Coronavirus: Newtownabbey pupils and staff to isolate over Christmas after positive case identifeid

Around 15 pupils and seven members of staff from Glengormley Integrated Primary School have been told to self-isolate over the festive period after a positive Covid-19 case was indentified yesterday (Monday).

One class bubble will now have to isolate for 10 days over Christmas.

Speaking to the Newtownabbey Times, head teacher Nigel Arnold said: “Fortunately, working in this way means the other classes who have no cross-contamination between bubbles remained safe from exposure to our positive case, although potentially there was always a risk that any one or all of the bubbles could have been burst and exposed to a positive case in any of them, if they came to school in that week in the conventional way.

“There are seven members of staff in total impacted - three within the class bubble and four further staff who got pings on the StopCovidNI app as a result of the positive case yesterday and have to complete the 10 days of self-isolation from their families now across the Christmas period.”

Mr Arnold said that the school has not received any complaints from guardians since the positive case was confirmed, adding: “Parents are no doubt frustrated and upset as the staff are too, but they are supportive and understanding too of the school and the situation we were placed in by the Minister of Education. It is not our doing or the fault of the school and parents appreciate and get that.

“Personally, we would have preferred to move to remote teaching and learning for this week to prevent this from happening as we knew there was always a serious risk of it affecting families’ Christmas together if we all remained in school in the conventional sense for that period prior to closure for Christmas.

“But we followed the instructions of the minister and thus paid the consequences. The only children from that class who were not impacted on and forced to self-isolate at home now over Christmas were those whose parents who opted to keep them out of school from December 14 to December 18 due to this specific risk.

“In hindsight, I wish I had made the decision to do this myself as my child too is in this class bubble so our own family plans have also had to change now this week. However, it was always going to look bad if the principal kept his own children out of school.”

Asked when the Church Road school is going to reopen after the break, Mr Arnold stated: “We are due to return as the minister has instructed us to on our first date back, Monday, January 4.

“We will be ready and prepared to if things don’t change between now and then, but once again, our personal views in the school with governors, staff and many parents would be that we would prefer and could move, with only a day or two notice, to perhaps change January 4 and January 5 to exceptional closures for final preparation time to move to remote learning again, as we have been prepared for this most of the last term.

“We could also maintain a keyworker scheme with rotational staff in school too (socially distanced better) for those families who required this childcare provision and educational learning support, as we provided from March to August 20 previously.”

Earlier this month the Education Minister stated he had no intention to start the Christmas holiday early.

Meanwhile, Mr Weir announced yesterday that some post-primary school pupils should begin remote learning at the end of next month.

The minister announced his proposal to introduce remote learning for post-primary pupils not sitting exams from January 25 onwards, on a “temporary basis until the end of half-term”.

Special schools, meanwhile, will be exempt from the move to remote learning, Mr Weir said.

--

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers. Please consider purchasing a copy of the paper. You can also support trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription of the News Letter.