Covid-19 Update

Kia ora koutou

It was great news to hear we are moving to Alert Level 1 so quickly. While new cases in the community are always disappointing to hear of, it is reassuring to see how quickly they have been identified. I am sure we are all grateful for the efforts of our health workers, scientists and technicians in this regard, and the thousands of people who have been tested.

As a community, we need to avoid the complacency which New Zealanders tend to quickly move into when we are at lower alert levels. Please do continue to scan QR codes and monitor closely for illness within your whānau.

Our focus as always will be to support the learning, safety and wellbeing of our rangatahi and tamariki, and we continue to be here to support you too.

Being at Level 1 means we will be able to have spectators at our swimming sports which are on tomorrow at 11am at the school pool. We can now also welcome whanau to the Domincan Excellence Awards ceremony that has been rescheduled for Tuesday at 1.10pm in the school chapel.

 
Please don’t hesitate to contact the school office, if there is something you need assistance with.

Ngā mihi
Kerry Ryan
Associate Principal

Covid-19 Level 2 Update

Dear St Kevin's College Community
Having just listened to our Prime Minister we are sharing the latest information from the Ministry of Education.

We will move our protocols at school up to Level 2 and inform students about these first thing in the morning.

 
St Kevin's is well prepared and ready to respond as part of the team of 5 million.
We will be in touch if things develop further in the coming days.

*Alert Level 2 - All of New Zealand excluding Auckland region. Alert Level 2 applies from midnight tonight for 72 hours*.

1. Schools are open to everyone, and all children must attend.

At Alert Level 2 the disease is contained but there is still risk of community transmission. It is safe for children and staff to attend school and for school hostels to be operating as there will be appropriate measures in place, including for children and staff vulnerable to severe illness.

2. Learning will be onsite with distance learning offered in some circumstances.

Distance learning will be provided for those required to self-isolate, those individuals who health authorities have asked to stay away while waiting for a test result, or those choosing to remain at home because they are vulnerable to illness.

3. Schools are not classified as gatherings and a range of events and activities can go ahead.

For most day to day activities at schools, the rules for gatherings do not apply. Under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Order, schools are exempted from physical distancing requirements when people are there to receive, provide, or support education services.
However as soon as an event or activity brings people onsite who are not there for education purposes, including students, parents and caregivers, then the rules for gatherings do apply. This means that if we are at any Alert Level's on Friday, the school Swimming Sports will be closed to spectators. This also applies to other cultural events and sporting activities.

4. Schools will close for cleaning and contact tracing if there is a confirmed case who was infectious when at school.

We will work closely with you and health authorities should this occur.

5. Face coverings are not required at school or on any school transport.
This includes charter buses hired by the school to transport students and staff. Anyone who chooses to wear a face covering in any setting will be supported to do so.

6. Sick people must stay at home.

If you have Covid-like symptoms please seek medical advice and get tested if advised to do so. If that person displays relevant symptoms of COVID-19, tests positive for COVID-19, or has been in close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19, they must self-isolate.

7. There must be a contact tracing system in place.

Please ensure you scan in using our QR code posters at our entrances, or use our attendance register and visitor register.

8. Fundamental public health measures continue to apply at every alert level:

- Physical distancing (not touching and not breathing on each other at Alert Level 2)
- Hand hygiene
- Cough and sneeze etiquette
- Regularly cleaning and disinfecting high touch surfaces.

Kind regards

Kerry Ryan
Associate Principal

Covid-19 Update

Kia ora koutou

We wanted to give you an update on some changes taking place next week and what they mean for your children and whānau.

You are probably aware the Prime Minister has announced that face coverings will be required on public transport from next Monday, at Alert Level 2 and above. This does not apply to any child who is under 12 years of age and does not apply to school transport (we have good systems in place to manage safety on school transport).

