A college has extended its half-term to two weeks - as the government faces continued pressure to impose a "circuit-breaker" lockdown.

In a bid to reduce the risk of Covid-19 spreading amongst pupils and staff, Canterbury College, in Canterbury , has stretched the October break from one week to a fortnight.

The college's principal, Lucy McLeod said: "This decision was taken at the end of September to provide an extra period in order to lessen the risk of coronavirus transmission within our college, and enable our teams to continue to undertake work to ensure that our site remains as Covid-secure as it can possibly be.

"We’ve worked really hard to mitigate against the risks of coronavirus transmission and don’t currently have any students or staff away from Canterbury College with confirmed coronavirus.

"The additional time at half-term will help us continue to manage this as we move into the second half of the Autumn term.”

The news comes as health chiefs and Labour leader Keir Starmer have called upon the government to impose a two-week “circuit breaker” lockdown across the country.

But not all schools are keen to see the half-term break extended by such measures.

Ken Moffat, headmaster of Canterbury's Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, said this week: “I think 70% of all work that gets done in schools gets done between September and Christmas, when everyone’s fresh.

“So [a two-week lockdown] would be poor. It would be disappointing, and I’d hope to avoid it. If there is, I just hope we’d get adequate notice rather than Mr Williamson [the Education Secretary] telling us next Thursday night that we’ve got to have a two-week half term."

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