Long queues to enter schools

THE first day back to school, after the June holidays, was marred by snaking queues outside schools.

THOROUGH: Teachers outside Mee Toh school checking student's declaration forms.

That was because the schools took a no-nonsense stance against the Influenza A (H1N1), launching a battery of health and safety measures for staff and students.

At Mee Toh Primary and Jurong West Primary, parents and students behaved in an orderly manner, even if it meant more than an hour of waiting to get inside the school gates.

At Mee Toh, in Punggol, two teachers patiently and diligently checked each student's declaration form to make sure they were not in an affected country in the last one week.

If they had come back from a flu-affected country after 22 Jun, they would be whisked to an isolation room to wait for their parent to come and take them back home. Only two children were asked to leave the school yesterday as they had just come back from Indonesia in the past few days.

Students who entered the school were to immediately go to their form class and take their own temperatures.

They would record their own temperature in a handbook and then, their teacher would record it as well.

Staff at the school started calling up parents and informing them of their strict measures on Thursday .

Principal Fong Bee Cheng said: 'All form teachers called up the parents of their form students to remind them to bring their travel declaration form and their thermometers on the first day of school.

'We encouraged teachers to get in touch with each parent on the phone so they could personally explain the procedures to them.'

The precautions were not just for students.

Ms Fong, 59, said the school's operations manager got in touch with the tuckshop vendors and other related staff also, to inform them to bring their travel declaration forms yesterday.

She added: 'The tuckshop vendors also had to come back to school last week to disinfect the canteen and other areas.'

Bus operators who ferry kids to and from home were also kept in loop.

Said Ms Fong: 'We told all of them to disinfect their buses and they also had to observe the students they picked up yesterday.

'If they looked unwell, the bus operator would ask them to go home immediately.'

More recess periods

Ms Fong said most of the steps were put in place on Thursday. On Sunday, after hearing of two schools closing, they decided to add more recess periods for students.

Said Ms Fong: 'We usually have two recess periods for four levels.

'But after we heard of the two confirmed cases on Sunday, we decided to increase that to four recess periods - one per level.'

She added: 'We just want each kid to have more space to minimise risks of potential infections.'

Parent Theresa Ling, 39, an administrative assistant who has a 9-year-old daughter at the school, said: 'It is natural for us to worry. But I can see they are doing a very good job.'

Speaking to reporters at a technology-related conference yesterday, Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said that parents should be warned that more classes or schools may close should their school be hit by the virus. However, he urged parents to remain calm.

He said: 'I wouldn't paint a doomsday scenario and say 'what if'. For schools, what it does mean is that when we want to prevent big clusters from forming, we have to close down certain classes, certain schools.

'And we take it a day at a time, a week at a time and we adjust to the situation.'