Public Health officials have advised that children under the age of 6 should not wear face coverings.
Children and young people do not need to wear face coverings at school. Other public health control measures are in place including children and staff staying home if they are sick, contact tracing, and hygiene requirements.

If your child doesn’t need to wear a face covering but they want to, that’s fine. Face coverings are another way we can help keep ourselves and others safe, along with good hand hygiene, cough and sneeze etiquette, appropriate physical distancing when out and about and staying home if we are sick.

We’re continuing contact tracing by having QR code posters at our entrances, so please check in every time you come onsite.

If you haven’t already downloaded the NZ COVID Tracer app the Ministry of Health’s website has information to help you do that. We’ll also keep a visitor register for anyone who doesn’t have the app and also for anyone who comes onsite for a period of time. This will help us with contact tracing in the unlikely case it is needed.

If you have any questions about face coverings or anything else, please get in touch.

Ngā mihi and God bless
Senior Management SKC

Covid-19 Update

Kia Ora Parents and Friends of the College,

Following last night's announcement that our region was going back into Alert Level 2, the management team has met to look at what this means for us.
Our aim is to take a conservative approach to implementing systems for Covid 19.

Over the next 72 hours, we will try to limit the number of events where students are not able to have some form of social distancing.

This will mean the following:

No face to face assembly today - we will hold this virtually.

No house singing on Thursday

No Mass on Friday

We will also implement Covid 19 hygiene measures as required under Alert Level 2.

This will mean the following:

The use of hand sanitiser in classrooms and around the school

The reintroduction of the one-way system for the stairs

The use of the contact tracing app for people visiting the school

Classrooms, where possible, will be arranged so that students are not in each other’s breath zone.

We are watching carefully for announcements from the Prime Minister and the Director-General of Health with regards to further movements. We are also implementing the recommendations from the Ministry of Education.

At Level 2 all students are able to attend educational institutions, and hostels remain open, but we ask that if your student is sick, or you have suspected symptoms of Covid 19 in your household, that students stay home from school.

We have our online platform ready to switch to distance learning if that is the path we need to go down after Friday. If there are families who need support with obtaining internet access or computer hardware, please contact the college as soon as possible so that we can have a seamless transition, if need be, to online learning for all of our college family.

Our mandate here today is to “keep calm and carry on”, remembering that for some of our students this move the Alert Level 2 may be distressing. If you feel your student needs support from our pastoral team, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We ask also that you keep an eye on emails and Facebook posts from the college for updates.

God Bless
Paul Olsen

School Bus Services in Alert Level 2

When schools resume under Alert Level 2 on Monday 18th May, school transport services will also return to normal schedules. Today we received confirmation from Ritchies regarding the plan outlined by the Ministry of Education and the National School Transport Manager.

The ongoing safety of drivers and students and the ability to contact trace is a priority as we enter Alert Level 2, and will be managed in the following ways:

Actions for schools:

1. To allow for accurate contact tracing, schools must provide their transport provider with up-to-date bus lists, and must keep records to enable contact tracing to take place.

2. Any bus student who needs to travel on a different bus than usual, or any student who would like to have a non-bus student accompany them to/from school must always provide a note for the bus driver when boarding. This is really important to help schools maintain our contact tracing system.

For SKC students who require a note in these situations, please see Mrs Buckham. The best time to find her will be in Room 3, usually before school starts or at whanau time.

3. Schools are responsible for keeping their families and communities informed with the latest information about their bus services.

Actions for Transport Providers:

1. Every bus will be issued with a kit containing hand sanitiser, spray bottle of surface cleaner, disposable cleaning cloths and gloves. Vehicles and surfaces will be sanitised after each journey, by the driver/transport company.

2. All drivers will be required to use hand sanitizer prior to starting their school run.

3. Seats in close proximity to the driver will be left empty, to ensure the driver’s safety.

4. On some routes passengers transfer to specific points between buses (shuttle services). Drivers will continue to manage these, as per normal routine.

