Whangārei Boys High School Year 10 students rostered home due to staff illness

An entire year group at Whangārei Boys High School is at home today because too many teachers are sick.Influenza A is currently hitting the country hard - the past couple of weeks have been the worst in three years for illness-related school absences.In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Whangārei Boys announced that all of its Year 10 students would not come into school on Thursday due to staff and relief teacher sickness."Due to a significant number of staff and relief teachers being unwell, we're unable to safely staff all classes."Year 10 students will be rostered home for the day - all other year levels attend as normal. Our library will be open and supervised for any Year 10 student who can't stay home; they should report there on arrival."The school said Year 10s would be able to return to school on Friday.Meanwhile, a group representing 112 Auckland kindergartens says at some centres, more than half of the children are at home sick this week.Flu-related hospitalisations are at a 10-year high in Auckland, with reports of under-fives in intensive care.Starship Children's Hospital is deferring less urgent cases as it struggles to cope with a "flood" of very young children in hospital with flu symptoms.Leanne Marshall, who oversees the Auckland Kindergarten Association's north-west centres, says one of their kindys normally has a roll of 40 children, but yesterday they only had 17.She says anecdotally, students and staff are dealing with flu-like symptoms for longer this year."The recovery time seems to be a lot longer than normal; two to three weeks. Some students and teachers are being away for that length of time, which is a lot longer than we would normally see."Marshall says they're asking parents to keep sick children home to prevent the flu from spreading.Doctors say the free under-fives flu vaccine announced for next year cannot come soon enough and will save lives.