Coronavirus: 1,600 pupils sent home across Wolverhampton
More than 1,600 pupils have been sent home to self-isolate on the back of 22 positive Covid-19 cases at schools in Wolverhampton, it can today be revealed.
The figure has prompted concerns among MPs and health officials in Wolverhampton, who say official guidance to send entire “protective bubbles” home when a case is identified was disrupting the lives of thousands of children and parents who do not have the virus.
Wolverhampton Council officials say that since the start of last month 22 positive coronavirus cases have been identified in 19 schools in the city.
A total of 1,663 pupils have been sent home to self-isolate for 14 days – meaning 75 pupils are forced to isolate for every positive case identified.
Advice from Public Health England (PHE) says that when a Covid-19 case is identified, the whole “bubble” – a group of students who complete all lessons and breaks together – has to be sent home.
Pat McFadden, the Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East, has written to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson urging him to intervene in the matter.
He said the number of pupils being sent home was having “a huge effect on the return to school and interrupting the lives of thousands of children and parents, the vast majority of whom do not have the virus”.
“I know that. like me, you want the return to school to be successful,” he added.
“Children have already missed a huge amount of education this year and the missing time affects children from the lowest income groups most. This lost education is bad for equality and bad for opportunity.
“If this is happening in Wolverhampton, it will be happening elsewhere in the country.”
Disruption
In the letter Mr McFadden called for “urgent talks” between Mr Williamson and PHE “to see if it is really necessary to send home an average of 75 children every time a case is identified in a school”.
He asked: “Can a way not be identified to minimise the disruption to the education of other children in the school and of course the disruption to parents who once again find themselves having to try to home school children when we are trying to get the economy back up and running again?”
Year 8 pupils at Moseley Park Academy are among those who have had to self-isolate, while at Corpus Christi Catholic Primary Academy, Year 3 and reception bubbles are currently in isolation after a positive case last week.
Cases have also been identified at St Peter’s Collegiate School, Wolverhampton Girls’ High School and Villiers Primary.
Across the country attendance figures have plummeted, with around 900 schools sending people home in the first two weeks of term due to Covid-19 infections.
Geoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers’ union, said that with rising rates of infection and problems with testing, the attendance figures were “not at all surprising”.
"It is a great relief that the situation is not a lot worse,” he added.
