Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Covid-19 coronavirus: Handful of children at schools today

Simon Collins
By Simon Collins
Reporter·NZ Herald·
23 Mar, 2020 11:02 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

New Zealand's coronavirus lockdown will be managed by a leadership team of some of the country's top officials. That team is Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health, Sarah Stuart-Black, Director of Civil Defence Emergency Management, Mike Bush, Commissioner of Police, and Dr Peter Crabtree.

Only "a couple of handfuls" of children turned up at most schools today, as teachers rush to get home learning plans out to parents for the coronavirus lockdown period.

Principals' Federation president Perry Rush says there has been "a good response from the community" after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday asked all parents except "essential workers" to keep their children at home for the next month.

Perry Rush: "We must be pragmatic, balanced and supportive of a range of creative endeavour, and focused on managing what is a really stressful situation." Photo / Supplied
Perry Rush: "We must be pragmatic, balanced and supportive of a range of creative endeavour, and focused on managing what is a really stressful situation." Photo / Supplied

"There are not many at all at school, a couple of handfuls in most schools," he said.

Teachers have been asked to stay at schools today and tomorrow to look after the children of essential workers such as health workers and police officers, and to develop home learning guidelines for children.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

School holidays, which were due to start on Good Friday, April 10, have been moved forward to start this coming Monday, March 30, so effectively schools are expected to provide home learning plans for the rest of this week and then for a week and a half after term 2 starts on the Wednesday after Easter, April 15.

READ MORE:
• Coronavirus: Schools close indefinitely with just minutes' notice
• Coronavirus: Four Auckland schools linked to Covid-19 in one day
• Coronavirus: Auckland Grammar backs closing schools now
• Coronavirus: Ministry of Education reveals factors that will close schools, bring holidays forward

Rush said he was "thrilled" at the number of schools that are well prepared with home learning plans, both online in better-off communities and through take-home packs in poorer areas.

"Virtually all the schools I spoke to yesterday all had preparatory work they had done and they were ready," he said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"I have just been stunned by the number of schools that are well prepared."

He said some low-decile schools have lent school computers to families who don't have computers at home.

The Ministry of Education says on its Facebook page that schools "have been asked to supply paper copies of work and that's why today and tomorrow have been set aside, to plan for this".

"You may find you will need to pick up a pack from your school," it says.

"Remember it's only till the end of this week as the holidays now run from March 30 to April 14 inclusive. Then there will be at least one week of home learning put in place."

This afternoon, New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 3. In 48 hours, we will move up to COVID-19 Alert Level...

Posted by Ministry of Education NZ on Sunday, 22 March 2020

Rush said schools would have various policies on lending computers to families.

"There are issues obviously around things like you have the internet filtered in the school environment through Network for Learning. In home settings that probably won't be the case, so there will be some schools that will feel uncomfortable about doing that," he said.

"It really is down to individual schools to decide how they can support their communities."

He said every team in his own school, Hastings Intermediate, has communicated its expectations to parents.

"They have got their mechanisms in place," he said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Schools are using apps such as Class Dojo, Seesaw and Google Classroom to send parents homework lists and support.

The Ministry of Education has put initial resources on an English-language website Learning from Home and on a Māori-language version, Ki te Ao Mārama.

Privately-owned education resource companies such as Twinkl have provided even wider resources online.

But Rush advised parents not to let their children spend too much time on online learning.

"It's important that there's a mix. Sitting on your device all the time isn't appropriate," he said.

"We do need to encourage our communities to be realistic and also really gentle with everybody for what occurs at this point.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"So let's take care that we must be pragmatic, balanced and supportive of a range of creative endeavour, and focused on managing what is a really stressful situation in our country, which includes young people. That is our primary objective."

• More information is on the Ministry of Education and covid19 websites.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

'We have you surrounded': Police stood down after Hawke's Bay stand-off, search continues

Premium
Hawkes Bay Today

Black Ferns: Tui pair on the big bird for matches in South Africa

Hawkes Bay Today

Four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay, two seriously injured


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

'We have you surrounded': Police stood down after Hawke's Bay stand-off, search continues
Hawkes Bay Today

'We have you surrounded': Police stood down after Hawke's Bay stand-off, search continues

A police officer could be heard speaking over a loudspeaker at the scene.

17 Jul 04:06 AM
Premium
Premium
Black Ferns: Tui pair on the big bird for matches in South Africa
Hawkes Bay Today

Black Ferns: Tui pair on the big bird for matches in South Africa

17 Jul 04:00 AM
Four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay, two seriously injured
Hawkes Bay Today

Four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay, two seriously injured

17 Jul 03:11 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP