Saturday 21 March 2020

Dear Families,

So much has happened in the last few days. I thought it was important to update you all with information from the Ministry of Education that has been shared with schools today.

Today the Prime Minister alerted our country that we had moved to Alert Level 2 – Reduce Contact for COVID-19.,  People over 70 years of age and those with compromised immunity and certain existing medical conditions are asked to remain at home as much as they can from now on and avoid any non-essential travel.
 
Staff and children in our school who fall into this category are therefore asked to follow this advice.  As part of our planning we have a register of students who have existing health conditions that may put them in a higher risk group in relation to exposure to COVID-19.  If your child has any health issues please make sure you have let us know.  Please could you notify us of this information in relation to your child by sending an email to office@sacred-heart.school.nz  that gives us the information around any health condition we should be aware of?

There is so much information and misinformation swirling around about Covid-19, I wanted to tell you what we have been told will happen if we were to have a case in our school community. We have been planning for this and are in a position to respond quickly.

* As soon as a case is confirmed in our immediate school community (e.g. a student, staff member, or member of their household), the Medical Officer of Health and Ministry of Education will inform me about this, and we will work together to get quick and clear messaging out to you all.
* If there was a case confirmed of someone in our school, we will likely be asked to close temporarily by the Medical Officer of Health. This will allow time for close contacts to be traced, appropriate testing to be undertaken, and a careful clean of the school to be undertaken.
* If our school does need to close temporarily, we have a plan in place to support students’ learning. Learning will be a combination of online and book work.


You can help us in the following ways:
* Good hygiene is a priority, and we are reinforcing this regularly with all students and staff. We know this is still the best thing we can all do to prevent illness.
* We also need to stress that students (and staff) need to stay home if they are sick. Apart from anything else, it causes concern to others if someone is coughing or sneezing or feeling unwell and we do not need any germs being spread at this point in time.
* We might want to contact you quickly. Could you please all sign up for our school app (Schoolapps NZ search Sacred Heart Cathedral School) and sign up for the alerts.

Please be assured that we are getting the most up-to-date advice and guidance so that we can confidently make informed decisions about the safety and wellbeing of our school community and we will keep you in the loop when we have new information to share.

Stay safe, wash your hands and we know we will all make the best of whatever situation is thrown at us.

Kind Regards
Bernadette