Schools 'need clear guidance' on Sars

The Government has been urged to give clear guidance to schools on how to respond to fears about the Sars virus to end confusion and disruption to pupils.

Schools across the country have imposed quarantines on pupils from Asia while others are urging parents not to keep children away from classes.

Parents of pupils at some boarding schools are refusing to allow their children to return for the summer term because of fears of infection from students from the Far East.

Other schools have forced pupils returning from Asia to spend 10 days quarantined in their dormitories or to attend quarantine centres.

Ian Wong, director of the Centre for Paediatric Pharmacy Research at the University of London, said yesterday the Government should develop a common policy to help schools respond to Sars.

"This will assist schools in making rational decisions and more importantly address the fears of parents," he said in a letter to the British Medical Journal. He said Chinese pupils' schooling was being disrupted because schools were imposing quarantines.

The Health Protection Agency has advised that there is no need for students returning from Sars-affected areas to be excluded or quarantined unless they are unwell.

But Mr Wong said a survey of 10 schools revealed only half are following the guidelines, four have 10-day quarantines and one is advising students not to return until the virus is contained.

Several leading public schools have sent pupils to a "quarantine centre" on the Isle of Wight before they return for the summer term.

Concerned parents of pupils at two independent schools which have allowed pupils from Asia to return kept their children at home yesterday.

Michael England, the head of the 210-pupil Woodleigh School, at Malton, North Yorkshire, said between five and 10 per cent of children were being kept at home. At the 208-pupil Terrington Hall school, near York, about a dozen children from five families were being kept away.

At another North Yorkshire school, Harrogate Ladies College, the headteacher, Dr Margaret Hustler, has volunteered to join 42 pupils in isolation in a boarding house.

Meanwhile, in Devon a headteacher is using CCTV cameras to monitor 20 quarantined pupils from Hong Kong. Neil Pockett, of St Johns School in Sidmouth, said the pupils, aged between nine and 13, were not showing any symptoms of the virus when they returned on Tuesday.

At Truro High School in Cornwall, 17 pupils from the Far East are also being monitored and kept in separate dormitories.