Omicron case closes Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre

Thursday 16 December 2021

The Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre has closed to most students with immediate effect after a student was discovered to have the omicron variant of covid-19.

The school remains open until next Wednesday but only for students invited to attend or whose parents cannot keep them at home until then.

The student, who tested positive for the omicron variant last night, has no direct links to travel.  

The positive test was identified as part of the routine contact tracing programme. This sequences only a proportion of positive cases and therefore at this stage it is unclear whether other recent cases of covid-19 at the Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre include the omicron variant. However, the Director of Education, Nick Hynes, said "it is likely that there are more positive cases in the school". 

At a public briefing held by the Civil Contingencies Authority on Tuesday evening, Dr Nicola Brink, the Medical Officer of Health, said there were already indications of community seeding of the omicron variant and that it would not be possible to prevent a wave of omicron hitting the Bailiwick soon.

The closure of the Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre was not required by the Civil Contingencies Authority or Dr Brink. But the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture said that it decided to close the school last night "due to the proximity to Christmas...to minimise the risk of students and staff becoming positive and having to isolate over the festive period".

Pictured: Deputy Bob Murray, Vice-President of the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture, said that the Committee's decision overnight to close the Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre to most students was heavily influenced by the proximity to Christmas. 

"We learned of the presence of the omicron variant at the school this evening and have taken swift steps to do all that we can to minimise the risk of any further spread of it through the school," said Deputy Bob Murray, Vice-President of the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture.

"We are 10 days from Christmas and we want to minimise the risk as much as possible of any student or member of staff contracting the virus and needing to isolate over the festive period."

Deputy Murray said it was "highly unlikely" that the school would have been closed in exactly the same circumstances if Christmas had already passed. 

"We need the community to understand that things will look different in January when students return to settings," he said. "We are expecting a lot more omicron cases and it is simply not possible or proportionate to disrupt our young people’s education any more than absolutely necessary.

"We have made the decision this evening because of how close we are to Christmas. If this was January, it is highly unlikely that we would have come to the same decision as we must live responsibly with covid-19, which now includes the new variant, and that means us all finding a way to manage its implications in such a way that allows education to continue."

Pictured: Nick Hynes, Director of Education, said it is "likely" that there is already more than one case of the omicron variant of covid-19 at the Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre. 

Mr Hynes said: ‘‘It was inevitable that we would get cases of the new variant in education settings and I want to thank the young person, along with many of their peers, for doing the right thing, being vigilant with the lateral flow tests and seeking a confirmatory PCR once that came back positive.

"As soon as we became aware we took immediate action, working with the Committee, to try and limit the risk of further spread and therefore further disruption for families at Christmas."