Coronavirus: Peterborough school closes due to pupils and staff self-isolating

Nene Park Academy in Oundle Road is closing to all year groups from lunchtime today (Friday) and will re-open on Monday.

In an email to parents, principal Robin Grover said: “I am writing to inform you that over the last two days a significant number of staff at Nene Park Academy have been contacted to follow statutory advice and self-isolate.

“This has not only been the case for staff but for an increasing number of pupils across all year groups.

“In order for us to ensure effective teaching, both at the academy and online, we need time to re-organise in departments and houses to ensure we meet the needs of all pupils.

“We therefore have reluctantly taken the decision to suspend lessons 4 and 5 tomorrow (Friday) and will close to all year groups tomorrow at 12.05pm.

“This will ensure that we can re-open on Monday, 23rd November at the normal time as an effective provider of safe teaching and learning.”

In a press statement, Mr Grover added: “Under current circumstances schools across the country are facing significant challenges with staff absences which are much higher than normal due to the impact of the track and trace system. Usually, staff absences rarely cause problems but over the last 36 hours a significant number of staff at Nene Park Academy have been contacted to follow statutory advice and self-isolate.

“All schools across the country are legally required to have an appropriate number of staff based on the number of students that need to be in school for health and safety reasons.

“In order to keep the school open for all pupils and in the interest of the safety and wellbeing of our school community, we reluctantly took the decision to close to all year groups today at 12.05pm. This will allow us to re-organise our staff and resources from across the trust appropriately to ensure that we can continue to provide high-quality teaching for every single child at Nene Park Academy.

“We appreciate that this will have an impact on many of our students and their families but I want to reassure parents that because of the measure we have taken today we will be open to all students across all year groups on Monday, November 23 as usual.”

It was revealed last week that more than 160 Peterborough school pupils were self-isolating due to the coronavirus.

And earlier this week, Southview Community Primary School in Crowland was forced to close after a number of confirmed Covid-19 cases were recorded at the school.

The school became the first one in the Peterborough area to completely close because of an outbreak.