Kia ora Whānau

We hope you and your households are managing well during these extremely challenging times. We continue to be so grateful to our St Thomas’ community in meeting the requirements of Covid-19. We thank you so much for your support at this time.

Currently, our staff numbers remain stable. We sent out some communication earlier in the term for a situation where this would change. If we were to lose a large number of staff in a small-time frame to Covid-19 isolation we would move to a hybrid situation. This would mean different year groups would be required to work from home on specific days (we would communicate this to you). In doing this we would be able to safely manage staff and student numbers on-site. Our under 14 year old students are our priority to remain on-site.

Our staff are continuing to be present during the timetabled class times to allow your son access to them if working from home.

We will continue to reflect what is going on in Canterbury with many cases in our College. We are in the best possible place to deal with this and will continue to do our upmost to keep the College open and operational.

Returning to school from isolation:
Please note: From 11:59pm Friday 11 March the isolation period reduced from 10 to 7 days. 

See attached posters for MOH advice on self isolation.

Day 0 is the day that your symptoms started or the day that you tested positive, if you did not have any symptoms. From there count the days until Day 7. 

If your son is isolating with Covid-19 and still has symptoms after 7 days, he is advised to stay home until 24 hours after symptoms resolve.

If your son is a household contact, once he reaches Day 7 he needs to be symptom free and have a negative Day 7 RAT test in order to return to school the following day.

If others in the household have contracted Covid-19 during this time this DOES NOT reset the 7 days for your son if he has completed his time, returned a negative test and is symptom free.

If you are seeking any further clarity on this please check https://covid19.govt.nz/isolation-and-care/how-to-self-isolate/#when-you-have-covid-19.

Nga mihi

Paul Burton
Assistant Principal