Schools facing ‘challenging and worrying time’

Schools across the district are facing “testing times”, head teachers have warned parents. As the Gazette went to press, the government looked set to close primaries and secondaries - with more and more children staying home amid fears over the spread of the coronavirus. Some have also reported a “significant number” of teachers and support staff not being able to come into work. Over the past week, Public Health England had advised schools to send individual pupils home if they showed signs of a high temperature or had a cough, but otherwise to remain open. However this looked set to change on Wednesday afternoon.

Many events outside classes - such as a Year 11 parents’ evening at the Canterbury Academy - had already been cancelled. In a letter to parents on Friday, academy head teacher Jon Watson admitted the uncertainty had been “inconvenient, frustrating and upsetting”. “This will continue to be a challenging and worrying time for us all,” he added.

“On behalf of all of our staff teams across the Trust, we remain incredibly grateful for the way in which you are working with us, as a community, during these testing times.” His sentiments were echoed by Herne Bay High head Jon Boyes, who wrote to parents on Tuesday.

“These are challenging times, however we will get through this by all working together and supporting one another,” he said.

Mr Boyes said staff would upload work online for pupils who have to stay at home. Mike Walters, executive principal of St Anselm’s, also wrote to parents on Tuesday, warning that if teacher absences continued to increase, the school may have been left with no choice but to shut its doors.

“In the event that absence of staff makes keeping the school fully open impossible and/or a health and safety risk, the decision will be made to partially or fully close the school,” he wrote. Elsewhere, the head teacher of Ramsgate Holy Trinity School in Broadstairs decided to close the primary school from today as almost a third of pupils were already being kept at home. An email sent to parents, signed off by executive head teacher Tim Hunter-whitehouse and head of school Erin Price, said: “As we write this, there has been no further leadership from the government as to how schools and families deal with this very difficult situation. “Our staffing situation remains very difficult with significant numbers of teaching and support staff not being able to work in school either through showing symptoms of the coronavirus or because they have, or family members have, underlying health conditions.

“As the guidance now states that households have to isolate for 14 days, the situation at school is only going to become more and more difficult.” Health minister Helen Whately, who is the MP for Faversham and Mid Kent, had warned there was a need to consider the unintended consequences of schools closing.

She said: “If children aren’t in their schools, it creates a difficulty for parents at work. Who will look after them? “Usually parents turn to grandparents for help, but with the over-70s among the most vulnerable from coronavirus, that’s a bad idea.”

Matt Dunkley, Kent County Council’s corporate director for children, young people and education, said: “We are in regular contact with schools to make sure they are aware of the latest national guidance around coronavirus, which is being communicated to them by the Department for Education.

“All day-to-day operational

Herne Bay High School head Jon Boyes