It was back to school today for thousands of children as education centres opened in Level 3 under strict new rules.
While 90 per cent of children are still learning from home, children at school were put into bubbles as school restrictions were put in place.
The Ministry of Education says as of 10.30am nearly 12,000 students were at school - that’s less than one per cent of the roll and well below the 40,000 that were expected today.
Some principals 1 NEWS spoke to said they were surprised by the numbers at all and were also surprised by the lack of unplanned attendances.
The Education Ministry stressed the numbers were preliminary and would have a clearer idea tomorrow about the numbers.
In terms of early childhood schools, nearly 8,000 children were reported going into centres today - that’s just four per cent of the roll.
The centres that were open today said it was successful - Shelly Nand from Auckland’s Pukeko Preschool said it had been a “busy” day with children being encouraged to wash their hands every hour.
Students at home have been supported with thousands of learning materials as the country heads into another two weeks of life under Alert Level 3.
As of yesterday more than 165,000 packs of learning materials have been despatched according to Pauline Cleaver, Associate Deputy Secretary of Early Learning and Student Achievement at the Ministry of Education.
And IT equipment has been distributed to thousands of households around New Zealand.
According to Stuart Wakefield, the Education Ministry’s Chief Digital Officer, 17,969 wi-fi routers, 5,338 Ministry-sourced computers and 13,478 computers have been shipped to students from schools' own stocks.
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