MONDAY 18 MAY - Safe and open for everyone
Kia ora koutou,
Welcome back to all our students, parents and staff under Alert Level 2 on Monday, 18 May. I thank you very much for your co-operation and support of our students and staff as we all wrestled with learning and teaching effectively in the remote world. It is great to see that after the last few weeks of everybody working together we now enter the completely safe position of having nearly all our students and staff members back at school.
Please note that all Year levels and all students will be able to begin school again from Monday, 18 May – our fully normal timetable and break times will be followed.
At the same time, we will be following all Public Health requirements for schools under Alert Level 2. Particular areas of focus are:
Sick students should stay at home. If a sick student comes to school, we will ask parents to collect the students from the Student Centre.
Everybody needs to be far enough away from each other so that they are not breathing on or touching each other. Good hygiene practices (coughing into your own elbow, handwashing and drying) and regular cleaning of commonly touched surfaces will be carried out.
Large bottles of hand sanitisers, surface sanitisers and cleaning multi-cloths are placed in every classroom in the school and in common areas throughout the school. Student bathroom areas and drinking fountains will be cleaned regularly throughout the day by support staff. I recommend that your son or daughter brings a bottle of water to school every day and also a small hand sanitiser (if possible).
All surfaces will be disinfected and cleaned daily.
Accurate contact tracing registers continue to be maintained every day to identify which students and adults are on site. If you visit our school you must sign into the main Reception area or the Student Centre – no exceptions.
As well as the essential information above, I have the following important information to share with you:
All students will need to bring their chromebooks to school again from Monday.
Normal school bus services are running again from Monday.
There will be a one week transition period for the change-over from summer uniform to winter uniform during 18 May to 22 May. Please see our uniform supplier – ‘Andersons’ (Victoria Avenue) – or check out our main school Facebook page for more details.
There will not be any House or Year level assemblies for at least the first two weeks after Monday.
The school canteen will be open from Tuesday, 19 May. Students will need to bring a packed lunch on Monday.
We all look forward to seeing your children again in our classes and catching up with you over the next few weeks.
Nga mihi nui,
Martin McAllen
Principal
Whanganui High School
13/5/20