Kia ora 

Government has kept with their cautious approach when responding to COVID-19, and as a result, we will stay at Alert Level 3 for a bit longer. 

We will therefore need to know if your child has had their first or second vaccine dose or is exempted from being vaccinated. This information will be held by us in accordance with the Privacy Act and will only be shared with public health authorities. 

We are therefore getting our data collection system in place and will get in touch with you again very soon.  Please do not respond just yet. 

We are proud of how our community has responded to this outbreak, but the mahi isn’t yet done. Please continue to follow all the alert level requirements including staying at home and getting tested for COVID-19 if you are feeling unwell, and for your own sake and for the health of your whānau, please get vaccinated. I have included some information about vaccinations to support decision making. 

At full Alert Level 3 you legally must stay within your household bubble unless for essential personal movement, including going to work and going to school. 

Our staff on-site will also have been tested for COVID-19 before they get back to work and we are moving toward having 100 percent of our staff vaccinated – so we are all playing our part in keeping our community safe.

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 learning from home through our distance learning programme. 

It is now legally required that we hold a COVID-19 vaccination register for all eligible students and staff.  

If we were to have a case of COVID-19 in our school, public health authorities will want to know if we are a school with a high vaccination rate. This information will then be used as part of the local health authority’s risk assessment. The more highly vaccinated we are (staff and eligible students), the less likely it will be that we will have to close down for a long period of time, or we might not need to close at all. 

We will therefore need to know if your child has had their first or second vaccine dose or is exempted from being vaccinated. This information will be held by us in accordance with the Privacy Act and will only be shared with public health authorities. 

We are therefore getting our data collection system in place and will get in touch with you again very soon.   

We are proud of how our community has responded to this outbreak, but the mahi isn’t yet done. Please continue to follow all the alert level requirements including staying at home and getting tested for COVID-19 if you are feeling unwell, and for your own sake and for the health of your whānau, please get vaccinated. I have included some information about vaccinations to support decision making. 

These are the very best things we can do to keep our community as safe as possible and get everyone back to school.

Ngā mihi nui
Dr Brian Evans
ONZM
BA, Dip Tch, MEd, PhD
Principal