COVID-19 Protocols

If a child develops COVID symptoms, they must not attend school and get tested as soon as possible.

Action to be undertaken:

Notify the school immediately if your child tests positive to COVID-19 and support them to isolate for 7 days. Families should seek clarification about isolation protocols from
https://sahealth.sa.gov.au/COVIDpositive   

Families can notify the school of their child’s COVID status via the Absentee tab on the School Stream app. COVID positive notification, Household Contact and Close Contact can be registered. A dedicated email account has also be set up for direct communication with the school’s COVID Response Team – COVIDResponse@hccs.sa.edu.au

If you wish to speak with a member of the COVID Response team urgently, please contact the school during office hours (8.25am – 4.00pm) on 8388 7811. 

COVID Safe Measures

In line with the recommendations from the Department for Education, HILLS will implement the following changes to
face mask requirements:

• Strongly recommended (but not required) for all adults (including visitors) while indoors, except when
  teaching or interacting with children.
• Strongly recommended (but not required) for students in Years 3 to 12 while indoors. Students and staff will
  be encouraged and supported to continue wearing a face mask indoors if they choose to.
• Anyone who is a Close Contact and is aged 12 years and older will need to wear a mask when they leave the
  house for 7-days following exposure as per the SA Health Close Contact guidelines.
• Face masks will be required to be worn at HILLS when COVID-19 transmission reaches certain outbreak
  thresholds, based on SA Health advice (stated above). In these instances, face masks will be required to be
  worn indoors by students in Years 7-12 only, and all staff and visitors in the school and ELC for a 14-day
  period.
• Wearing masks in passenger transport (buses) for students aged 12 and above remains in the newly created
  COVID-19 Requirements Consolidated Direction outlined 24 May 2022.

HILLS is implementing (but not limited to) the following measures to minimise the potential of COVID-19 transmission:

• Ventilation in classrooms and indoor learning spaces to be maximised by leaving doors/windows open, continued use of air conditioning (set to fresh air intake where available) and fans
• Outdoor learning is encouraged where appropriate
• Physical distancing encouraged where possible
• Hand hygiene and wiping down of hard surfaces as frequently as possible
• Minimising the requirements of staff to intermingle
• Limiting non-essential visitors on-site
• Minimising student intermingling across class groups in an enclosed environment, and spreading out play spaces wherever possible
• Continued cleaning of high traffic areas.

Close Contact Advice

For the most up to date close contact advice (including household contacts) please visit the SA Health website using this link

If your child is identified as a close contact / household contact, or tests positive for COVID, please continue to notify the school through the Absentee tab on SchoolStream, or by SMS for Primary – 0400 738 405  and Secondary – 0477 006 500.

As schools are not considered Tier 1 or 2 sensitive settings, there is currently no requirement for close contacts to avoid schools for 7 days provided they follow the close contact guidelines.

• The close contact is required to perform a Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) on 5 of the 7 days after exposure and wear a mask when they leave their house. Please note that students who are close contacts:

• • • Between Years 7 and 12 are required to wear a mask. Exemptions will be made for students or staff who have a medical condition, such as problems with their breathing, a serious skin condition on the face, a disability, or a mental health condition
    • Between Years 3 and 6 are strongly encouraged to wear a mask
    • From Reception to Year 2 are encouraged but not expected to wear masks.
• Students should not attend school if they are symptomatic, even with a negative RAT or PCR test.

• Sometimes parents/guardians are not comfortable conducting a RAT on a child or may not be able to easily access RATs. If a parent/guardian cannot conduct a RAT on the child, the child may obtain an initial PCR on Day 1 and on Day 6 after exposure and may attend school after the initial PCR test is collected.

Management of COVID in our school

Schools are no longer required to notify parents of daily COVID case numbers in the school. However, we continue to monitor the number of COVID cases to appropriately track and determine any outbreaks within classes or year level cohorts.

An outbreak is currently defined as five or more cases in a single class/room in a seven-day period, and an outbreak is considered over when seven days have passed since the last positive case has been detected. Please continue to notify the school of positive test results using the absentee tab on SchoolStream or emailing COVIDResponse@hccs.sa.edu.au. In the event of an identified classroom outbreak, testing requirements have
now changed, and are as follows:

• Asymptomatic staff and students should use a rapid antigen test (RAT), and continue to attend school if
  they receive a negative result
• Symptomatic staff and students should undertake PCR testing as soon as possible. HILLS is currently seeking clarification about attendance while waiting for the results of the PCR
• In the event of an identified outbreak, HILLS will notify families and make available one rapid antigen test to asymptomatic students as required (the current RAT types made available to HILLS from the Department for Education are the nasal swab variety). 
• If the school identifies that at least a further five cases or greater, the school may consider a circuit breaker where the class/room is closed for three school days. The aim of this action is to reduce transmission by stopping students interacting in the classroom.

Information about RAT collection will be made available at the time of notification.

Parents will be kept informed about an outbreak within their child’s class or year level cohort.

Indoor Assemblies and Chapel Services have now resumed in a COVID safe manner. For HILLS this will mean that parents will be permitted to attend and will only be required to wear a mask if they are a close contact and not attend if they are unwell.

Camps – overnight, intrastate camps with shared indoor spaces (i.e. dormitory accommodation) have now resumed. As per the testing, isolation and quarantine requirements for school settings, students and staff who are a close contact cannot attend an overnight camp during the 7-day period following exposure.

Interstate trips that are an essential component of curriculum (i.e. Outdoor Ed) will occur, and educators will work with their leadership to ensure all risks and contingencies are appropriately managed.

We look forward to opening the school up once again for our community events, which are an integral part of our school. We will do this in a measured and responsible manner to ensure that all staff and students have a safe learning environment.  Thank you for your continued support of our HILLS COVID Safe Response.

FURTHER GOVERNMENT AND SA HEALTH INFORMATION FOR PARENTS

Parent Vaccination Resources and Clarification of Vaccination Direction