School sorry after bag search teacher failed to sanitise hands

A SECONDARY school has apologised to parents after a teacher searched pupils’ bags looking for missing magnets without washing their hands in between.

Cirencester Deer Park School advised worried parents to quarantine school bags and books belonging to pupils in the science lesson last Friday.

But headteacher Chiquita Henson insists the incident has nothing to do with two Covid-19 cases that have left scores of pupils in self-isolation.

She says there is no link between the bag incident in Year 7 last Friday and the confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Years 9 and 11 that emerged on Friday and Saturday.

The incident emerged after a pupil arrived home upset and told their family their teachers had searched their bags at the end of a science lesson because some magnetic weights had gone missing.

They said the teacher checked each bag without washing or sanitising their hands in between.

“He was in a terrible state because he knows how dangerous this virus is and he was worried there could have been droplets on other peoples’ bags,” the relative said.

“The teacher should have known to wear gloves or sanitise their hands between every bag.”

After the matter was brought to the school’s attention the headteacher sent out an email to parents of 18 pupils in the Year 7 class explaining what had happened and promising to follow up with the teacher involved.

The schools says no parents came back to raise concerns and all the class returned to school on Monday except for one pupil who is selfisolating while a family member awaits a test result.

The head added: “We followed up the concern with the teacher immediately on Friday and again on Monday and she has apologised for forgetting to sanitise her hands on this occasion.”