More details about how schools will look under Level 3 can be revealed, including staggered start times and sibling-only bubbles.
Around 30,000 litres of hand sanitiser is being trucked out to schools as they prepare to open next week.
Newlands Intermediate School principal Angela Lowe is expecting fewer than 15 of her 500 students to attend once they reopen on Wednesday.
"They'll have their own exit, they'll have a nice place to play where it's just them in their bubble, they don't need to be part of anyone else's bubblem" she told 1 NEWS.
"They've got their own bathroom just down the corridor."
Safety is top priority and as well as the hand sanitiser, cleaning equipment is available for schools to order.
"You would expect to want to sanitise people as they come into the schools, so they would have been thinking about how to do that effectively," Education Secretary Iona Holsted says.
"For example, having multiple ways into the school rather than a single line, those sorts of things."
One teacher may supervise several bubbles kept apart in an open space, while other schools are considering putting just siblings together.
"A colleague has told me she's giving her students their own skipping rope and their own stone for hopscotch," Ms Lowe says.
Hardpacks are still being rolled out as it's unlikely many students will be back next week.
1 NEWS has been given a survey of 400 Auckland schools, showing more than half expect fewer than 20 children.
It's an indication schools will stay largely empty, even in Alert Level 3, meaning distance learning is still important.
"Students that are here, that's exactly what they'll be doing as well," Ms Lowe says.
"But in this case they'll have some supervision and support if they need it."
The Ministry of Education will help schools with relief teachers, preparing some of its own staff to step in.
"Eighty per cent of our frontline staff are former education leaders and we're inviting them to put their hand up to help out if necessary, so these are not ordinary times," Ms Holsted says.
Teething problems are expected in the coming weeks.
"We've never done this before so there isn't a blueprint," Ms Holsted says.
"What we're asking of our teachers is to be creative and to be responsive, and I think we can be really proud of how they've stepped up and stepped into this space."
There'll be a teacher's only day on Tuesday, the day before gates open.
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