Yesterday the Government decided that we will move into Alert Level 3 at 11.59 pm on 31 August 2021.

That means we will be working towards being able to receive students from 1 September 2021. We will start to prepare the site from this Monday.

We are working on how Alert Level 3 will look at St Francis and awaiting guidelines from the Ministry of Education. 

We heard a clear message from the Prime Minster that "at Alert Level 3 schools will effectively continue to be closed for face-to-face learning, other than for the children of parents who need to go to work and have no alternative care options available."

We are currently working through a range of scenarios in preparation for this change to Alert Level 3. As you can imagine there are many things to consider before a school can open to ensure maximum safety and wellbeing within our school bubble.

To help with our planning we need to know how many of our students will be attending school onsite. This option is only for families who cannot care for their children during school hours. This means that school will be available for parents of essential workers and for those who have to return to work and/or who cannot work from home and do not have anyone else to care for their children.

The key message for you is that if you can, you should keep your child at home. You should only physically send your child to school if you need to. If your child has a health condition that means they are at a greater risk of a severe illness you must keep them at home. If your child is sick please also ensure you keep them at home.

Parents and caregivers should ONLY SEND CHILDREN TO SCHOOL IF ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. (This would include if you are an ESSENTIAL SERVICE WORKER or there is NO-ONE ELSE to look after your child at home.)

In order to ensure the safety of those children and our staff who do come to school, we will be operating with strict enforcement of health and safety measures. Click on this link to see how the school will be operating.

https://bit.ly/stfrancisalert3

Please note: Playgrounds are closed. Sports equipment is not able to be used. We must keep children 1 metre apart even if they are in the same bubble. Remember that this is a much more virulent strain that last year and one person gets the virus - everyone will get it.

Please note school will only be open from 8:30 - 3.00pm and there will not be after school or before school care. It will be imperative that you meet these timeframes as teachers will be meeting the students at the gate and handing students over at the gate. No parents will be able to come onsite. More detail in regard to school procedures will be sent home in due course.

We also need to consider the needs of our own staff and their personal circumstances and will most likely have staff based at school and staff based at home to cater for our online learners. Our Distance Learning programme will continue for all students whether at school or at home. Learning at school will not be a normal school day. Children will be placed in whānau groups of up to 10 and will be supervised to complete the online material provided by teachers.

In order to help with the planning for returning to school in Alert Level 3, we need you to complete this form.

We need to get a response from every family before we can make further decisions and communicate our plan of action with our community. Accurate information will help us ascertain numbers for every day of the week and to know who is on the school grounds at any given time. This will help with contact tracing should there be any outbreaks of the virus.

Thanks for filling out this form - Just one response per family is fine!

Ngā mihi nui

Jo