Yesterday, the Prime Minister advised that in Alert Level 2 schools are safe environments for tamariki and staff and that additional public health control measures are in place to prevent the spread of disease and to support contact tracing.

The good news is that when we are able to, we will be ready to welcome all tamariki and staff back to our kura site. It is highly likely that all tamariki and staff will start back together on Monday May the 18th however I will not confirm this until after Monday's announcement. 

The key Public Health approach is to minimise the risk that someone gets infected in the first place, and second to ensure we can identify and contact anyone who has been in close contact with a person, if someone in a kura is infected.

As we have done in Alert Level 3, you can be assured that in Alert Level 2 we will know who is at kura, who our staff and ākonga have been in close contact with and take appropriate measures to keep everyone safe.

Physical distancing is a good precaution to prevent the spread of disease. We do however know it is challenging in kura, so good hygiene practices and regular cleaning are even more important here. This includes staff and ākonga coughing into their elbows, hand washing and drying and regular cleaning of commonly touched surfaces.

Under Alert Level 2, we advise any ākonga and staff to stay at home if they are sick, and we will send anyone home immediately if they show any symptoms.

Our kura has safe and sensible practices to maintain the health and safety of everyone on the kura site. As described by Dr Payinda in his NZ Herald article, “Covid's not measles or chickenpox, it doesn't hang in the air for hours waiting to infect passers-by. It travels on invisible drops of spit. You don't have to cross the street to avoid anyone. Just avoid getting in their 'moist breath' zone”. We all just need to remember to have some breathing space at Alert Level 2!

It’s important however that not just at kura but at home, safe hygiene habits are practised by everyone, as this is essential to minimise the risk that someone gets infected with Covid-19.

For more information about the public health measures at Alert Level 2, you can visit the covid19.govt.nz website: https://covid19.govt.nz/

If you have any questions about our health and safety plan, or have a child who might be vulnerable to serious illness and would like to discuss a plan for them, please contact me.

We will be in touch again after Monday 11th May's announcement to update you on our plans however you can count on us to continue our distance learning for now. This means that we will continue with our school wide mahi on our Tuahiwi Facebook page and the classroom facebook pages. 

Please join us for karakia on zoom on Monday morning 9.30am. The link is posted on our Tuahiwi School fb page and emailed to all whānau that have supplied us with a current email address. 

Take care over the weekend e hoa mā. 

Ngā mihi

Mel