House Leaders for 2021:
Congratulations to the following students who have been selected as our House Leaders for 2021:
Batten House: Risa Miyata, Kate Fleming, Johnny Zhou
Blake House: Blake Lundgren, Charlie McNae, Jessie Seok
Hillary House: Ann-Maria Sekona, Yuni Choi, Jana Hamayun
Sheppard House: Navia Ranchhod, Anthan Tai, Donna Xue
BOT Mid-term Elections – Candidate Statements:
How NZ COVID Tracer works
Use NZ COVID Tracer to keep a digital diary of the places you’ve been so contact tracing will go faster if it’s needed.
DOWNLOAD FROM APP STORE or GOOGLE PLAY
Information links:
- Sign in
- Register your details
- Create your digital diary
- Sign up for contact alerts
- Share your digital diary with contact tracers
- New features coming soon
See also: NZ COVID Tracer walkthrough videos.
Sign in
The first time you open NZ COVID Tracer, you’ll be asked to enter your email address and create a password. You’ll then receive an email with a 6-digit code that will allow you to complete the sign in process.
NZ COVID Tracer works with your phone’s password manager, which means you can choose to save the password securely on your phone so you don’t have to remember it every time you log in.
Register your details
After signing in you can go to the Dashboard to:
- register your details
- let us know where you’re staying
- invite friends and whānau to download the app
- register your interest in features that will be added to the app in future updates.
Create your digital diary
Once you’ve signed in you can start using NZ COVID Tracer to create a digital diary of the locations you visit.
Select the ‘Record a visit’ option. You can then either scan any Ministry of Health COVID-19 QR code poster or add a manual entry to your digital diary:
- To scan a QR code, simply point your camera at the code so it fits within the target area on the display of your phone.
- To add a manual entry, tap the ‘add manual entry’ option and fill in the form on the next page. You can enter the place or activity, the arrival date and time, and any further important details such as who you were with or what you were doing.
Your phone will vibrate and a green tick will appear to show that you have successfully added an entry to your digital diary.
You can view your digital diary at any time by tapping the icon on the top-left of the ‘Record a visit’ screen or by selecting ‘View my diary’ on the ‘My profile’ screen.
Read more about NZ COVID Tracer QR codes.
Sign up for contact alerts
You can make sure you’re signed up for contact alerts by visiting the NZ COVID Tracer dashboard and checking the ‘Receive contact alerts’ tile.
- If you are an Android user, contact alerts will be enabled by default.
- iPhone users may have to enable contact alerts.
Once you are signed up for contact alerts, NZ COVID Tracer will let you know if you have checked into a location at the same time as a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19, so you can be on the watch for any symptoms and take appropriate steps to protect your friends and whānau.
Contact alerts work through ‘push notifications’ to your phone. Notifications will include information about the locations and timeframes where people may have been exposed to COVID-19. If there is a match with the information stored in your digital diary, you’ll receive a contact alert. This does not involve transmitting any location information from your phone to the Ministry of Health.
Kōanga Festival 2019
Our wonderful Kapa Haka team gave an amazing performance at the recent Kōanga Festival. The team represented the school with mana and showed great commitment, courtesy and enthusiasm. After their performance, they recieved an awhi haka from the Howick College kapa haka group – a very special honour. A very big thankyou to Mrs Takaiti, Ms Wright, and Mrs Carr for supporting our students and preparing them for this special event.
Storylines Author Visit
A group of Year 5 & 6 students had the opportunity to meet award winning author Janet Hunt. A non-fiction writer who writes about New Zealand’s wildlife and environment, she inspired the students with her stories from the Wildbase Hospital in Palmerston North. The visit was part of the Storylines National Festival Story tour and we were thrilled to be included.
Author Visit for Book Week –
We enjoyed meeting New Zealand author Juliette MacIver. She read her stories and told us about being a writer and how she writes her wonderful rhyming stories! We also got to come to school on Friday dressed as our favourite book character!

Room 3 showed Juliette their artwork based on her book.
Exciting news – Botany Downs has a new app! Go to your phone’s app store and download the SchoolAppsNZ app today to keep in touch with what is happening at school. Record absences, check notices and the school calendar… all at the touch of a button!