November 16, 2020 10.53 am This story is over 40 months old

Alford school closed due to COVID-19 outbreak

It will be closed for a week

A secondary school in Alford will temporarily close for a week due to coronavirus.

John Spendluffe Technology College said it has experienced “considerable staff shortages, not due to confirmed COVID cases but to protect our staff if they have potential links to settings with confirmed cases”.

On Friday it said it had two positive cases of coronavirus – one in the Year 11 cohort and one in Year 7. A letter to parents/carers from headteacher Ms Shorrock on Saturday confirmed another case within its Year 8 bubble that morning.

After consultation with its chair and vice chair of the governing body it was decided to temporarily close to all students for the week from Monday, November 16.

Ms Shorrock said: “We feel this is the right decision for staff, students and the local community. This step will allow staff to work with their individual class remotely and upload targeted work not our Class Charts platform.”

She added: “We appreciate that this will cause some disruption and inconvenience to our families but we feel this is unavoidable at present.

“There is no substitute for having children face to face with their class teacher and we do not anticipate that this pause in our usual curriculum offering will be for an extended period.

“Our desire would be to have children back in school as soon as possible, but only if it is safe to do so.”