Reminders for Secondary Students

As we cross over the halfway point in Term Two, and enter winter season, I thought it would be helpful reminder on what we are doing, and what we can do, to stay safe from both the seasonal flu and COVID-19.

The best thing we can do, if we are displaying or showing any flu like symptoms is to stay at home. Yes, we need to RAT test to see if it is COVID-19, however, if the test comes up negative, we still need to stay home until the flu like symptoms cease to ensure we don’t spread the seasonal flu to other members of the community. The only difference between a positive and negative result is with a positive result, you must remain at home for 7 days, as opposed to a negative result where you must remain at home until symptoms cease.

At school I encourage all students to wear masks indoors, continue to practise good hand hygiene and to socially distance where possible.

To try to keep onsite schooling happening uninterrupted we have utilised the Canadian strategy of ‘study hall’. Study hall is an effective technique that will help us avoid going back to online, at-home learning. In study hall, classes where the teachers are away due to illness, are gathered in the auditorium for their lesson. The auditorium becomes the study hall, which is set up with tables and chairs like a conventional exam hall. This allows the students to continue working onsite using our CANVAS platform. You will be very pleased to hear that so far this has been very successful. Learning onsite is able to continue.

Please continue to look after yourselves during this next phase of COVID-19. Whilst lockdowns have ended, we still need to be following our safe COVID-19 practises.

Derek Bendall, Head of Secondary