We are grateful to our community for your supportive response this week regarding our updates and measures that we are taking during the ongoing Coronavirus situation. As a board, we have established two simple goals for our handling of the situation;
-Maintain health of all students and staff by avoiding transmission of illnesses
-Provide reassurance and accurate information to our school community about how we are taking action to maintain health of all at PMPS
All schools received a Ministry of Education update this week with guidance about the Coronavirus situation. Up to date information from the Ministry of Education is available from their website.
The update reinforced that the steps we have taken as a school are accurate and effective. Below is an extract from the update. The Ministry of Education are guided by the Ministry of Health;
✔ Those people returning from China are instructed to remain away from school for 14 days from their departure from China
✔ If you have not been in contact with someone who has been infected with the virus, then your risk of being infected is very low
✔ People are being asked to take simple common-sense steps as you would with the seasonal flu-virus
✔ Ministry of Health are only asking those people who have travelled in mainland China to stay away, not any other people who they may be living with.
The Ministry of Education have highlighted some schools and organisations who have been imposing requirements which are NOT aligned with the Ministry of Health’s advice, and may be breaching the Education Act and Human Rights. Therefore, we are NOT allowed to;
✘ Ask individuals to stay away for 21 days rather than 14
✘ Ask individuals who have not travelled in mainland China, or had contact with anyone confirmed with the virus, to stay away
✘ Ask individuals who have travelled recently in Australia, Germany, France, India, Indonesia etc, to undertake a stay away period
✘ Ask for a Doctors’ certificate before they can return to their education providers
As outlined in previous updates, we have extensive measures in place in school to maintain the health and hygiene of our students and staff. Our children are learning good habits which will be useful to them throughout life in avoiding illness and staying healthy.
We are grateful to our community for demonstrating our 4 school values of Excellence, Responsibility, Resilience and Respect. We are aware that a small number of our community have not been sharing their concerns in the right way, and remind them politely about our school procedures and expectations for Community Conduct, and Harassment. These policies and procedures can be found on our SchoolDocs site.
We received a helpful info-sheet with our latest Ministry advice. We have included both English and Simplified Chinese versions with this update.
亲爱的鸽子山小学社区的家长和学员们：
首先，非常感谢这一周以来我们学校社区对于校方关于新型冠状病毒卫生管理的相关要求和预防措施的大力支持和积极反馈! 作为校董会，针对现在的情形，我们设定了两个目标：
– 确保学员和全体员工的健康，避免疾病传播；
– 给大家提供我们学校为确保整个学校社区健康的相关工作的准确信息，再核实再确认，尽力使大家安心。
新西兰的全部学校刚接收到教育部的关于新型冠状病毒的本周更新的指导政策。大家可以通过点击教育部官网链接了解相关的更新信息their website。
教育部的更新通知再次确认了我们鸽子山小学的相关措施完全符合教育部规定和要求。教育部所有相关政策是根据新西兰卫生部要求所制定，以下是教育部通知的摘录：
✔ 要求所有从中国大陆返回新西兰的学员，自行隔离两周；
✔ 如果您没有和已经确诊的病人直接接触，您的感染几率很低；
✔ 请大家根据病毒性流感的相关预防措施，做好防护；
✔ 卫生部要求所有去过中国大陆的人士隔离，不包括与其同住的其他人。
与此同时，转述教育部的通知中特别强调一些学校和机构没有遵守卫生部的指导政策，做出了违规的强制决定，可能侵犯到新西兰教育法案和人权。
教育部明确不允许以下情况：
✘ 要求21天隔离（超过政策规定的14天）
✘ 要求没有去过中国大陆的或者没有与已经确诊为新型冠状病毒的病人有过直接接触的人士隔离。
✘ 要求近期去过澳洲，德国，法国，印度，印度尼西亚等国家的人士隔离。
✘ 要求返回学校前提供医疗证明。
正如学校之前发布的几次更新管理通知所言，鸽子山小学认真制定了相关的卫生和健康管理政策并采取预防措施。我们的孩子们在这一过程中将学会和养成毕生受用的良好卫生习惯，帮助他们有能力避免感染和保持健康。
在此，校方非常感谢我们整个学校社区能够爱护我们的学校，身体力行，共同彰显我们学校的价值观：卓越，责任，恒心和尊重。与此同时，我们学校也有很少数的几位学校社区的成员没有按照我们的正常程序与校方沟通您的顾虑。在这里我们提示大家请按照学校政策规定程序和社区行为准则文明沟通，让我们共同维护我们学校社区的良好环境。欢迎大家点击学校官网链接，了解相关的学校政策和程序SchoolDocs site。 最后，在这里和大家分享新西兰政府的官方咨询，有中英文两个版本，可能会对大家有帮助，请大家阅读。感谢大家的配合！
