Although nobody knows when schools will resume physically for third-term, as a forward-thinking school, we understand the need to put plans in place to keep our students and employees safe when school re-opens. In a town hall meeting held via Zoom between 26th and 27th of May 2020, members of our community had the opportunity to share ideas on different measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within our community.
One major highlight of the meeting was the announcement by our CEO, Mrs Lai Koiki, that since the third term will be a continuation of the Greensprings Learning Room (GLR), we will capture May, June & July 2020 GLR fees as a portion of third term fees and parents will only need to pay the balance.
She, however, stated that if GLR extends beyond July 2020, additional monthly GLR payments will be captured as stand-alone and therefore will not be part of the third term fees.
Concerning the re-opening of schools by the government, Mrs Koiki made it known that safety of the students and staff is paramount; therefore, whenever government decides to announce the re-opening, we will run a hybrid system of both physical and online classes in order to create an environment for social distancing.
There will also be a controlled playtime, whereby students will go out for recess in stages according to their grade levels; this will help us with tracking in case there’s ever a need for contact tracing.
It was also stated in the meeting that our campuses wouldn’t open physically if there is a feeling that it isn’t safe to do so. We will explore a three-day per week model, whereby students will only have to come to school three times a week. However, the three days will be longer than usual to enable us to make up for missed days. The aim of doing this is also to ensure there is more than enough room to practise social distancing in the school.
Before the school re-opens, all our campuses will be thoroughly fumigated and disinfected. Students and staff will wear face masks and shields; disinfection will be done weekly and surfaces would be cleaned every two hours.
Additionally, there is a plan to set up an isolation room and to install a disinfection channel at the entrance of all our campuses. This channel will help make sure people entering the school’s premises have their whole body properly disinfected and not carrying any pathogen.
In the meantime, we will continue to wait for the government’s announcement on guidelines and date for re-opening for schools.
