Boarding in a COVID-19 world

We hosted an online forum for boarding parents yesterday to discuss what boarding might look like if/when we’re eventually allowed to re-open. Boarding parents are rightly concerned about what might happen if there’s a second wave of infections, and about how we’re going to ensure that the boarding houses are kept safe. Our plans so far are as follows:<ol><li>Be prepared for boarders to come back early at the beginning of the term in order to sit out their quarantine. We’ll facilitate this either by laying on our own in-house quarantine (if feasible) or by supporting boarders in state quarantine remotely.</li><li>Social distancing all dormitories - we’re working on a maximum of two per room at the outset.</li><li>Keeping visitors outside a ‘cordon sanitaire’ around the boarding village.</li><li>Supplying hand-sanitisers in multiple locations around the boarding village.</li><li>Providing staff and pupils with face-masks.</li><li>Social distancing all the tables and chairs in the dining room and staggering meal times such that there is never a large number of pupils all arriving at the same time.</li><li>Increasing the cleaning routines in all the boarding areas.</li><li>Providing face masks and gloves to all those working in the laundry.</li><li>Leaving high-traffic doors open so that hand-surface contact is minimised.</li><li>Restricting the number of boarders in the gym and sports hall in the evenings.</li><li>Disabling our biometric finger scanners to reduce touch surfaces.</li><li>Putting provision in place for remaining open over October half-term in case overseas boarders can’t get home.</li></ol>Advice is changing all the time, so we’re also remaining flexible. The old adage: ‘Plan early, plan twice’ rings true in this case. We’re confident though that if we’re able to re-open we’ll be able to do so safely.