Mōrena e te whānau – yes, it’s me again!
Hei te Rāhina – happy Monday to you all,
At the risk of filling your inbox with messages, I wanted to update you on our planned school COVID response regarding positive cases.
As at 11 am this morning we have 2 new confirmed cases of Omicron – this total includes students and staff across the whole school. The classes of the students concerned will be contacted directly.
Some students and staff have been/are absent because they have been/are unwell.
It does not mean they have been/are a positive case.
Our parents have been extremely vigilant and are automatically keeping children at home when necessary. This has significantly minimised the risk of infection for us at school to date. Ngā mihi ki a koutou katoa.
Just to remind you of our agreed process at school when we have a positive case:
• the school notifies the Ministry of Education (MoE) who are tracking events with the Ministry of Health (MoH)
• we send a general notification to the whole school, via email
• we send a more specific notification to the class concerned, via email
• the infected individual must NOT be identified by us
• we will continue to notify you about positive cases until there are too many to deal with individually.
Tino waimarie tātou hoki – so far, we have been lucky. However, we are predicting our number of infections will ramp up in the next few weeks.
Please continue to keep your children at home if you or they are unwell or may be infectious.
Please get tested and keep the school informed. Thank you for all you are doing to keep us safe.
It is also worth noting that we now have a crew of prepared relief teachers for kindergarten through to upper school. Of course, these teachers may need to isolate too at some point, but at least you know we have a pool of professionals ready, in case.
In addition, our vital support staff teams from cleaners to admin, also have teams ready to step into their work if required. I am very grateful for their flexibility and care for all of us.
As I reassured you before, we have systems in place ready if necessary for partial or even whole school closure.
This includes pre-prepared lower school learning packs and materials/or online learning (for older students) and an agreed single platform of delivery.
Our kaiako have invested a great deal of time to avoid the messiness learners experienced in the previous lock down. Home learning is not our chosen option, but we anticipate that it will be more consistent this time, if required.
Of course, no one will know how this will play out, but I wanted to reassure you we are doing as much as we can.
Remember to check the school website for our after-hours number to text if you need to report a COVID case.
Our school plans and MoH and MoE guidelines are also on our school website, too.
Let us continue our journey together, as a united family – whānau tahi.
And remember, this will pass.
Kia kaha e hoa mā, nā Caroline
Caroline Gray (she/her/Ms)
Tumuaki
Te Kura o Rudolf Steiner i Ōtautahi | Christchurch Rudolf Steiner School
P 03 337 0514 | M 022 500 1705