A Moray school has closed for the Christmas holidays early – after 40 children picked up a sickness bug.
Tomintoul Primary School was closed yesterday after the youngsters, and 13 staff – including the head teacher – were all hit by the same symptoms.
A deep-clean of the school will now be carried out, but in the meantime the council has decided to keep the building shut to reduce the risk of spreading the sickness and diarrhoea bug.
Last night, the local authority said they had no reason to believe the school is the cause of the outbreak and stressed the clean is a “precautionary measure” based on NHS guidelines.
Tables, chairs and floors will be sterilised in the lengthy process that is expected to take contractors the whole day.
It is understood nobody at the school was off with the illness on Monday.
But on Tuesday, 25 pupils called in sick before that increased to 53 students and staff yesterday.
With only 40 pupils enrolled in the small school, education bosses did not believe it was worthwhile to run classes today, on the last day of term, for the small amount of children likely to attend.
Last night Liz Lettey, secretary of the Kirkmichael and Tomintoul Community Association, said those suffering from the bug all had connections to the school.
She said: “The first I heard about it was today. I was talking to a lady who has children at the school and she said they were off because there is a sickness bug.
“There’s that many children off that it doesn’t seem worthwhile to keep the school open.”
A Moray Council spokesman said: “This is a precautionary measure. There is no reason to believe the school is the cause of the outbreak but when there is this number of people off ill then we have to follow NHS guidelines.”
