COVID-19: Growing calls to ‘rethink’ rules that can force year-long groups to return home when a student tests positive | UK News

There are growing calls for changes to schools’ COVID guidelines to prevent large groups of children from being sent home every time one or two students test positive.

At present, pupils in England are not to come to school if they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19[female[feminine.

But while in secondary schools the number of quarantines is relatively low each time, for primary schools entire “bubbles” containing dozens of children are often sent home because the young people are not. able to distance themselves socially – frustrating parents who have to attend, home school, or supervise their children’s education while working from home.

Schools are currently considered a major source of infection as immunization levels increase in the rest of the population, there are fears that a growing number of children continue to miss out on the education they would normally have received.

The latest figures from the Ministry of Education show that as of June 17, 2.3% of all young people in public school were self-isolating due to possible contact with a case of COVID-19 in the ‘school.

This despite the fact that only around 0.1% of pupils are a confirmed case – a ratio of almost 23: 1, while the average class size in England is 26.

The proportion of students needing to self-isolate following a COVID case at school is up from 0.5% on June 10.

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) is among those calling for a different approach.

Its general secretary, Geoff Barton, told Sky News: “We fully understand the frustration of parents that the children are being sent home to isolate themselves after so much disruption over the past year, and this frustration is shared by schools and colleges.

“Government rules require that schools and colleges trace close contacts of anyone with coronavirus and ask …