Kia ora koutou,
As you will all be aware, over the weekend further measures were put in place to keep our communities safe.
Travel restrictions remain in place for people arriving from or who have been in mainland China and Iran over the prior 14 days.
All travellers coming from all parts of the world, except parts of the Pacific, will be required to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival in New Zealand. This also includes Australia and French Polynesia. This self-isolation requirement applies to New Zealand citizens, permanent residents and their families.
All travellers coming from the following parts of the Pacific will be required to self-isolate if they show symptoms, within 14 days of arrival.
The new restrictions will be in place for the next two weeks. They will be reviewed on Tuesday 31 March and then every 14 days after that date.
The Ministry of Health further explains for those that have travelled overseas:
If you are in a home where the others who live with you haven’t travelled you should minimise close contact with them by avoiding situations where you have face-to-face contact closer than 2 metres for more than 15 minutes. The other household residents do not need to self-isolate provided these precautions are followed.
As such, we require all students who have travelled overseas and return to New Zealand after 1am on Monday 16th March to self isolate and not attend school for 14 days. Here is a link to further information about self-isolation.
If someone in your household has travelled overseas, but your child/ren have not travelled overseas, our preference is that children living in the same home also self isolate, as it can be very hard for young children to keep an adequate distance away from family members. Ministry of Health guidelines state that other family members do not need to self isolate, if they are careful and keep an adequate distance. However, as a school we feel it is much safer, especially when dealing with young children, to take a cautious approach. Therefore we request that if a member of your household is needing to self isolate, children also stay away from school and self-isolate for the same period, where possible. We are very willing to support families as much as possible with learning they can complete at home. We thank you all in advance for helping to keep our whole community safe.
We all need to take important steps to keep our community safe and healthy. We are mindful of the particular health needs of some of our children and community members, and we ask that you consider these people as well. Please keep your child/ren away from school if they are showing signs of being unwell, and please also stay away yourself, if you are unwell.
If you or any member of your family is feeling unwell, please phone your GP or Healthline (0800 358 5453). For a reminder about personal hygiene steps to follow to minimise spread of COVID-19 - please see the Ministry of Health's website.
Please do be assured that Amesbury School has a pandemic plan that we are following, and we are preparing for further actions, including preparing for the possibility of schools closing and children completing learning from home, if the situation continues to evolve. Several things that it may be useful for families to do at this point are:
Check that school has up to date email contacts and mobile numbers for all parents, as we will send communications and home learning through parent email addresses.
Check you have a current Wellington library card, and have downloaded the free ‘Overdrive’ app that the library uses (visit this page). This will give you access to a huge range of e-books and audio books - very useful if you are staying at home.
Check you have a device at home that can be used for a period of time each day for your child/ren to access their learning on. If this is likely to be a problem for your family, please contact me.
We have several community events coming up, such as sporting competitions and student conferences. We will keep you all posted over the next couple of weeks as to whether these different events will go ahead. Our open morning on Tuesday this week (17th March) will be going ahead, as it only has a relatively small number of parents who are coming along.
Warm regards,
Urs Cunningham (Acting Principal) and John Bunting (Board of Trustees Chairperson)
