January 25, 2022
Kia ora koutou
As you will be aware the government has announced Aotearoa New Zealand’s shift to the red traffic light setting as a means of slowing the spread of Omicron. Under the red traffic light setting schools and Kura remain open for students, however, there are increased public health guidelines to improve safety for the whole community. We are really looking forward to seeing our community and giving students the opportunity to engage in ‘normal’ school life as much as possible. This is a great time of the year as the weather means we can take advantage of Education Outside the Classroom, the Climate Action Campus and other resources around the city – so it will be great to see students, staff and whānau taking advantage of the whole range of learning opportunities.
We will be in touch next week, closer to the start date, with more detail around what the red traffic light guidelines will look like in our context at Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery. We are working with the Ministry of Education and as a staff to fine-tune this over the next few days. Here is the link to the guidelines School life at Red
In the meantime, we can advise that the guidelines state that all students who are Year 4 and older, staff and visitors must wear masks indoors and when in close contact with others. All students aged 12 and up must wear face coverings on public transport. We are aware that this will be new for our younger students, so we would encourage you to start talking to your children about mask-wearing so they are prepared when they attend school.
We are able to hold our IEMs on Tuesday 1 February and Wednesday 2 February so please do book in a time at schoolinterviews.co.nz You will need to wear masks at the IEM and sign in for contact tracing.
We are unable to hold our Mihi Whakatau on Tuesday 8 February – instead, we will have Home Base and run our normal timetable on that day. We will hold a smaller Mihi Whakatau at our new student and new staff transition day on Thursday 27 January.
We have been in touch with the company who installed and manage our ventilation system. We are fortunate to have a new system that monitors CO2 levels and automatically adjusts the required amount of outside air to keep the air changes at the correct level. We can manually adjust this as required. The outside air is filtered and the exhaust air is extracted through sterilising filters. This process is continuous throughout the school day.
All adults working with the students are now required to have a booster shot. For our parent help this must happen by March 1st or 183 days after your second vaccination. Here is the link to book your booster shot or to book a vaccination for your child or to find a walk in clinic Book My Vaccine.
We will continue to keep in touch with whānau as we work our way through the guidelines. But in the meantime don’t hesitate to contact your child’s Home Base Learning Advisor or Community Leader if you have any questions.
Ngā mihi nui
Anita