A large secondary school has announced it is to close down for two weeks after 40 teachers and 160 pupils were required to self isolate.

The Howard School, Rainham, has written to parents, saying it will be shutting until December 7.

It had previously sent home different year groups as it tried to manage the Covid situation.

But matters came to a head yesterday when it had two further positive pupils and six staff members awaiting results.

Last week the Derwent Way school had a total of nine confirmed cases.

The situation caused an increase in the number of lessons needing to be covered by teachers on the school site, which meant they were not available for their own classes online.

In the letter, executive head teacher Cathy Reid said: "Unfortunately, it is now the case that we do not have the capacity to open safely and deliver a quality education within the school. I believe that closing is the right decision at this time to try and ‘circuit break’ the increasing cases."

Youngsters will continue to be taught online until they can return to class.

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