Secondary and primary schools across Oxfordshire have been forced to partially close due to staff catching Covid, leaving pupils to miss vital education.
Covid measures have been relaxed at a time when cases are soaring especially in schools and teaching staff in the county are concerned the lack of access to test supplies will further impact children’s learning.
Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union said the relaxing of measures in schools and colleges “makes no sense” adding that “with exams looming this is very poor timing.”
The union has been urging the Government to continue with free testing especially in education settings but say these calls have been ignored.
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The new Covid guidance states that adults ‘with symptoms of a respiratory infection and with a high temperature’ should ‘try to stay at home’, until they no longer have a high temperature.
Children who are ‘unwell and have a high temperature’ should stay at home until they no longer have a high temperature. Adults who do test positive are being advised to ‘try to stay at home’ for five days and children for three days.
Dr Bousted has criticised the guidance for being confusing and said, “it is a recipe for even more chaos.”
Lynn Knapp Headteacher at Windmill Primary School in Headington is particularly worried about the lack of Covid testing available for staff and children.
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Mrs Knapp said: “The bubbles we were doing in school will be completely ineffective because children are now mixing outside of the school day. We will now not even know if someone has got covid because children are no-longer testing.”
She added: “It is impacting on their learning because inevitably they will then need to take yet another week out of school.”
Although the school has not been forced to close any classes due to staff sickness, in February the school experience a huge Covid outbreak that saw teaching assistants acting as teachers to help during staff shortages.
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Rob Pavey, headteacher at Cheney School in Headington said the secondary school was forced to partially close on in February with some year groups working online due to having more than 20 per cent of staff off sick.
He said: “There has definitely been an impact through higher than average staff and student absence, but I do not believe that our students at Cheney will actually suffer any disadvantage because of it.”
He added: “I am pretty optimistic about how things will work out this summer, even though it has been difficult keeping the school running normally.”
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