Whole year at York school told to stay at home after positive Covid test

A whole year at one large York secondary school has been told to stay at home today (Monday) after someone tested positive for coronavirus.

Students in Year 7 at Huntington School are being asked to stay away.

An urgent announcement went out on the school’s social media at about 9.30pm last night (Sunday).

It said: “We have just received notification of a positive Covid-19 case in Year 7. As a result ALL Year 7 students should not attend tomorrow (Monday 23rd November) to give us the opportunity to accurately identify those who are in close contact.

“If your child has been a close contact you will receive an email tomorrow advising on the self-isolation period.

“If you don’t receive an email, your child can attend on Tuesday 24th as normal.Work will be available for the students on Microsoft Teams.Thank you for your understanding and support.”

‘Remarkably’ low rates

It is now unusual for a whole year to be affected.

The test and trace system used by Huntington and other schools has proved very effective at limiting the number of students who have to self-isolate after a classmate tests positive.

Before this latest case, Huntington School had recorded 17 positive Covid-19 cases since the beginning of September: 13 students and four members of
staff.

That’s out of a school community of 1,741 people.

In a letter to parents headteacher John Tomsett said York was doing relatively well: “The fact that we are keeping cases so low and that so many of our students are still in school is remarkable.

“The city’s secondary school average attendance rate is aboouot 10% higher than the national average.”

And he hoped things would return to something approaching normal next year.

“We are now planning for the spring. If there is no new surge in positive cases as a result of the Christmas holidays, we hope that we can get a bit more back to normal by March.”

That is just 11 school weeks away.