COVID-19 UPDATES

Update on Covid @ South Mak

March 16, 2022

Evening family and whanau, The weather truly has made it very pleasant around school for all those able to attend.  Just as an update, alongside our current number of students and families isolating due to Covid we have been informed of a student who was at school today that has

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Principal's Vlogs

Update on Start of Year managing Covid:

January 28, 2022

Friday 28th January Dear Parents, Caregivers and Whānua, There are exciting times ahead. Come Tuesday the 1st of February we will enter another interesting year for education and for our whole community. I have waited to send information about how we will be starting the year until we have the

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COVID19

Covid Plans for the Start of the Year:

Friday 28th January

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Whānua,

There are exciting times ahead. Come Tuesday the 1st of February we will enter another interesting year for education and for our whole community. I have waited to send information about how we will be starting the year until we have the most up-to-date information in our Covid Response Planning.

Facemasks:

From the 3rd of February Facemasks must be worn by staff and students from Year 4- 8 when in the classrooms. 

These will also need to be when on school transport, going to swimming. While it is not required for those under Year 4, this may be a choice you make with your tamariki. We are working on providing learning opportunities throughout the day that enables learning to occur outdoors as we have a wonderful space for this to occur.

Parents on site:

 If you require coming into the school grounds we ask that you follow the requirement of wearing facemasks and use the covid tracer app and scan in. Parents are encouraged to avoid going into the classroom other than to settle your child/children for the day’s learning.

Please try to limit the use of the office area to having one person in the foyer at a time and don’t be offended if we ask you to put a mask on. 

If you have a mask exemption can you please advise us.

Swimming:

At this stage we are still able to continue swimming. Students will be required to wear face masks on school transport. Unless they have an exemption.

Sickness: 

If your child is sick please keep them at home. We appreciate this is hard to do always but rely on your support with this.

Impact on Teachers:

We will always do our best to make sure we have a teacher in front of each class each day. At times our resources may get stretched and we need to split classes. We are working in extraordinary times and are constantly adapting plans to ensure the students have the best people in front of them teaching.

 

Term Dates:

Term 1: Tue 1 Feb – Thu 14 Apr

Term 2: Mon 2 May – Fri 8 Jul

Term 3: Mon 25 Jul – Fri 30 Sep

Term 4: Mon 17 Oct – Wed 14 Dec

TOD: Fri 11 March

 

Nga mihi 

 

Greg Allan

Principal

Vaccination opportunity for Community/ Masks on School Transport

Latest Covid information- Friday 29th October

 

Opportunity for Covid  Vaccinations. On Monday 1st November the Whanganui Health Board will be running a pop-up vaccination centre at South Makirikiri School. This is providing the opportunity for students 12 and over along with anyone in our community to receive vaccinations.

Students 12 and over will need a parent present. Any of the community will be able to stop in the Media Centre from 2:30-5:00 and receive their vaccination. If you know anyone in the community who is wanting to get either their first or second vaccination please let them know that Monday from 2:30 will be available.

 

This is making use of the people resource the WHB have here given some senior students their HPV Year 8 vaccinations. 

 

Masks on Buses:

We have been advised of a review of the wearing of face masks on school buses. The information is as follows.

Students aged 12 and over

 The exemption from wearing face coverings for students on school transport has been revoked under the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Health Order.

 This means that everyone 12 years and older legally must wear a face covering on school transport services (both Ministry and regional council-operated) at all alert levels unless they have an exemption.

This includes SESTA, daily, technology, direct resourced, and Māori-medium school transport services. It also includes charter buses hired by schools to transport students and staff. 

 Please note, while the school transport drivers are not required to enforce the wearing of face coverings, they will report any non-compliance to your school’s bus controller (noting that some students may be exempt from face-covering requirements for health and safety reasons). Schools are expected to manage any non-compliance just as they currently manage behavioural issues of school transport users.

 

Students under 12

While we encourage all students to wear face coverings on school transport, students aged under 12 are not required to wear face coverings.

 

From Monday we ask that you help us with this Health order request.

 

We will provide masks for those who forget. 

If your child/children have an exemption please let us know.

Thanks for your support with this.

 

Greg Allan

Pet Day

In light of our current Covid restrictions, we have had some clarity about having gatherings at school.
I have been working with the Ministry of Education guidelines which are as follow:

“As soon as your event or activity brings people onsite who are not there for education purposes, including students, parents and caregivers, then the rules for gatherings do apply, including limits on numbers attending. This would include performances such as school plays, cultural events, and sporting activities.

You’ll need to treat the running of any large programs with strong caution, particularly if there are large numbers of students (and parents and caregivers) involved at the same time. We’d recommend that these types of events are deferred until your school returns to Alert Level 1.”

We are in the position of really wanting to have our pet day go ahead but we will be in the situation that our pet day is open to the community where we are not able to stay under the 100 limit which will also includes our students.

We will enable parents to do the dropping off of animals and will need to schedule times but will not be able to have parents as spectators for the day.

We really would like your feedback on how we can make this work.

Returning to School under Level 2

We are looking forward to Thursday morning and the opportunity to see as many of our tamariki back at school. School will be open from 8:00am and students will be encouraged to use the sanitizer upon entry to school and the classrooms. Any parents coming into school please use the covid tracer app which is displayed around buildings, or sign in at the office. 

Face masks: It remains an option for individuals and a decision for the individuals and whānau. Whatever decisions students and teachers make, it is their own to make and needs to be respected.  Where an individual chooses to use a face-covering they should supply and wear their own, and to do so safely. This option applies to younger children too.
 
Public health advice for those under six is getting children to cough and sneeze into their elbow and wash and dry hands. The use of masks is permitted but not actively encouraged. 

School Buses: 

School transport returns to normal operations under Alert Level 2.
Face coverings
Face coverings are not required on school transport. 
Anyone who chooses to wear a face covering in any setting should be supported to do so. Face coverings are not required on school buses because schools know who is on school transport and have good systems in place to identify potential close contacts.
 
Any student who is unwell should not travel on a school bus.

Devices: Can all school devices be returned to the boxes provided outside Room 6 so we can give them a clean before they go back into the classrooms.

Water bottles: We encourage students to have a named drink bottle as the water fountains will not be operating. These will be able to be filled in classrooms.

Sickness: Please if your child is sick keep them at home. If your child comes to the office complaining of sickness we appreciate your support, coming and collecting them as soon as practical.

There will be more information around production and pet day arrangements once we have had a chance to come up with some solutions tomorrow. 

Thank you again for the amazing support for our tamariki and if we can support you in any way please let us know.

 

 
 

 

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Term Dates 2024

Term 1: Wed 31 Jan – Fri 12 Apr
Term 2: Mon 29 Apr – Fri 5 Jul
Term 3: Mon 22 Jul – Fri 27 Sep
Term 4: Mon 14 Oct – Tue 17 Dec

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