Head details ‘new normal’ plan for 350 students to be kept in ‘bubbles’

Wales High School headteacher Pepe Di’Iasio

A headteacher has revealed a ‘new normal’ plan for 350 students to be kept in segregated ‘bubbles’ and a plan to lockdown the entire year if one child becomes infected when classes restart in September.

Pepe Di’Iasio said Wales High School in Rotherham, Sheffield, will first welcome back year 7 pupils before adding a year group per day to total 2,000 students by the end of the first week back in September.

Pupils in different year groups will be kept separate and, if a teacher or child contracts Covid-19, the whole year will have to self-isolate at home for one week.

The head teacher told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘We’re keeping each of our year groups separate so there’s 350 students in each bubble, each year group will have their own social area, their own toilets. 

Pepe Di’Iasio said Wales High School, pictured, in Rotherham, Sheffield, will first welcome back year 7 pupils before adding a year group per day for the first week back in September

‘They will move around the school following their own timetable, staff will be asked to keep socially distanced from them in each classroom. 

‘But each year group itself will be able to socialise and follow their normal timetable in that way.’

On what will happen if a pupil or member of staff becomes infected, he added: ‘In the absence of detailed feedback and guidance from the central government advice that we have, we are assuming there will be a lockdown for that entire year group. 

‘How parents see that and how the community see that will be interesting to find out. 

‘However, in each year group there will be a lockdown, that year group will then be kept at home. There will be a seven day period where they have to isolate, and then I assume they will be following procedures to come back into school for that.’

Pupils in different year groups will be kept separate and, if a teacher or child contracts Covid-19, the whole year will have to self-isolate at home for one week (file photo)

It follows GSCE students being awarded with the grades predicted by their teachers instead of an algorithm on Thursday, after Government U-turn on exam results.

A record high proportion of GCSE entries in England were awarded the equivalent of A* or As – with 25.9 per cent getting a Grade 7 or above. 

The results were released at the same time as revised A-level results which showed more than 10 per cent of entries have been upgraded following the U-turn.

Pupils were able to take the higher of either their adjusted grade or their estimate mark after the regulator Ofqual confirmed England would follow steps already taken by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The move comes just a week after A-Level students saw 40 per cent of their results downgraded due to a controversial algorithm used by exams regulator Ofqual.