5. Transport operators will maintain up-to-date information on special assistance (SESTA) students they are transporting each day.

6. For those drivers who keep their buses at home with them, they will be required to ensure all surfaces (seat rails, window ledges, door handles and any grab rail areas etc.) are wiped over after both the morning and afternoon school runs.

7. For those buses involved in combination secondary and primary school runs (morning and afternoon), the drivers will be required to ensure the bus is sanitised to avoid any cross-contamination between student groups. NB: This will take the form of an aerosol spray used throughout the interior of the bus.

Returning to School at Alert Level 2

Kia Ora Whanau of St Kevin’s College,

As we prepare to move to Alert Level 2 here at the College, I wish to take some time to address parents and caregivers about our response to this change and to address any issues that may arise from this. Please forgive the length of this statement, but I do feel I need to ensure that we are all on the same page before our return next week.

Given the disaster unfolding around the world related to Covid-19, it is perfectly natural to be afraid and often our natural response to fear is to want to retreat to places where we feel safe. For most of us, that place is home. It is also a natural response for a parent or caregiver to want to protect their child. The world is a scary place and since April, it has just become a whole lot scarier. To those parents who feel that they are not able to send their students back to school next week because of pre-existing health conditions, or simply because of fear, I want you to know that I do understand this and that we will continue to provide support for you and your student via the online platforms but we do need to manage expectations around this.

Unlike the weeks under Levels 3 and 4, teachers will not necessarily be available during the period times when your student would normally have had contact with them. This is because we are expecting the majority of students to come back to school next week and the teacher will need to address lessons in the traditional manner. For example, in a PE period, this will involve active lessons which would mean that the teacher is not in front of their computer. Similarly the same thing will occur in the Arts and Technologies. What will continue to happen is that teachers will post and mark work from the Google classrooms and ensure that task instructions are added to their online platforms for those working from a distance. It will be very important that students who continue to work from home have adequate supervision so that they are able to stay focussed and on task. I am anticipating parental and caregiver support in this respect as we are unable to have staff in two places at once.

Pastoral services will continue to be offered online as well as on the school site. Students who have been struggling with their wellbeing are encouraged to contact the Guidance Counselor Mat Harris. Mr Harris runs an online booking system which is accessible both from site and from home (see school website under ‘Connect’). Deans can be contacted via e mail and Ms Walshe, our Head of Pastoral support, is also available. Similarly, the SENCO Mrs Dooley is available for anyone to contact who may be needing learning support.

On our return to school next week, our guiding principles will revolve around two areas of focus. The first is on hygiene, sanitising and washing hands, cleaning each classroom each day and high touch surfaces such as handrails etc. Please note, this does not mean social distancing as we have come to know it, which the Ministry of Education recognises is impossible to police in a school environment. The official advice we have had is that students should stay out of each other’s ‘breath zone’, in other words avoid situations where close contact could potentially spread the disease. In the past similar advice has been given out by schools regarding the spread of head lice, explaining to children to keep their heads apart. It's the same sort of message for us and from us.

The second will be around contact tracing. This is the reason why the government is relatively relaxed about allowing students to come back to school, not because they will keep social distancing rules, or even because they are young and much less vulnerable, its because this is a captive audience and we can contact trace. Unlike the vast majority of areas in the community, schools are able to know who is where and whom they have come in contact with at all times. Should a case of Covid-19 be discovered in a school the entire school is shut down and everyone is tested. In this way, a school is able to operate like one big bubble where, because we take rolls every hour and have timetabled movements, we are able to trace where a potentially infected person has been and who they are in contact with. To this end, we also need the help of our community. We are asking that when you drop students off you stay in your car; that you do not have casual contact with students which is not formally recorded and that if you are on-site, you sign in, and sanitize your hands. In that way, with your cooperation, we can maintain good levels of hygiene in the school and know where everyone has been.

