Published: Friday, 14th May 2021

LETTER: Bolton Council is asking all schools to retain the use of face coverings until further notice.

Dear Parent/Carer,

Thank you for your ongoing support during the pandemic by continuing to follow the latest government guidance.

On Monday, the Prime Minister announced changes linked to England’s progress along the roadmap out of lockdown. This included the intention to relax measures for the use of face coverings in schools from Monday 17th May. The exception to this is for those areas where there are local outbreaks.

In our locality and in neighbouring areas there are cases of a variant of SARS-CoV2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). This variant is spreading quickly and has contributed to numbers of people with COVID-19 in some areas almost doubling in a week.

Following discussions with school leaders, Councillors, Bolton’s Incident Management Team and the Director of Public Health, Bolton Council is asking schools to retain the use of face coverings, as per the current arrangements, until further notice. There have been instances where young people attending school or college have contributed to the spread of the virus. We believe it would be irresponsible to wait until we have higher levels of the newer variants of SARS-CoV2 circulating before we act.

I am sure that you will understand the need for caution at this time.

We will continue to keep the situation under review and will inform schools as soon as our local guidance changes.

Thank you for your continued support.

Yours faithfully

Bernie Brown - Director of Children’s Services
Helen Lowey - Director of Public Health