Health & Safety in

Upon entering school and before entering any classroom students must sanitise their hands.

Students will wash and dry their hands regularly, including every time they leave the classroom, at their assigned sinks.

Hand sanitiser will be placed inside each building entry door and in each classroom.

The policy of 'coughing and sneezing into your elbow' will be strenuously encouraged.

After each learning block, teachers will use disinfectant wipes to clean tabletops, door handles and other surfaces that are frequently touched.

At the end of each day, the school will be thoroughly cleaned by Crest Cleaning staff.

The school has changed the timetable of the day to allow for shorter learning periods and more break time. There will be two fifteen minute breaks at 10:00 am and 11:45 am followed by a 40 minute lunch break at 12.30.

Each class has a dedicated area for eating and will be rostered onto a play area for their exclusive use to prevent intermingling of classes.

On wet days, breaks will be staggered with students eating on covered verandahs to allow for students to leave their classroom and allow the space to ventilate.

As a precaution in case the school has to close and to prevent rodent growth, all students will put all food scraps and rubbish back into their lunchbox for disposal at home.

Whilst students are allowed to use the water fountains we recommend students bring their own water bottle from home. During the day this can be refilled as needed.

There will be no lunches supplied by Te Hihi Autocourt.

During the break time, the teachers will be sanitising tabletops, door handles and other surfaces that are frequently touched.

Under the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Health Order, it’s a legal requirement that all students from Year 4 wear a face covering when they are inside at school unless they have an exemption.

As Taylor is a composite Year 3 & 4 class, students in Year 3 are requested to also wear a mask. Students below Year 3 can wear a mask if they wish.

When wearing their mask, students and staff must make sure the mask fits their face properly and covers their nose and chin all the time. Public health advice is that an appropriate face mask will fit snugly and seal well around facial contours including the nose. This can include single use, disposable masks (medical masks) and re-usable fabric masks with three layers.

Don’t worry if you don’t have these specific types of face mask, as public health experts also say that any face mask is better than no face mask.

The Unite Against COVID-19 website also has information on how to make a face mask.

For those of you with children who might be reluctant to wear a face mask, there is some helpful advice from Michigan Health, including using simple, specific explanations about why they need to wear a face mask, adults being the role models, providing small rewards for wearing them, bringing face masks into play such as drawing face masks on characters in colouring books, or letting them choose/make the mask.

Students who forget to bring their mask will be issued a paper mask for the day.

Mask wearing is compulsory for students in Tear 4 and above who ride the school bus and strongly encouraged for all other students.

Being summer, all classrooms windows and doors will be open to get as much fresh air in the classroom as we can. Each learning space also has fans to assist with air circulation.

Shortly the Ministry will provide the school with a CO2 monitor to monitor the freshness of the air in the classrooms.

Teachers will be also using outdoor areas for teaching to reduce the amount of time students are indoors.

If a child or staff member is sick, they should stay home (phone Healthline or their GP and get tested if a doctor or health professional recommends them to do so). The best principle for all of us to work by at present is if you are sick, you've got covid until a test proves otherwise.

Staff will observe students on arrival checking for symptoms and ask those presenting as unwell to go home or arrange for parents and caregivers to come and pick up.

Please arrange an emergency contact to collect your child if they are sick if you work more than 15 minutes from the school.

Principals at state and state-integrated schools have authority to preclude a student from attending if they believe on reasonable grounds they may have a communicable disease under section 77 of the Education and Training Act 2020.

Vulnerable people

Vulnerable students should, where possible, remain at home and access the distance learning programme.

Movement around the school

All movement of students around the school during learning time is to be supervised by a teacher or teacher aide. When students are moving around the building, they are to wash hands before moving to another section of the school, use the assigned bathrooms with the knowledge of the a teacher, and keep hands and bodies to themselves

Only students in Taylor Learning Space on the top floor of the new classroom block are allowed to go up and down the stairs. No one is allowed to use the elevator unless they physically can't walk up and down the stairs.

Sick Bay

Students are to only access the sick bay for serious illness or injury or in the case of suspected viral infection.

The teachers will contact Birdie Dell or Lisa Burnett to discuss the symptoms the student is displaying and an 'over the phone' assessment will be made. If it is deemed the student is unwell, Birdie or Lisa will contact parents to collect the student. The student will then be sent to the office with their bag.

Isolation Area

To help reduce the potential transmission of the virus between the student and other students or staff. If a student or staff member exhibits symptoms of COVID-19 while at school, they will sit in the school hall where a temporary Isolation Area will be set up. The office staff will call the parent to arrange for immediate pickup of the sick child.

Symptomatic individuals

Students and staff will be required to remain home or will be sent home if they exhibit one of the following symptoms:

• runny nose

• headache

• fatigue

• sneezing

• a sore throat

In the event that a student exhibits symptoms at school, a member of the office staff will call the parent to arrange for immediate pickup.

Students in Blake and Hillary, as a combined class, will use the toilets on the ground floor of the double storey block.

Taylor students will use the High Dependency toilet on the upper floor of the double storey block.

Te Kanawa and Rutherford will use the gender specific toilets behind the old classroom block with monitoring by the teachers that students from different classes aren't using the toilets at the same time.

It is essential hygiene that after using the toilet students and staff wash and dry their hands.

Fulton Swim School lessons will be going ahead on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays starting Wednesday, 2 February.

The school has put a system in place to ensure there is no cross-over of students from one class with another class in the changing rooms.

Given the horrific drowning toll over this summer we strongly encourage all students to fully participate in this programme. Learning to swim is a gift of life.

Outside use of the pool is still available providing covid vaccine passes are provided for all users. Use of the pool by outside users can only take place after 3:30 p.m.

Please contact the office if you wish to access the pool after hours.

Adult to adult and adult to child transmission continues to be the greater risk for Omicron to spread. Therefore, while we are in Red we ask parents to only come on site if the need warrants it.

In the event that a child's parent or caregiver does need to come on site this must be pre-arranged. All parents must wear a mask, scan the QR code for the school, sign in using VisTab and, if they enter a classroom block, scan the QR code for that block.

Where possible, meetings with teachers should be online.

Should parents need to drop anything off to school they are requested to call the office to arrange for one of the office staff to come and collect the item.