A school which was forced to close after eight teaching staff contracted coronavirus has said that all those who tested positive were learning support assistants.
Samuel Ward Academy in Haverhill in Suffolk closed on Monday on the advice of Public Health England.
It will not fully reopen until September 21 due to “a significant number of staff self-isolating until September 20” but has said it will reopen to four year groups on Wednesday.
In a letter to parents, headteacher Andy Hunter wrote: “We have tracked the movements of all the staff who have tested positive to identify their contacts around the school.
“All of the staff affected are learning support assistants.
“Their job is to support students’ learning in lessons.
“It was very difficult to be sure exactly where they had stood or sat during the lessons they supported last week, so for safety we had to ask all the children in those classes to self-isolate.
“There will be no in-class support from learning support assistants for the next two weeks, and when it begins again it will be with new procedures to ensure that in future we would be able to identify individual students within a class who had been in close contact with an LSA.”
Ninety students have been told to self-isolate for 14 days.
More than 50 staff have had tests and there have been no new positive results this week, Mr Hunter said.
He added: “I have not heard of any child testing positive for Covid-19 this week.
“I am very hopeful that there has been no onward transmission to students.
“The period of isolation we have asked those students to undertake will ensure that, if there is, it does not come back into school.”
The school will operate under a rota system until it fully reopens on September 21.
Years 9, 11, 12 and 13 will return for four days from Wednesday to Monday, and during that time Years 7, 8 and 10 will be set work to do at home.
The year groups will rotate for the four days after that, before the school fully reopens.
“This is going to be a difficult year for all of us,” said Mr Hunter. “We will continue to do our very best to provide the best education we can whilst keeping everyone as safe as we can.”
