Update 30th March 2020 

From Thursday 26th March New Zealand started 4 weeks (at least) of total shutdown.

It means that where you slept on Wednesday night 25th March and who you are living with are your home and the only people you can interact with in person for the shutdown period.

The borders are also closed to everyone except New Zealanders. We are not sure when they will re-open.

New Zealand still has a small number of Covid-19 cases and very few deaths. As of Monday 30th March we have 581 cases and just 1 death.

There is a possibility that after the 4 weeks shutdown New Zealand will not just have flattened the curve - but may have eliminated Covid-19 from the country.

We certainly hope so - but it will be hard and needs the co-operation of all people in New Zealand right now.

Last week after just 24 hours of preparation we managed to offer to ALL our students a full day of online classes, study support and for many 1-1 conferencing as well.

This has continued into this week and our teachers are getting even better and more creative with their classes.

NZQA has now approved our online classes as legal and so it is compulsory for students to attend - same as the onsite classes.

We will be able to continue to offer Online classes for as long as the shutdown is in place.

We have students who had to return home early who are still joining the Online classes from their country and we are offering to new enrolments the chance to also join these classes while they are being held.

The feedback from many of our students has also been incredibly positive. They are enjoying their lessons and finding being able to keep studying, see their teacher and talk with their classmates to be much better than they expected.

We also think that it is very important for their mental health.

They will also need this online social interacting and time with teachers and fellow students.

From this week we will also be offering some of our social and activity programmes online.

We will do Wednesday Pubnight online.

We will do Thursday Yoga class online.

And we will also offer Friday afternoon options online as well!

For many students this is of course a worrying time and we are doing all we can to support them and keep in touch - and keep them studying.

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