Children encouraged to stay home if possible at Level 3
WELLINGTON: Schools are being told that under alert Level 3 if a parent or caregiver is still at home children must remain at home.
The update clarifies earlier information from the prime minister about some children returning to schools, once the country leaves Level 4.
Jacinda Ardern announced on Thursday that once the lockdown level changes, early childhood centres and schools would be available up to year 10.
‘‘Attendance is purely voluntary. Our intention is here to create a place for children to go to learn, if their parents need to return to work,’’ she said.
‘‘For children who are able to, we still encourage them to remain home and be part of distance learning.’’
Additional information provided in guidelines sent to schools by the Ministry of Education now provides more details, restating the need for children to stay at home wherever possible.
Schools and early childhood centres that do reopen will have appropriate measures in place to try to stop any transmission of Covid19.
This includes limiting pupils to 10 in a group, or ‘‘school bubble’’, which could then be increased to 20 once all processes are running smoothly.
Principals Federation president Perry Rush said the emphasis on pupils remaining home if possible was sensible.
‘‘That then means that school is open and available to children who need to attend — there could be a variety of young people in that category.
‘‘There is a job now for schools to undertake that conversation with their communities, to ascertain which children may be in this category. That will assist to provide good safety structures in place on the school site, with good planning around the numbers that we might be able to expect.’’
Early Childhood Council chief executive officer Peter Reynolds said while it was positive that ideas like staggered pickup times and social distancing had been abandoned, there were still questions over funding and staffing.
Mr Reynolds said the question of funding for centres was still unresolved especially if they carried on as they had been during the lockdown.
‘‘The approach taken by the Ministry of Education was to effectively provide the subsidies on the basis of enrolment data, rather than attendance. That’s worked OK for the past four weeks.
‘‘But what’s going to happen when Level 3 comes along, and it’s sort of like this partial opening process — what happens to the government funding? Are they going to fund on the basis of enrolment as they did before?’’
He said he wanted to work with both Public Health and the ministry to find solutions. — RNZ