St Clare’s and COVID-19

For emergency calls regarding pastoral support or safeguarding please call 07932 724511. For all other enquiries please send an email to reception139@stclares.ac.uk 

St Clare’s is open and student and staff welfare remain at the heart of everything we do. We will continue to follow all Public Health England guidelines and regulations to ensure that all our students remain safe and well.

Here is a summary of the precautions we are taking to reduce any risk. Many of these precautions were already in place at St Clare’s before the first lockdown, so we are already in a good position to judge the practicalities of the measures. We will continue to communicate directly with all parents and agents to alert them to any changes.

• Health monitoring: All staff and students will receive daily health checks, including temperature screening.
• The entire St Clare’s campus will be continually deep cleaned. Surfaces and door handles will be sanitised several times during the day. Toilets for students and staff will be sanitised twice daily and social distancing will be enforced where appropriate.
• All staff and students must complete health declaration questionnaires before being permitted to enter the college.
• No visitors will be allowed into the college without a prior appointment and they will also be expected to complete a travel and health declaration questionnaire.
• If our international students and staff arriving from outside the UK are required to quarantine for fourteen days, we will ensure that they are able to complete a period of quarantine in college whilst under the direct care of our pastoral staff and medical team.
• We will require non-resident students, staff, and visitors who have travelled abroad not to enter the college until a period of 14 days has elapsed from their re-entry to the UK.
• All students and staff will wear face masks in college and around Oxford. St Clare’s will supply face masks for people who do not already have them.
• PPE and cleansing stations will be installed across the St Clare’s campus to actively reduce the risk of transmission.
• Students will be reminded of social distancing via information campaigns. None of our classes is larger than 15 people and teaching rooms will be arranged to space out students as much as is practicable. Our boarding houses are also small units, ranging from 11 to a maximum of 30 boarders per boarding house.
• Large group gatherings will not be permitted. Weekly whole year group meetings will be held online rather than in the hall. Dining rotas will limit the number of people permitted to eat at the same time and they will be more widely spaced. Contact with the non-St Clare’s community will be restricted. 
• UK government and Public Health England guidelines will be followed for all CAS and co-curricular activities. Common sense and dynamic personal risk assessments will also be important in all situations.
• We have an excellent relationship with the NHS medical practice in Banbury Road and our college nurse is in regular contact with them. The option for students to purchase private medical health insurance for the duration of their stay in the UK is also available.
• We undertake to provide regular updates from the Senior Management Group to all parents.

Please view our updated Risk Assessment below:

• Risk Assessment

The Boarding Schools Association (BSA) is working with both the Government and all BSA schools to ensure a safe environment for young people. It is reassuring to know that the University of Oxford is at the world-wide forefront of research into developing a Covid-19 vaccine, antibody testing and contact tracing, as well as having one of the best teaching hospitals in the world. It is a privilege to live in this great city.

St Clare’s, Oxford Senior Management Group

Update about the start of Spring Term 2021

(28 Dec 2020)

We want to reassure our students and their families that our plans for the beginning of next term remain essentially the same as planned in spite of the changed national circumstances. Please note the following:

Oxford is in the Tier 4 lockdown area, but travel for educational or work purposes is permitted, so there will be no change to beginning of term plans.

Inbound flights to the UK are currently running as normal so your children’s flights in early January should happen as planned.

The Spring Term will begin as stated previously:

IB World School – Monday 4 January when boarders will be quarantined in boarding houses and online learning will commence. Live teaching will begin on Monday 18 January.

International College – Monday 11 January when students will be quarantined in college accommodation and online learning will commence. Most students will be arriving in Oxford on Sunday 10 January. Live teaching will begin on Thursday 21 January. 

Please make sure that your children stay safe over the Christmas period and do not expose themselves to unnecessary risk. They should only return to college if they are Covid-free. If they have tested positive during the Christmas holidays, you or they will need to let us know

The UK government has reduced the quarantine period from 14 days to 10 days. There is the possibility that testing for Covid-19 could reduce the 10-day quarantine period even further. Private testing is one possible option and we are currently assessing providers. 

The new strain of Covid-19 is more infectious but there is no evidence that it is any more dangerous than the standard virus. So, we are confident that the infection control measures we had in place in the Autumn term will be equally effective from January 2021. There were no cases of Covid-19 among either IB World School students or staff during the entire term.

St Clare’s is a safe environment.

We will update this statement in the new year once students have returned and we have decided the best route forward for testing and early release from quarantine. 

Visitors to the college 

Visits by prospective students and parents are by appointment only. We are able to conduct interviews via Skype if required. We are usually delighted to see former students but for the time being, such visits are suspended until later in the year.  

Here is the advice from Public Health England