Covid closes Herefordshire high school as staff self-isolate

Lady Hawkins' School in Kington closed on Tuesday (March 23) due to students from one household testing positive during a round of regular asymptomatic testing all pupils are asked to do on a twice-weekly basis.

The school will remain closed on Wednesday, pending the results being confirmed by the more reliable PCR coronavirus tests, which are processed by a laboratory.

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A spokesperson for the school in Park View said that contact tracing was done with help of Herefordshire Council's outbreak control hub and almost half of the workforce have been told to self-isolate.

Lady Hawkins' School is in Kington

But they said if the PCR tests come back as negative, the school could reopen on Thursday. This is because the rapid lateral flow tests can give incorrect results, so a PCR test is needed.

If the cases are confirmed, the school would be closed for longer.

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Students at Lady Hawkins' will be learning from home until the schools reopens.

The spokesperson said the positive tests were part of regular testing all secondary school and college students have been asked to do since returning to face-to-face teaching earlier this month.

They said it was not an outbreak, but advice from the council's outbreak control hub was that certain staff members must self-isolate. It's left the school without enough staff to open as normal.