Students in two independent schools have been told to work from home for the beginning of next term, citing health and safety reasons following the festive holidays.
Pupils at San Anton will be in remote learning mode for the first two weeks, according to an email sent to parents, while those at San Andrea will be online for the first week of school.
Superintendent of Public Health, Charmaine Gauci, has previously said that authorities were not seeing transmission between pupils at school and that social distancing measures were working in the classroom.
However, in an e-mail that took some parents by surprise, San Anton School said it has been advised by its COVID-19 medical committee to start its second term in remote-learning mode for the first two weeks, given current developments and past experience of virus infection trends after school breaks.
Acknowledging that it could be stressful for some families due to the special arrangements they needed to make, the independent school with over 1,000 pupils said it preferred to err on the side of caution.
The two-week period of online learning would ensure that the physical return to school would start more safely later in January, with the aim of having another successful term as with the first, wrote school head Sandro Spiteri.
San Andrea School has also opted to go online for its first week from January 7, with a view to protecting the health and safety of the school’s population, which must “take centre stage during these unprecedented times”.
The news will come as a bitter pill to swallow for parents – and even students – after a year that disrupted the educational system. It follows a positive experience in the first term, where good health measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus resulted in relative safety and no school closures.
Some teachers may feel safer not returning to school immediately after the holidays, however, given that images of families gathering in hotels and Gozo farmhouses have been posted over the festive period.
Both San Anton and San Andrea are scheduled to resume in-person learning on January 18, while Chiswick House School’s kindergarten and junior sector will start normally from January 6.
St Martin’s College sixth form is also starting virtually for almost two weeks before switching to the hybrid model, while the senior and middle schools will start with the hybrid model, whereby virtual learning will be exchanged between them after a week.
And although St Catherine’s High School was planning to open its doors for physical schooling on January 6, it may reconsider this decision, also adopting distance learning in view of the latest developments.
School head Sue Midolo said the school will advise parents accordingly should there be a change in plans.