Highest Covid cases as schools return

There are more than 2,400 cases in the Bailiwick, with five people in hospital. There has also been an additional death involving Covid.

Isolation and illness led to a shortage of teachers and half- empty classrooms last term, and cases have more than doubled since then.

Education, Sport & Culture has introduced even stricter measures to keep schools open and ensure that exams can go ahead this term.

States schools reopen today, with secondary and post-16 pupils asked to wear masks in classrooms, a return to bubbles and staggered drop-off and pick-up times.

The NASUWT has supported the additional mitigations, but Wayne Bates from the union said they could go further.

He acknowledged that the Guernsey authorities had introduced more stringent rules than the UK and Jersey, but called for extra protections to reduce the disruption caused by staff self-isolation.

‘There’s a lot of trepidation and a lot of concern among our members that the virus has the potential to really rip through schools in the spring term, we’ve already seen how infectious it is,’ he said.

‘We know that historically there are problems around the lack of supply teachers on Guernsey and we asked the committee and the department to try and put some measures in place, such as recruiting agency staff from the UK during the Christmas period, and I don’t believe that has happened.

‘So we are concerned that staff absence is going to be an issue and that’s going to have an impact on the workload of remaining staff. The big danger is that we replace the Covid pandemic with a work-related stress, anxiety and depression pandemic sometime down the line.’

Teachers would like to see Ofsted inspections postponed in order to reduce an additional layer of stress.

Education, Sport & Culture has asked all pupils to do three mornings of lateral flow tests from today at home before they arrive at school.

Mr Bates said on-site testing at school would be a proportionate way to stop the spread of the virus.

‘With at-home testing you are relying on people to do the tests and to do them effectively, our call to bring in at-school testing was to ensure that all pupils are tested before the return, so there’s a point where all pupils are tested as they arrive for the new term, with their parent’s consent of course.

‘It would give that extra reassurance that pupils who are potentially infectious are identified and removed.

‘We want schools to be open, we’ve never called for schools to be closed, but we want schools to be open on the basis that they are as safe as possible.’

Education, Sport & Culture is confident that its measures strike a balance that allows schools to stay open and minimises disruption to young people. It ruled out on-site testing in schools because of worries that this would increase the exposure risk to staff.

The department acknowledged that its recruitment campaign to boost the bank of supply teachers was not as successful as it had hoped.

As well as masks and bubbles, extra-curricular clubs and activities have been cancelled for the time being, and trips to other schools have been postponed.