Greenmeadows Intermediate School

Kia ora whānau,

It was great to hear the Prime Minister this afternoon acknowledging the great achievement of Auckland in reaching 90% of people having received their first vaccination and that Auckland will shift to Alert Level 3.2 from 11.59p.m. tomorrow night. This meaning a relaxing of some of the restrictions including opening of retail.

There has yet to be confirmation that schools will re-open next Monday 15 November - this announcement will be made on Wednesday this week. We are hopeful that the reopening of schools will not be too far away and we cannot wait to welcome our students back on site! Senior Leaders have spent time drafting a detailed plan of how the school would be able to safely operate while continuing to meet government restrictions and we just await Wednesday's announcement to confirm the date and what those final restrictions for schools will be. This plan is being presented to the Board of Trustees for approval by the end of the week.

We know that a number of our students are keen to know about key end of year events such as Prize Giving and Y8 Graduation. I can confirm that we have a plan in place for a range of different scenarios; we are determined to ensure these events are still able to take place before the end of this year although they might look a little different to previous years when we lived in an Auckland that had no restrictions. Again, we will share details of how these events will go ahead once we have heard Wednesdays announcement.

The high vaccination rate in Auckland has given the government the confidence to announce that Monday 29 November is a reasonable expectation for Auckland to move to the new "traffic light" system, assuming that by that date, everyone who has received their first dose would be able to have had their second dose. Let's all pull together on this one and encourage everyone we know who has had their first dose, to get their second dose before the 29th!

Finally, a reminder that it is important that students do maintain their presence in the virtual classroom - teachers have noticed a drop off over the past week or so. We also have a whole school assembly this Wednesday 10 November at 10.30a.m. and we are hoping to seeing heaps of students there!

Ngā mihi

Cathy

cchalmers@greenmeadows.school.nz