I want to share our Alert Level 3 Worksafe Safety Plan.
COVID-19 Safety Plan Team: Harry Romana (Principal), John Pearson (Board), Amy Honey (PPTA), Sandra Meharg (NZEI).
Background
At the time of writing this document; children (under 15) were considered less infectious and less at risk from infection than adults, older people with comorbidities (particularly cardiac) were most at risk of dying, many infected people were asymptomatic and new sequelae from infection were being discovered across all age and risk groups. COVID-19 was known to spread in the air and to remain viable for hours on surfaces and to be effectively neutralised by soap and water. There were active clusters of infection, deaths in elderly cases and a reducing number of new cases (<10) each day. Hence our safety plan is based on the virus not being contained, hence the need to minimise the risk of COVID19 being passed between any persons, staff, students or other at our site and assumes that infected people may not show any signs or know they are infected themselves. Anything not covered specifically will be guided by these principles
Alert Level 3 Actions.
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What will be done to manage risks from restarting our school after lock-down?
21- 28 April- Mairehau High School is preparing our school site. Only contractors and service people are allowed on the site. The work includes site preparation, lawns, gardens, cleaning, maintenance, floorplans and the logistical management of health and safety requirements.
Deep Clean:
Our Board has approved the use of a professional cleaning contractor (GenieClean) to provide a deep clean of our school. “The Ministry of Education (MOE) advises there are no specific requirements for cleaning regarding COVID-19.” However, we are doing it anyway. The contractor’s team will sanitise all classrooms, rooms, hall and gym, kitchens, workspaces, and toilets. By 28 April, the deep clean will be completed.
Only essential teaching and support staff will be allowed to enter our premises during Alert Level 3. Entry will be limited to performing essential tasks and time onsite minimised. Staff who have to be onsite at the same time will be assigned to bubbles of at most 10.
All people entering the site will be registered to allow tracing and follow strict hygiene requirements including mandatory hand washing on entry and social distancing (2m outside, 1m inside) rules.
All gatherings of staff will be strictly limited and confined to within work bubbles. Staff will be assigned to a work bubble. Most staff should be in the ‘other bubble’ which does not access the site. Staff will only mix inside their staff bubbles, whenever possible staff bubbles do not overlap in the same building at the same time.
A Mairehau HS Alert Level response letter was sent to our community and staff to advise there will be no students or staff on our school site. Letter Link
All of our staff will be working from home, and students are learning from home. All teaching and learning will be through our school online environment.
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How will we ensure all teaching and support staff know how to keep themselves safe from exposure to COVID-19?
The school will regularly communicate to staff the recommendations and guidelines of the Ministry of Health (MOH). The school will implement the MOH hygiene and distance protocols.
Hand sanitisers will be available to students and staff. An effective preventative strategy is to strictly limit bubbles to one bubble of 10 per room, cleaning high contact/ shared surfaces twice each day, and keeping the room warm and ventilated.
Whenever practically possible leaving a gap between the teachers and students for as much of the classroom time as possible.
The following posters will be available to our staff and community and will be displayed at a range of venues: school site, website, email to staff and community.
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How will you gather information on the wellbeing of our staff to ensure that they are safe to work?
The Guidance network team will survey students and staff about their wellbeing.
The Guidance Counsellor, Deans, and form teachers will contact and provide support to students and whānau to provide wellbeing support.
Ka piki te ora:
When necessary the school will contact external services such as the Police, Youth Services, or Te Oranga Tamariki to connect with our most at-risk students and families. All contact with external agencies will be managed and approved by the principal.
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How will Mairehau High School operate in a way that keeps staff and others safe from exposure to COVID-19?
There is an expectation for all Mairehau High School staff to inform the school of their physical and mental wellbeing.
The following poster is relevant for all who enter the school site: Stop are you safe? Link
Instead of coming into Mairehau HS (refer to poster), you could:
- Ring the school office to ask for advice: Ph 385 3145 or send an email to admin@mairehau.school.nz
- Essential services must contact our school Caretaker for entry: 021 957355
- During alert Level 3, the school will not have any students or teachers onsite. All learning will be Online.
- For more information, please visit our school website at https://www.mairehau.school.nz/
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How will Mairehau High School manage an exposure or suspected exposure to COVID-19
The school will organise safe transport home immediately and provide all workers with advice on contacting GP and/or Healthline.
Healthline: 0800 358 5453
If Mairehau High School is connected to a confirmed or probable case of COVID- 19 the school will close on an individual or group basis for 72 hours to allow contact tracing and cleaning, and then potentially for a further 14 days. The school will advise the MOH and MOE for advice and guidance to support next steps.
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How will Mairehau High School evaluate whether your work processes or risk controls are effective?
The school will regularly gather staff information on the effectiveness of our COVID- 19 procedures. The data will be collated, evaluated, and analysed. A report will be available to the staff and Board.
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How do these changes impact on the risks of the work that you do?
The purpose of our COVID-19 safety plan is to minimise the risk of COVID-19 in the school.
There will be strategic and operational impacts on the day to day running of our school, for e.g
- The COVID- 19 Health and safety risk to students, staff, and community will be minimised.
- Teaching and Learning will be Online
- The school structure of the day will change
- Teaching and Learning from home is schoolwide is new for all
- Student attendance risks
- Student engagement risks
- Student achievement risks
- Personnel risks
- Whānau and community risks
Senior staff will compile a practice guide at each alert level. The guide will record a list of staff questions and responses aligned to:
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Notes: The following are links to relevant communication for staff and community:
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