Finally, it is important for parents and caregivers to know that while we are doing our best to mitigate any spread of Covid-19, we are also expecting our students to step up to this challenge. We are unable to offer the same leniency that we traditionally may have around poor behaviour and social nuisance. For example, if a student behaves in a way which jeopardises our ability to keep others safe at school, for example leaving school grounds without permission, refusing to follow hygiene protocols, we will not hesitate to ring you and arrange for a distance-learning option to be put in place. Parents and caregivers must understand as we return to school that we value the lives of our students and staff and will protect them to the best of our ability. In this strange time, we are asked to talk through the implications and consequences of poor behaviour with the student you care for, as we try to implement the guidance from the Ministry of Health.

I am very much looking forward to seeing the return of our staff and students in the coming days. I am appreciative of the monumental effort made by our community over the past few weeks to stay home and save lives and I do not underestimate in any way the enormous toll this has taken on households. I believe that if we continue to work together in a responsible and respectful way, we as a school, a community and a nation will come through this.

God Bless
Paul Olsen
Principal

National Sporting Calendar further suspended until 20th July

The board of School Sport NZ, in partnership with National Sporting Organisations (NSO’s) and event providers, has announced that due to the ongoing impact of Covid-19, the National Calendar of Sanctioned Events will be further suspended until 20th July, the beginning of Term 3.

The link below gives a detailed version of the updates. Keep safe in your bubbles, keep active and do what you can to maintain skills and hopefully, we will see some sport soon!

http://www.nzsssc.co.nz/newsarticle/89720?newsfeedId=51035

NCEA Update for Parents/Caregivers

While the school environment has changed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, we want to assure parents and caregivers that students learning and achievement will not be compromised during this time.

Please see below some common concerns and reassurances from the College and NZQA.

1. What can parents/caregivers do if you are worried about your young person’s
learning?

• Remember you are not expected to be your young person’s teacher.

• Support and encourage your young person to keep engaged with their learning, and their classmates.

• Let us know if you have any concerns or questions about NCEA assessment and how your young person is getting on.

2. Evidence from changes made to assessment following the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes showed that:

• More flexible assessment opportunities do not affect the expected performance or the credibility of the results.

• Schools already make decisions about NCEA assessment to meet the needs of their students. The flexibility of NCEA will also allow us to meet students’ needs now.

3. Students can still get their NCEA – Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Vocational Pathways, University Entrance, Merit and Excellence grades, and endorsements

• We are making sure that any changes we make to learning and assessment programmes will still enable students to get credits, achieve their qualifications and awards.

4. Your young person can still do assessments, although there may be changes to what they will ‘hand in’ and how:

• Assessment could include:

- Work done on the computer, work done on paper. Your young person can complete activities on paper or in workbooks and keep these to hand in later or keep in a file or portfolio.

- Practical or physical work. This could include technology, art, design, science, and performance work that students record or hand in later.

• NCEA internal assessment does not have to be done under test conditions so teachers have ways to assess these remotely, where this is possible.

• Assessments requiring supervision can be deferred until the alert level permits.

5. Teachers know a student’s work is their own and can check that work is authentic by:

• Having checkpoints or milestones for big assignments

• Checking plans, drafts, notes and working

• Using digital tool features such as revision history, plagiarism checkers, and ‘googling’ content

• Talking to the student to check the depth of their understanding.

Please remember you are always able to contact the College or your child's Whanau teacher if you have any concerns.

Government Student Wellbeing Survey

Kia ora Students

The Government wants to find out how well students are coping during the Covid-19 crisis and has asked our school if our students could take part in a national survey. The information they get from this survey will be used to help them plan and support schools over the coming months.

The survey is quite short and will only take a few minutes to complete but, once you start please make sure you finish it.

Your answers to this survey are anonymous, which means no one will be able to find out the answers you have given. We will be able to see the results for our school, but we will not be able to see what any one student has scored.

This is a very important survey and I really hope you will take a few minutes to help the school and the government find out how students are feeling, as we help each other get through this challenging time.

