"Modelling suggests that most of the extra infections from schools reopening will actually show up in non-school contexts as a result of students subsequently infecting other people in their households or in other community interactions." "In addition to new infections that will occur directly from interactions at schools, re-opening schools creates large numbers of indirect new connections between households from otherwise weakly connected parts of the community. In comments provided via the Science Media Centre, University of Auckland Physics Department lecturer and Te Punaha Matatini principal investigator Dr Dion O'Neale said the move to reopen schools for senior students at the start of next week represented a significant risk for increasing case numbers. Today's announcement was based on advice from public health experts, it said. In a message to schools today, it said allowing the students back into classrooms was critical for their learning. The Ministry of Education said reopening Auckland's classrooms to senior students was in their best interests. Stuart said it would take a lot of planning to ensure primary schools could reopen while there were cases of Covid-19 in the community. "I know that the staff are really dying to be back with their children and the children are dying to be back at school but the first thing that we need to make sure of is that we can do it safely," she said.
May Road School principal Lynda Stuart said keeping Auckland primary schools shut was the right move.
"It looks a little bit like the band on the Titanic, we're going to keep playing regardless of the tide and I do think there was an opportunity here for the authorities, who live outside of Auckland, to be a little more nuanced, a little more sophisticated in their thinking," he said. McMillan said he was not sure perservering with exams was the right move. It ranges from almost celebration through to some real anxiety and nervous about is it safe, is it safe to come back," he said. "We're getting quite a lot of reaction right now from students, families, whanau and staff. James Cook High principal Grant McMillan said the reaction from his community was mixed. NCEA was a flexible system and schools had a number of creative options to evidence students learning with or without exams, she said. "Our community doesn't necessarily understand that you don't need to actually take physical exams, many students and schools moved away from a focus on external examinations." "I actually think it would have taken a whole lot of courage to keep the schools closed because we've had a lot of community pressure around things like exams," Amos said. She would rather schools stayed closed for longer. "The government seems to have gone from acting out of an abundance of caution to a reckless disregard for the consequences in the blink of an eyelid."Īlbany Senior High School principal Claire Amos told Afternoons she was disappointed that concern around NCEA exams had lead to schools reopening earlier than necessary. "It's beyond belief that in the very week the case numbers in this pandemic in New Zealand have reached an all-time high and are expected to increase significantly, coupled with the fact that young people aged between 12 and 19 have the lowest vaccination rates, that the government would open up secondary schools to hundreds of thousands of students. However, we have not seen any public health advice that enables these actions announced today. We have strongly supported public health advice, including mandatory vaccination for teachers, throughout this pandemic. PPTA Te Wehengarua president Melanie Webber said in a statement: "We're not sure who Minister Hipkins consulted before he made his announcement, but he certainly didn't talk to PPTA. "We want to get our young people back in the classroom as soon as we can but we also want to keep them and the wider community safe." "Exams are racing up for our senior secondary school students in particular and the stresses and strains that learning from home creates become more evident by the day. The New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) said the Minister of Education and Minister for the Covid-19 Reponse Chris Hipkins did not consult with them.Īt the 1pm briefing today, Hipkins said decisions on schools and early learning services in alert level 3 areas were finely-balanced ones. Secondary school teachers are "dismayed and angry" at the government's announcement that students in Years 11-13 who live in alert level 3 areas will be able to return to classrooms on 26 October, a union says.
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