14 days quarantine rule at international school

[mrsriceball]

Today I found out an international pupil at my DS's school just arrived in the UK a day before the school started. I thought 14 days quarantine was mandatory wherever you had come from. But apparently their country wasn't in the government list so it wasn't required.

I expected some exposure once school started but we had been particularly careful since March so it was quite a shock to be honest. I know it's a very tricky situation for international pupils/families so it may be too strict to ask everyone from other countries to quarantine for 14 days?

However some parents at other international schools told me 14 days quarantine was mandatory for anyone who travelled from outside UK at their schools. So now I'm confused. Which one is a minority?

Ours is a boarding school, if you think it's relevant. I would like to hear how other boarding schools or international schools are handling this kind of situation...

I imagine your child will be at achool with children who have just returned from holiday and haven’t needed to quarantine. The international student won’t be the only student who has just arrived from abroad.

If they have travelled from a country not on the quarantine list (Is it called the exemption list) then no legal need to quarantine. I’d imagine a school would have a hard time justify quarantine when the government doesn’t require it.
Mine DS at an international school (in Europe, but not the Uk). We are at the end of week 4 of term. No cases so far in the Upper School but we have been told of a case in my sons grade - he is in Middle School. So we wait and see what happens.
I would actually prefer that a whole grade or cohort is quarantine as that trigger the schools online learning plan for that Grade/class/cohort. For individual students who have to stay one - they just get google classroom to look at what has been learnt and to try and catch up.

Why should they quarantine if not from a country on the list? Lots of counties have lower rates than the U.K. and what about all the U.K. residents who went on holiday without quarantining ?

Why would the overseas student be any more risk than a UK student, if the country they're coming from has rates similar to or lower than the UK? You could find that a student coming from parts of the North of England carries a much higher risk than a student from a low prevalence country overseas.

Sorry, to answer your question, our school is only requiring quarantine for students coming from countries on the quarantine list (we've got lots of international boarders). They did test all pupils before they returned to school, but that would only have picked up active cases, not anyone incubating the virus. To my knowledge nobody tested positive, though I don't know whether we'd have been informed of positive cases, given that the kids weren't back at school yet.