The survey is live now and you can complete it now. The survey will close on 28th April at 5pm.

ACCESS CODE FOR STUDENTS:

https://feedback.askyourteam.com/tzVQdW5

Thanks for your help.

Covid-19 Alert Level 3

Kia ora koutou

We hope that Term 2 and our distance learning programme has been a success for you so far. We know there will have been any number of challenges for you to deal with but we have been getting some great feedback about the learning that is happening and thank you for all your support.

As you will now know, the Government has decided that we will move into Alert Level 3 on 28 April. That means we will be open to receive students Year 10 and under of essential workers, from the 29 April. We will start to prepare our site from tomorrow.


The key message for you is that if you can, you should keep your child at home. You should only physically send your child to school if you need to. If your child has a health condition that means they are at a greater risk of a severe illness you must keep them at home. If your child is sick please also ensure you keep them at home.

In order to ensure the safety of those children and our staff who do come to school, we will be operating with strict enforcement of health and safety measures.

I want to assure you that we will continue to support your child’s learning at home.

We will be contacting you this week to find out whether you can keep your child learning from home, or need your child to attend in person.

The Ministry of Education has advised that they are working closely with health to develop clear guidance that will support schools to safely re-open their premises to students and staff. This will help us work through the public health requirements that we all need to meet. As you will be doing, we want to be sure that what we do will keep our community as safe as possible.

For now, we will continue to support your child’s learning by distance while we progress our planning for what Alert Level 3 will mean for you and for St Kevin's College. We will be in touch again soon with more information. As you have been doing, please keep connecting with your teachers and deans with any questions you might have.

Nga mihi
Paul Olsen
Principal

Daily Online Learning Journal

Hi everyone,

We are very pleased with the way you have started your second term as online students. We are seeing some great teaching and learning going on and it's lovely to see that you are enjoying being back with your classmates, even if that is just online.

Please remember to fill out the online learning diary. You can find this by going onto the main SKC web page and clicking on 'Online Learning'. This leads to a drop down box. Choose the box that says 'Online Attendance' and open it. In that space you will find the Daily Online Learning Journal. Here is the direct link:

https://www.stkevins.school.nz/on-line-learning/on-line-attendance

We will be using the data from this to monitor engagement to help guide our teaching and learning so it's quite important.

Thank you and have a great weekend!

Ms Walshe

Term 2- Online Learning

Kia ora Students from SKC Online School!

As you know, the school term starts tomorrow Wednesday 15th April.

All students and whanau should have received relevant emails regarding their online learning. If you have not, please contact dhayes@stkevins.school.nz or check on the St Kevin’s College website 

https://www.stkevins.school.nz/on-line-learning

Here is a reminder of information that has been sent out:

In order that you are not online for too long during the day, the school day has been shortened from 10am - 3pm.

The period times have changed because of this

Period 1 10am - 10:40
Period 2 10:40 - 11:20
Period 3 11:20 - 12:00
Lunch
Period 4 1pm - 1:40
Period 5 1:40 - 2:20
Period 6 2:20 - 3pm

In your mind, you will need to think that you are staying in your classroom and the teachers will come to you. Teachers will be using a combination of Google classroom, meetings and online platforms to continue to teach you.

If you are in Year 9 or 10, you need to log into the meeting links that are on the School Website under the drop-down menu - “Online Learning":

https://www.stkevins.school.nz/on-line-learning/on-line-attendance

Once you are in this meeting, you can stay on it for the day and your teachers will come to you, to teach your class.

Some things to remember about using meetings:

1. Please don’t have your computer at your bed.

2. Please mute your mic until you need to speak to avoid unneccesary background noise.

3. Assume someone is watching you even at lunchtime ( If you are going to practice your “tik-tok” dance moves, probably best not to do it in front of your computer camera).

