will have some masks available for those children who may forget to bring them to school, these masks should be provided by the parents.

Face coverings

Public health advice is that an appropriate face covering will fit snugly and seal well around facial contours. This can include single use, disposable masks (medical masks) and re-usable fabric masks with three layers.

Don’t worry if you don’t have these specific types of face coverings, as public health experts also say that any face covering is better than no face covering.

For those of you with children who might be reluctant to wear a face covering, there is some helpful advice from Michigan Health, including using simple, specific explanations about why they need to wear a face covering, adults being the role models, providing small rewards for wearing them, bringing face coverings into play such as drawing face coverings on characters in colouring books, or letting them choose/make the mask.

Please note: Our Year 7/8 students must wear a mask on the bus to and from Technology.

Mask Exemptions

There are a small number of our students who have mask exemptions. If this is the case for your child please email this information to Jo Earl, principal@stfrancischch.school.nz, and we will make sure your child is supported and that teachers are aware of the exemption. Students with exemptions are not required to publicly display an exemption card.

Please remember there are a number of reasons that someone might have an exemption and these are not always visible, it is important that we support each other during this time.