Admiral Lord Nelson School in emergency closure as Covid-19 outbreak hits school

Admiral Lord Nelson School, in Copnor, Portsmouth, took the decision yesterday to close the establishment for today and tomorrow.

In a statement on its website, the school said: ‘It is with regret that we have had to take the decision to close the school to most students for the next two days and move to online remote education instead over this two day period.

‘Over the last two weeks we have had rising numbers of both students and staff having to isolate due to testing positive for Covid-19. To mitigate against this, we have increased hygiene and cleaning procedures, encouraged regular testing by all and brought back in the use of face masks in communal areas. However, these measures have not been as affective as we would have liked them to be and in the last three days cases of Covid-19 have risen rapidly.

‘Today we have 17 education and teaching staff absent with the majority of these being due to Covid-19 and having to self-isolate, and we are now up to 161 students isolating due to testing positive for Covid-19.

‘With half term approaching we had hoped that we would be able to manage through until Friday and that the break over half term would curb the outbreak within the school.

‘However, due to the figures stated above that are still rising we do not believe it is safe to keep students in school with our reduced staffing that makes it increasingly difficult to maintain high standards of education and safety within our school.’

The news came as the number of daily coronavirus infections, nationally, soared past 52,000 for the first time since January.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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