What you need to know under the orange light.

Kia ora koutou,

You’ll be aware that Minister of Education Chris Hipkins has announced the move to Orange at 11:59pm last night.

I wanted to give you an update on what the move to Orange means for our school.

At Orange, face masks are no longer required at school. However public health advice is that masks continue to be strongly encouraged when indoors. Wearing a mask is a key health measure that slows the spread of COVID-19 in indoor settings. For that reason, we ask that visitors to the school, including parents and whānau, wear a mask whenever they are indoors on school grounds.

We also ask that your child (if they are Year 4+) continues to bring a mask to school every day. There may be times that we’ll ask them to wear a mask, too – for example, when we are having an assembly in the hall. If there are a high number of cases at school or in the community, we may ask that masks are worn in classrooms for a time.

We will continue to keep all the other health measures in place at school that we know slow the spread of COVID-19. These include ensuring our indoor spaces are well-ventilated, maintaining good hand hygiene and cough and sneeze etiquette, appropriate physical distancing whenever we can and, most importantly, staying home if we are sick.

We are looking forward to a few less restrictions and returning to school life that is a bit closer to normal.

Ngā mihi,

Chris