Kia ora koutou,

Welcome back everyone. I trust you all had a wonderful holiday season with your families. The rain over the weekend was a welcome relief to many I'm sure. Staff are excited to be back in routine again and the students are refreshed and ready to learn.

A special welcome to our all of our 54 new students. Well done on making a great start to school and being so resililent. We are very proud of you all.

No doubt you will be aware of the COVID cases at Te Mata School which were announced yesterday. As a result of these cases, I understand two classes of students have been identified as close contacts and are now self isolating at home. When cases do arise at HNPS, we will be supported by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. It is likely that we will have classes of students and teachers needing to isolate for periods of time. Online learning will kick into gear should this happen.

In the meantime, please monitor yourselves and your family for symptoms and keep tamariki home if they are unwell. Please remind them about good hand hygiene, cough and sneeze etiquette and avoidance of face touching.

Who is a Close Contact

You are a Close Contact if you have had contact with a person with COVID-19 when they were infectious. Close Contacts are at higher risk of getting COVID-19.

You are a Close Contact in the following situations.

If you live with someone who is positive.

If you have been close (within 1.5 metres) to someone who is positive:

• for more than 15 minutes and
• they were not wearing a mask or not wearing it properly.

If you have had direct contact with someone who is positive. For example:

• kissing
• sharing a cigarette, vape or drink bottle
• if the person coughed or sneezed directly on you.

If you spent time in an indoor space with someone who is positive for more than 1 hour and at least one of the following:

• they were singing, shouting, smoking, vaping, exercising, or dancing
• they were not wearing a mask or it was not on properly
• it was poorly ventilated
• it was smaller than 100m2 (about 3 double garages).

Secondary contacts — if you live with a Close Contact

You are considered a secondary contact if a household member is a Close Contact and they have been asked to isolate.

If you are a secondary contact you should stay at home until the Close Contact returns a negative day 5 test result.

If the Close Contact develops symptoms after a day 5 negative test, secondary contacts should stay home again until a further negative test result is returned.

If one or more household members of the Close Contact develop symptoms they should:

• get a test
• stay home until they get a negative test result and
• it has been 24 hours without symptoms.

The Administration block and staffroom upgrade is on track to be completed by the end of this month which is exciting news. Carpets are down, autex is nearly complete and we are just waiting on sub-contractor work to be completed

Have a fantastic week everyone

Ngā mihi

Nick Reed

Principal

February

14th -Woolbox at School

17th Board Mtg 5:30pm

18th Art Deco Dress up

21st Home and School mtg 7:30pm

23rd Year 3-6 Swimming Sports

March

7th-11th Year 5 & 6 Camps

16th/17th Learning Conferences

18th Teacher Only Day

April

14th - Term 1 ends

May

2nd - Term 2 begins