Kia ora

The quick move to Level 4, record volumes of testing for COVID in the community, extensive wastewater testing, huge numbers of New Zealanders being vaccinated (more than 2 million people have now received their first dose), and a very wide net being cast around confirmed cases, has given Government confidence that we are safe to move to Alert Level 3 on Wednesday.

At Alert Level 3, you legally must stay within your household bubble unless for essential personal movement including going to work and going to school. As the Prime Minister noted on Friday, schools are essentially closed at Alert Level 3 with the exception of those few children whose parents and carers must go to work at Alert Level 3, and there is no appropriate caregiver at home. Year 11 – 13 students are legally required to stay learning from home.

So we will be open on Wednesday, for a small number of children who need to attend. As you imagine it will not be school as we know it under Alert Level 2 or 1. All our usual safety precautions for Alert Level 3 will be in place which include following all the recommendations from the public health experts. This means we will regularly clean and disinfect high touch surfaces, encourage everyone to frequently wash their hands and cover their coughs and sneezes, and keep everyone physically distanced from others as much as possible (1 metre inside and two metres outside). We will also keep school bubbles to no more than 10 students. These bubbles will not mix with other bubbles.

Our contact tracing systems will be in place, which includes our attendance register and visitor register, and we will be limiting staff onsite with the majority of our team working from home.

You can also assist everyone’s safety by keeping your child at home if they are feeling unwell and please do contact your GP or Healthline, to seek advice about getting tested.

We will continue to support all children who remain learning from home, through our distance learning programme.

While we know how difficult it is trying to work from home as well as support your child’s learning, please keep your child at home if there is an appropriate carer available. For those of you with no other option, we will look forward to seeing your child at school on Wednesday. Please note: We only have the staff capacity on site for those people who have responded to the Level 3 questionnaire that was sent out via the school app, Hero and our newsletter programme. Parents/caregivers and students who did not respond to the questionnaire and turn up on Wednesday, will not be able to come on site or will be returned home until the correct procedure (filling in the form) has been followed as we will need to organise more staff.

It was pleasing to hear that across New Zealand compliance is high. As you have been doing, please continue to follow all the alert level requirements. It is the best tool we have to keep our community safe.

Stay home, stay safe and be kind. We look forward to seeing your faces when we hit Level 2!

The access to period products initiative aims to provide free period products to children and young people in all state and state-integrated schools and kura across New Zealand during 2021.

If your Whitney Street School daughter has her period, she is eligible for two packs of free period products per month. These will be available to her by her parent/caregivers letting Christee Dalzell know via email (dalzell@whitneystreet.school.nz) or by leaving a wee note on her desk :-)

Hopefully this initiative is utilised really well by our Whitney kōtiro/girls! It is a brilliant way to save money on the grocery bill.

If you have any questions, please feel free to pop in and talk to Christee.

The performance for our choir students is on the evening of September 22. It is a great experience and an amazing finale with the Combined Schools Choir. If your child is in the choir or you are keen to pop along and see them, please save the date. We will let you know more information when we have it.