4. If there is something you don’t understand, direct message your teacher in Google Classroom and they can give you some extra help without you having to ask in front of the class if you are not happy to.

5. All lessons online will be recorded so you need to ensure that your behaviour in front of the camera is something you are happy to have on permanent record

6. Your ATL’s and reports are based on how much you engage so please fill out the form in the online section before 1pm each day

(Here is the link)
https://www.stkevins.school.nz/on-line-l…/on-line-attendance

If you have any questions, ask your teachers. If you have any problems with technology, you can ask Mr McCleary via the form at https://www.stkevins.school.nz/on-line-learning/tech-support.

He waka eke noa
We are all in this together.

Aoraki Isolation Challenge

Please see below info regarding a lockdown Interschool comp that anyone (including staff) at SKC can be involved in!

Many of you are already doing some form of exercise so just click on the link and log your activity each day.

We will keep you updated with how we are getting on.

If you are in need of ideas feel free to email Mr Smith (or if you do PE, check out Mr Ts workout options on the Google Classroom).
...................................................................

It’s time to show a bit of school spirit and get active in your bubble! Staff, this includes you too!

We may not be able run our usual Aoraki Championships but get ready to go head to head and represent your school!

How to compete:
Participate in some form of physical activity, think outside the box and get creative. Use the link below and fill out your ‘activity log’ there is no limit to how many times you can enter.
School entries will be balanced with their role numbers to ensure the competition is fair.

https://forms.gle/wCoccepMZJ4pd9qY8

On top of this we have prizes for the following:
- Most hours participated (Please be honest)
- Most creative video or photo
- Funniest video or photo
- Best outfit

We will be posting your videos and photos to our Aoraki Instagram, you might even get a special feature on the Sport Canterbury Facebook Page!

Send your videos and photos to kate.ormsby@sportcanterbury.org.nz
Or to our Instagram account aorakischoolsport

Please note: You MUST comply with the COVID-19 Lockdown restrictions while doing these activities i.e. no touching public equipment, social distancing (2m rule), remaining within your iso bubble & staying within your neighbourhood.

Resources for Lockdown from The Catholic Diocese

The Catholic Diocese (via Amy Armstrong) has put together some resources for lockdown:

https://www.cdd.org.nz/lockdownresources

Pray with the Pope:
https://clicktopray.org/pray-with-the-pope/

Also, here is a link to the St Patrick's Parish new Facebook page. Fr Wayne shared his Mass on this page. Please share this with your friends and others who are interested.

https://www.facebook.com/St-Patricks-Parish-Oamaru

NZ Police Multilingual Messages- Covid-19

New Zealand Police are releasing a multilingual message for our communities with the country's move to Covid-19 Alert Level 4.

Police are here to keep our communities safe and help prevent harm, but it's more important than ever that we all help them with this. That means staying home to help keep the wider community safe as part of the restrictions imposed.

We understand these will be stressful and unfamiliar times for our community.

They ask that people take stock, take a breath and support each other in the times ahead.

These videos can be accessed through the links below.

English:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIaaXXYAUB8

Te Reo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2dNwCCu96w&t=2s

Samoan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcQUYmT3hAM

Tongan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtT19BVkSrc

Cook Islands:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drXSktVhfpo

Niuean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka3Ag91fYLE

Kiribati:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUvrUWfo7R8

Fijian:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc7sHOFoiW8

Hindi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al93HzU3X1A

Punjabi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrFA2JSF7sA

Mandarin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RSZSmPUYlo

Korean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRErQaHVEUo

Fijian Hindi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ep2pfSkcQM

Buses and COVID-19

The North Otago Ritchies buses will NOT be running tomorrow Tuesday 24th March.

St Kevin's College is open for students with parents who work in essential services only. At 11am you can pick up books, artwork etc but you will need to make your own way to school.

Otherwise, do not come to school, please stay at home.

