A decision late on Monday by the government will give school principals the option of allowing Year 12 and 13 students back to school early for face to face learning during alert level 3.
Auckland Grammar Headmaster Tim O'Connor has been imploring authorities to allow flexibility especially for students so close to crucial assessments.
On Friday he said 11 more full school days out of the classroom would be expensive, especially for students sitting Cambridge examinations. He didn't want 2020 to be a wasted year for students.
He joins Lisa Owen to discuss.
"I'm ecstatic. It's great news," he told Checkpoint about today's announcement.
"Our young men will be ecstatic about this .... it gives them the opportunity to get prompt responses from teachers. Anything we can give them they'll be grateful for."
He said the decision was complicated because the government would have to work through the Health Order to give students a dispensation to return and he expected this to happen tomorrow.
It would mean a lot of organisation to ensure physical distancing of one metre inside and two metres outside, classes of 20 or fewer and teachers only being associated with one group of students although the bubble of students could have more than one teacher.
"It might mean students aren't with us for the entire day...
"Any form of face-to-face contact is great for our young people."
Asked if the decision favoured high decile schools and unfairly disadvantaged schools with fewer resources, he disagreed, saying it offered schools greater flexibility to be able to make decisions for themselves and their community.
O'Connor said one of the critical groups schools needed to be helping were students on vocational pathways who did a lot of practical work as part of their courses.
"They will fall behind very quickly indeed."
The decision does not mean that year 12 and 13 students have to come to school every day. "Any face to face contact is better than none."
He urged all other Auckland schools to consider returning at least some of the students so they received some contact.
O'Connor congratulated the Ministry of Education for its decision.
He said he would be awaiting final arrangements from the Ministry tomorrow but his leadership team had been working huge hours to prepare for several scenarios, including the one of having senior students return.
He has already seen some general guidelines which were "restrictive but manageable".
"We'll be good to go from Wednesday."
Earlier today, the president of the Auckland Secondary Principals Association, Steve Hargreaves, said students who did practical subjects should be allowed back to school if it was safe.
"If it's not looking like it's a widespread outbreak then I think for small numbers of students on a rostered basis in subjects that need school equipment, you know we're talking the practical subjects - the technology, the art and those sort of things... we could do that quite safely."
He said builders were working at his school, and having students in workshops would not be much different.
Hargreaves said Auckland schools and students were a lot better prepared for home learning, but schools were running out of time to make up for any lost learning.
"I think it will be worse this time. Although teachers are practised at this remote learning now, the issue is we have less time to make up for lost ground," he said.
"We are going to rush back into submission of projects for NCEA and then school exams, mock exams, and then trying to get students ready for those externals. We're looking at about 20-something days left in the term when that happens and 20-something days to make up for 11 days of lost learning is really pushing it."
He said the anxiety was exacerbated by the knowledge that work students did now would contribute to derived grades for any exams or other assessments they might miss because of further lockdowns.
"What is stressing out the students is they know that they're going to have to generate some work, probably in these next few weeks, just in case we're in lockdown again," he said.
The Qualifications Authority had already made changes to the NCEA, including granting students extra credits for their work.
The president of the Secondary Principals Association, Deidre Shea, said the changes made a big difference, but more might be needed depending on how Auckland's level 3 lockdown affected students' learning.
"If it exacerbates it further, then there will need to be further measures," she said.
"It really is a matter of determining the impact on student learning and that requires information to come in from a lot of different sources."
Shea said many students would be better prepared for working from home, but some would still find it difficult.
She said a big difference with the current lockdown was that students were allowed to come into school to collect equipment or resources.
Before the Ministry of Education's decision this evening, the principal of Albany Senior School, Claire Amos, said Auckland students might need further concessions on the NCEA because they could not attend classes.
"It's tough I think this time round because we feel like we might be at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the country," she said.
"It is a little bit unfair that we're in a different situation in Auckland."
Amos said NZQA could monitor NCEA results and make changes if the results showed that Auckland students had been disadvantaged.
However, she did not believe much change would be needed and she did not agree that students needed access to workshops during the lockdown.
Amos said NCEA was flexible and students could do a lot from home and then concentrate on practical work when they returned to the classroom.
"There's already mechanisms in place that mean we can respond to this kind of situation," she said.
The Qualifications Authority said it would consider further changes to the NCEA if they are needed.
