A huge congratulations to Antonia Karipa, recipient of the Overall Excellence Award at Blue Light’s Life Skills programme in Taupo on 22-26 November.
Antonia, beat an exceptional group of young people from across Aotearoa to win the Overall Excellence award and comments: “The highlights for me were the white-water rafting, the high ropes, and the food”.
Blue Light’s Youth Worker and Mentor Saagar Deo comments “Antonia was awarded the Overall Excellence Award through demonstrating the qualities of maturity, respect, intuition and through building individual and group mana”.
South Taranaki Blue Light Coordinator Leanne Richards states "We are really grateful that we can offer our Rangatahi the opportunity to go on the Life Skills camps. It can be life changing for some and often sparks an interest in a Defence Force career”.
Well done Antonia!
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3 days ago
Congrats to the following people, winners of our raffle to help students attend Y9 & 10
camps in a couple weeks.
We would like to thank the following local businesses and people for their support by donations to raise funds for The Camp Masketeers;
Farmlands Ōpunakē
Lara & Michael Espiner
Ōpunakē Motels
Dreamtime Surf
Mrs M & Pauline Sandford
Opunake Dairy
Farmsource Opunake
Ōpunakē Petrol Station
Many thanks also to those who sold and brought tickets, really appreciate your efforts. The raffle was drawn at Ōpunakē Police Station by Constable Kylie Brophy. Winners will be contacted this week. Nga mihi nui.
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4 days ago
New COVID-19 Protection (Traffic Light) Framework
You may have heard that everyone in Aotearoa will move to the new COVID-19 Traffic Light Framework on Friday 3 December.
Opunake High School will be moving to ORANGE.
Elimination and the alert levels have worked well, with New Zealand having the lowest numbers of cases and hospitalisations in the OECD. While controlled, Delta is in our communities and the strategy now focuses on minimising its impact.
With 85% of eligible New Zealanders now fully vaccinated, and by mid-December it is expected to be approximately 90%, this allows a careful reopening while continuing to protect New Zealanders.
This means that we don’t have to change the way we are operating classes this year and everyone can continue to attend school onsite.
For next year, we can confirm that everyone will be back onsite for learning from the start of the school year, regardless of what setting under the new Traffic Light Framework we will be in (Red/Orange/Green). This is good news and means we can plan for a great 2022.
Health measures in place at school
This year and next, health, safety and wellbeing will continue to be a priority for us and the same public health measures you are very familiar with will remain in place:
• good hygiene and cleaning
• contact tracing systems in place
• vaccination requirements for workers (paid and unpaid)
• if you are sick, you must stay home and get tested
• good ventilation.
And if we are at Red at any stage next year:
• face coverings will be required at school when indoors for students and staff in years 4 – 13
• we will ask that only essential visitors come onsite.
With all these measures in place, public health has confirmed the risk of infection remains low when at school, with households continuing to be where COVID-19 is spreading the most. As noted by Dr Caroline McElnay, Director of Public Health:
Our experience in New Zealand and overseas with COVID-19 shows that it does not affect children and teens in the same way it does adults. Children and teens don't become as unwell if they do get infected, and they don't tend to pass the virus on so much as adults when in a classroom setting.
Compared to other places, schools and early learning services are not environments where we have seen significant spread of COVID-19. Household members and work colleagues who are in close contact with people with COVID-19, are the most common sources of transmission.
However, if we do have someone confirmed with COVID-19 in our school, we have a plan in place to manage this and will contact you as soon as possible.
If you’d like to learn more about the framework visit COVID-19 Protection Framework.
Ngā mihi
Andrea Hooper Carr
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4 days ago
Attention Year 9 & 10 students.
For the rest of the year, Period 4 has been cancelled and students can choose to swim, play sport or chill in the library.
Its been a long year, you've worked hard, you deserve some treats.
Attend class first, get roll-checked, go to one of these options.
Bring your togs!
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4 days ago
Today is Course Selection for Year 9 students moving into Year 10 in 2022.
Students may still arrange a time to meet with whanau & mentors today (please contact the office) otherwise this will be completed over the next week.
Tomorrow is a Ministry of Education Teachers Only Day to plan for the NCEA changes coming up.
There is no school for Y9/10 students, NCEA Exams still run as normal.
Buses are running both days. These should only be used by students attending school or exams please.
Nga mihi
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6 days ago