COVID-19 Update

Good afternoon Community

Following on from the announcement this afternoon by the Prime Minister there is no school tomorrow unless you are a student of an essential worker. If you are, then you are allowed to come to school tomorrow and Wednesday but not after that.

If you do not need to be at school, don't come.

If you need to pick up art supplies or books, come at 11 am tomorrow. Student work will be on Google classrooms.

It may be that the government starts the holidays in the next couple of days in which case, you are off for two weeks. We are still waiting for the ministry to decide this, so keep an eye on emails.

We will communicate more information as we know it.

God Bless
The Senior Management

SKC Netball Meeting Postponed

Kia ora everyone,

In light of the current situation around the country, I have decided to postpone the netball meeting tomorrow night. With most sport being put on hold, I believe setting up the netball committee is not essential at this point and time.

When it looks as though netball will be up and running again I will organise a time for those interested in being on the netball committee to meet.

Thanks for your understanding, and be safe.

Kind Regards,

Craig Smith
Head of Sport

COVID-19 and Mental Wellbeing

At the moment we are all focusing on looking after our physical health, but it is also important to take a moment to look after our mental health.

Everything in the news seems really scary, and it is completely normal to feel anxious or stressed. But being worried isn't going to change anything, so here are a couple of things I want everyone to do over the long weekend:

1) Take some time to do something you really enjoy to take your mind off things.
2) Talk/connect with someone.
3) Reduce social media and news exposure. Put down the phone because all the news and social media are not helping stress levels (It is still important to check regularly for important updates, but don't be consumed by it!)

Please keep following all health and safety protocols such as washing hands, avoiding gatherings and staying home if you are sick.

If anyone needs to chat, get in touch with me. Alternatively, ring/txt 1737 for a twenty-four/seven counsellor helpline.

Mathew Harris,
School Counsellor

Temporary Suspension of all Masses due to COVID-19

The New Zealand Catholic Bishops have been carefully considering the steps they need to take with Mass and other public liturgical gatherings because of the strong Government restrictions on public gatherings to counter the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Effective immediately, all Masses are to cease until further notice. Churches may remain open seven days a week for private prayers and reflection, but parish priests should ensure that numbers of people present remain small and follow Ministry of Health social distancing guidelines to stay at least 2 metres from each other.

Funeral services may continue but they must be brief and only with small numbers of close family and friends allowed. Those attending must also follow Ministry of Health guidelines for social distancing.

Baptisms, weddings and other public liturgical gatherings already planned may proceed but only with very small numbers of close family and friends present; again, those attending must follow Ministry of Health guidelines for social distancing.

Public liturgical gatherings not yet planned must not be approved and should be delayed until further notice. Funeral services will continue but with small numbers; these services will also meet safe practices and must be brief.

While this announcement today will disappoint many people, but it will also be welcomed by others. It also follows identical moves by Catholic bishops in many other countries. Pope Francis is himself setting the international Church example by not celebrating public Masses.

Your bishops and a number of dioceses are looking at live-streaming of Mass. Online resources for those who wish to pray at home, especially on Sundays, and to follow daily Mass online are offered at www.nlo.org.nz or on your local Diocesan
website.

We again emphasise to all parishioners the importance of good practices of hygiene, including regular washing of hands, covering coughs and sneezes with elbows not hands, staying at home if sick, and keeping a reasonable distance from other people when in public.

The official public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic is changing quickly and frequently. The primary concern of your Bishops is the safety of all parishioners, clergy, families, friends, staff and visitors to our many and varied premises.

We will continue to send updates as soon as new developments happen.

✠ Patrick Dunn, Bishop of Auckland and NZCBC President
✠ Steve Lowe, Bishop of Hamilton and NZCBC Secretary
✠ John Dew, Cardinal Archbishop of Wellington
✠ Paul Martin, Bishop of Christchurch
✠ Michael Dooley, Bishop of Dunedin
✠ Michael Gielen, Auxiliary Bishop of Auckland