Students sent home from Lytham St Annes High School after positive Covid-19 cases

Lytham St Annes High School, on Worsley Rd, has announced it will move students in years 7, 8, 9 and 10 to remote learning for the remaining three days before half term.

This means that the school, the largest in the Fylde borough with around 1,500 pupils, will be closed to all children, except for those in year 11.

It comes during exams at the school, however pupil assessments will continue as usual due to the way in which the exams can be socially distanced.

In a letter to parents, headteacher Ray Baker said: "Having not had to make a decision like this since the start of the pandemic, a recent increase in asymptomatic, positive cases has caused us to take this difficult decision.

"This weekend has seen a number of cases reported, each causing us to inform families of contacts of the need to isolate for ten days.

"We have spoken to the Public Health team at Lancashire, and they support our decision in order to break the transmission locally.

"Therefore, we will move to remote learning, via TEAMS for Tuesday 25, Wednesday 26 and Thursday 27 May."

Mr Baker said the school will follow the usual timetable including lesson times, breaks and lunches. He said lessons will be 'live' for some part of the lesson time, but teachers will 'set and manage' the learning as best suits the students.

He added: "We will expect lessons to last around 50 minutes to allow students to pack away and get set for their next lesson.

"Whilst we know that face to face teaching is the best form, we will use our experience of the last lockdown to minimise disruption to learning.

"While we are not currently seeing the health effects of COVID in school and are trying to run as normal an experience as possible, the track and trace obligations make it impossible to operate normally."

The school hopes that breaking the transmission now will reduce the number of families impacted by the need to follow government advice and isolate for the entire half term break.

Mr Baker said: "It is clearly a challenge to manage the health and safety of staff and students, especially during a time when we see the rest of the country easing restrictions and “opening up” and I understand the anxiety and anger a decision like this can cause, but would thank parents for their incredible support over the last week, testing, isolating and supporting local approach to managing Covid."

With the children being sent home today, the school will be offering Covid test kits and parents who are participating are being asked to test their children on Saturday 5 or Sunday 6 June in preparation for the full return to school.

Mr Baker added that the school will establish an 'onsite critical worker provision' for Wednesday and Thursday and we will contact parents directly.

The school was contacted for further comment.