We returned to school a week later than most schools after the Christmas Break and, though the term dates were set almost two years ago it felt like an effective piece of forward planning. Given all that festive partying, I reasoned over New Year, it will be very useful to have a cooling off period while the potential infections matured and became detectable. We could all return to start the next stage of bubble-controlled mixing albeit with some isolating post-holiday. And so it seems to have proved; infection rates in school started low and have barely risen since 10 January, and currently there are just over 30 students (out of nearly 1200) at home for Covid-related reasons. The same is true for the staff, as we have a very small number of teaching staff away, though an outbreak in our Catering Team meant that we had to close the Kitchens for a couple of days due to staff shortage. We are now back up and running - so the pizza slices, bacon baps and sausage rolls are back on offer much to the relief of the large customer base!
In school it is feeling more like pre-pandemic days, though we are still recommending that face masks be worn in areas where population density is high, and that does include classrooms. This is not a matter of compulsion but most students are happy to continue. The windows and doors to classrooms are still kept open to encourage freer circulation of air, and there are carbon dioxide monitors in most of the more enclosed teaching rooms to enable teachers to compromise between warmth and aerosol management. Staff still tend to ‘don the mask’ inside despite the apparent end of ‘Plan B’, and I am pleased that they are choosing to take a more cautious approach in the short term. The news that a million children were out of school last week, together with a national teacher absence rate over 15% endorses a steady approach to the removal of infection control measures, so that is the approach that we will take.
Meanwhile we are pretty much on full throttle elsewhere. School sport is powering ahead in the new term, with practices and fixtures crowding the calendar. The lecture programme is back, public speaking and debating competitions are in session and we have groups of students outward bound once more. There is little to get in the way of the rehearsals and performances in music, and of course it has been amazing to get back into the Cathedral for major school events after so long away. The last bit of the post-Covid jigsaw to fit into place will be assemblies with different age groups together, as we emerge from the tunnel of the past 2 years.
SDS
