Tuesday 17 August
Kia ora koutou Aidanfield whanau
Wednesday to Friday this week
As you will now be aware, all schools in Christchurch have been closed for three days because of the community case of COVID identified in Auckland today. Aidanfield Christian School will be closed and the grounds off limits to every person until further notice. As of Tuesday night we expect to open on Monday 23 August but this is entirely dependent on instructions from the Ministries of Health and Education.
Closing for three days
As we have communicated before, when we close for a short period of time (three days) we will not be initiating our home learning programme. Teachers will use this time to prepare for learning online should we be closed for a longer closure.
Closing for longer periods of time
If we are told to stay closed for a longer period of time, either as part of a local closure or a national one we have a plan to support online learning for all our pupils that includes regular contact using various internet based tools. It will be very similar to last time but with some adaptations based on parent, pupil and teacher feedback from last time. I will send the detail on this if needed later in the week.
How will we communicate with you?
We will use: School App, our school Facebook page, our website and email (check your ‘Junk’ folder regularly as it seems some emails from the school have been sent there automatically). You can expect regular but not daily communication.
Information from the Ministry of Education
It is really important we do everything we can to keep our community safe. Alert Level 4 means we need to stay home in our bubbles and avoid any travelling as much as possible. Supermarkets, pharmacies, foodbanks and other essential services will be open – but remember to wear a face covering if you are out and about (even a scarf wrapped around your mouth and nose will help). Check in using the NZ COVID Tracer App wherever you go and please also keep a distance from people you don’t know and wash your hands well and often, especially before and after using any public facilities.
Please go to the Ministry of Health website if you live in Auckland or the Coromandel region, or have recently visited there. There is a list of locations the confirmed case has visited while they were considered to be infectious. If you were at one of those locations and at the same time as specified on the website, then please follow the relevant instructions to isolate and potentially to get tested. Please keep checking that webpage as new locations may be identified over time.
Finally from me
We all hope that we do not need to close for any length of time. However, if we do we have plans in place because this is not unprecedented anymore. We will carry on teaching and inviting your child to learn, just doing it differently to how we did today.
Feel free to get in touch with me at any time if you need to.
Your child’s teacher should be your first port of call for learning related issues. Mrs Kaye Lawn (our Deputy Principal), Mrs Janice Phillips (our Head of Primary School) and Mrs Teresa Thomson (our Head of Middle School) are all available via email (firstname.lastname@aidanfield.school.nz).
We will send a list of activities out shortly that may be helpful in keeping young minds occupied.
I will be in touch again soon.
Grace and peace
Mark Richardson
Virtual Principal
Key links:
Our School Website: www.aidanfield.school.nz
Our School App https://aidanfield.apps.school.nz/install/
