Napier's flooded Henry Hill School hopes to open within a week

Henry Hill principal Jason Williams is hoping students will be able to return to the school from early next week. Photo / Warren Buckland

Henry Hill School is hopeful of opening again as soon as possible and getting pupils back on-site within the next week, after flooding in Napier affected about a dozen of its buildings.

Henry Hill School was the only school in Napier to remain closed on Thursday, with 10 schools in total closed on Wednesday and 24 the day before.

Eight early learning centres were closed on Thursday as well, with 25 closed on Wednesday and 50 on Tuesday.

Principal Jason Williams said classrooms were being cleared on Thursday, two days after what looked like a river ran through the whole school.

"The water has disappeared now, but half of our classroom spaces were flooded, up to about 30cm high the water got in."

Williams said the walls had been contaminated even higher than that.

"We're doing everything we can now to try to get the carpet out," he said

"There doesn't appear to be any structural damage as far as we can see.

"But if we don't get it out quickly, it can quickly lead to more permanent damage."

Henry Hill School was the only Napier school that had to remain closed through Thursday. Photo / Warren Buckland

Williams said deep cleansing would be required for all the hard materials like tables and chairs, while all the soft stuff like their vinyl furniture was now rubbish.

"Classroom resources that were nearer to the ground level, they're a complete write-off, straight into the skip bin."

Jason Williams, left, clearing out classrooms affected by flooding to get them ready to clean. Photo / Warren Buckland

But he is hopeful everything can be cleaned up for children to return soon after meeting with the Ministry of Education on Thursday morning and receiving advice from Ministry of Health specialist assessors.

"It could even be a staggered start where we bring some children back first."

Williams said a lot of the children and their whanau were facing plenty of damage to their homes as well.

"Being a decile one community, a number of our families already have a number of obstacles and challenges just daily, in everyday life.

"For us as a school, we are that consistent, safe place for them and at the moment we're not, we can't provide that for them. That's probably the part that hurts the most - the damage can be repaired but at the moment we can't do our core business which is looking after the mental health and wellbeing of our kids, because without that there's no learning."

Online learning for the students started from Wednesday morning.

"It's definitely not our preferred means to communicate, the face-to-face stuff is always going to be better so we're doing everything we can to get the kids back here as quickly as possible," Williams said.