Year 7 students at Hartsdown Academy in Margate has been sent home today (November 5) following a confirmed positive covid case.
The five Year 7 classes and a number of staff now need to isolate until November 18.
A message was sent to parents and carers this morning, saying: “We have been made aware that we have a confirmed case of coronavirus (COVID-19) at Hartsdown.”
All Year 7 pupils who are eligible for free school meals have also been issued with a £30 shopping voucher to cover the two week isolation period.
Hartsdown is just the latest in a growing list of Thanet schools reporting positive Covid cases.
Yesterday Newington primary asked two Year 3 classes to self-isolate until November 19 after a staff member had a positive test.
Upton Junior School in Broadstairs is operating as usual following the positive testing of a female teaching assistant during the half term break.
A message sent to parents and carers this week says one staff member tested positive for the virus during half term and, as a result of contact during the school break, some other staff members are now isolating. No teaching bubbles or year groups and classes have been affected.
King Ethelbert School also had three students with positive tests over the half term. The affected students are in self-isolation and the school says Public Health England advice is that there is no need for classes or year bubbles to isolate.
Other schools to have been affected since the full return to class in September including Royal Harbour Academy, Minster primary, Bromstone, Dame Janet Primary in Ramsgate, Garlinge primary, St Anthony’s School, Ellington infants, Chatham and Clarendon, Dane Court, Cliftonville primary, St George’s CofE and St Ethelbert’s primary.
Government guidelines say a person who tests positive should isolate for 10 days while anyone who has been in close contact with them must self-isolate for 14 days.
Close contact is deemed to be:
Direct close contacts – face-to-face contact with an infected individual for any length of time, within one metre, including being coughed on, a face-to-face conversation or unprotected physical contact (skin-to-skin).
Proximity contacts – extended close contact (within one or two metres for more than 15 minutes) with an infected individual.
Travelling in a small vehicle, like a car, with an infected person.
When will Johnson end this madness? The lockdown cannot be truly effective while children & students are infecting each other in the type of numbers we are seeing & then going home & giving it to their parents & siblings.
Everything got back under control when schools sent pupils home earlier this year, as soon as they went back in September the rates started to steadily rise again. Does this not tell the Government anything at all? They are listening to the wrong advisors. We cannot keep going in and out of lockdowns when the institutions with the greatest spread rates continue as normal. Businesses and the economy will die.
Not just “business and the economy “.
So will people: they matter too.
I think the problem is they don’t listen to the scientific advice-hence why they ignored the scientific calls for a lockdown 6-7 weeks back & waited until yesterday. Whitty & Valance or anybody advising them is in a tough spot-if you come out against them then you get fired & somebody else takes your high paid job, so like with Trump you play along making it obvious you think these people are imbeciles & keep your job.
Just look at government drug advisor Professor David Nutt in 2009-his results of the most dangerous drugs study showed that Alcohol was the worst & the tabloid headlines of MDMA fatalities etc proved to be total nonsense & as he said there are more fatalities from horse riding than Ecstasy-yet nobody is talking about banning riding horses, smoking which like booze was shown to be more harmful than ecstasy, LSD or cannabis, nor drinking alcohol, that was inconvenient for the government because it wouldn’t win votes, so he was gone.
So year 7 self isolate but any siblings of year 7 carry on going.
My thoughts exactly. My son is yr 7 but my older boy yr 11 at same school. But my eldest can go in doesn’t make sense
Yes,send ALL schoolchildren home,let them miss what,added up together,will be a whole year of their education,and then nobody will complain when we have a generation of children with a really low level of education in afew years time.
Your post reads like you need to go back into education yourself “Dr” Jones. Specifically English; and the grammar components of the curriculum.