A Christchurch school is one of the first in New Zealand to open its doors today as the country marks the first day of Level 2.
St Margaret’s College in Christchurch is an independent school and has chosen to stagger the return of its 850 students to minimise the risk surrounding Covid-19 and allow time for teachers to get prepared.
The preschool and junior section of the college has started back today with the rest of the students heading back to school on Monday.
As the risk of Covid-19 still exists the school has made a number of changes and added precautions to ensure the safety of its community. Those changes include increased cleaning rosters, furniture rearrangements to allow for social distancing and no parents allowed on school grounds to help with contact tracing.
Principal Diana Patchett says everybody is really excited to get back.
“It’s the connection and the culture and community of a school that's been really missed over this time so we've been really pleasantly surprised by the flood of girls coming back today,” said Ms Patchett.
“I know that people will be staggering that coming back all together on Monday we chose to have our younger ones back today, to start preschool and junior school just so we could moderate that energy and movement and still implement some of those protocols with drop off and pick up as well without all of the added business of the school.”
Ms Patchett says it’s been encouraging for the Government to deem schools a safe place but they are also implementing changes to sure up that safety.
“The first one is about establishing some school boundaries limiting who we come into contact with so that's new protocols around parents not necessarily coming past the school gate, only visitors coming and really maintaining those tight registers that visit the school,” says Ms Patchett.
“The second is around cleaning, we've amplified that entirely. Our cleaning team are coming through the school three times a day. Even in the preschool we're rotating the dress up trunk so that there aren't those things available every day so really ramping that up.”
More than 800,000 children could return under Alert Level 2 but there's still some concern about safety. (Source: Other)
As St Margarets also has a boarding house with 150 boarders there have also been some changes implemented there including rosters for the amenities block and no buffet service in the cafeteria with staggered seating times.
As of Monday 18 May most schools will reopen following the Government's Level 2 announcement earlier this week. The Ministry of Education said all students and teachers, except those who were unwell or were vulnerable to Covid-19 could return to school.
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