Brian Guthrie, principal of Ebrington Primary School in Londonderry, said the drop in staff numbers meant he was extremely close to unsafe staff-to-pupil ratios, at which point he would have been forced into a part-closure on health and safety grounds.
The worst of the outbreak struck at the end of November, he explained: “On the Tuesday it was 68% of pupils in attendance and on Wednesday it was only 63% in attendance and on Thursday it was 72% in attendance.
“So on the Tuesday and Wednesday we were talking about 160 to 170 pupils off on those two days and also 15 to 16 staff off as well.”
Play-based learning amongst Primary 1 and 2 pupils means that sickness spread rapidly in those classrooms.
Staff absence numbers included classroom assistants who work one-to-one with pupils who have special educational needs (SEN).
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Mr Guthrie said: “I think had I had any more staff off, and just not been able to put staff in place, it would have been down to health and safety grounds with pupil numbers.
“If I’d had to think about closing, I would have looked not to have closed the whole school.
“I would have looked to have closed maybe a particular year group for a day or two. I certainly wouldn’t have looked to try and close the whole school down for it.
“But I’m thankful that it worked out with pupil numbers. We were able to get by with not having to close down year groups, because we had two classes in each year group, we were able to amalgamate smaller classes over a day or two and it worked okay.”
Ebrington Primary School principal Brian Guthrie
News Catch Up – Wednesday 10 December
There were only two thirds of classroom assistants available for two or three days, with teachers “not quite so badly affected on about 85%” availability.
Other assistants then had to double up or treble up in order to look after SEN pupils and they were “happy to do so as they’re a really dedicated team”.
For the three days in question, Mr Guthrie said, the attendance of both pupils and staff was lower than it would have been during the pandemic – although Covid impacted the school for longer.
The school leader said it was a real “challenge” and he does not recall another winter when pupil and staff numbers plummeted so low.
“Nothing as low as that,” he said.
Principal Brian Guthrie
“We might have been down in the 80-85% for three or four days, but nothing as bad as that. It was a bit like a perfect storm.
“This time there was cold and flu going around in the school. There was a strep throat. There was vomit and diarrhoea.
“There were a lot of different things going on; I’m not saying that 170 people had flu.”
The Ebrington PS principal said he is in communication with other head teachers in the city and their schools were “really affected” by sickness too.
He is delighted to have pupils back because Christmas shows are taking place this week and it means “we can welcome our school community”.
The school put mitigations in place, Mr Guthrie said. There was more cleaning of regular touch points, ensuring good ventilation in the building, and making sure children were encouraged to ‘catch it, bin it, kill it’.
The Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Programme 2025/26 officially commenced in Northern Ireland on October 6.
Younger eligible individuals were offered vaccination from September.
Vaccine uptake amongst pre-school children across Northern Ireland sits at 25.8%, while it is 44.7% amongst primary school children.
In terms of the vaccine, Mr Guthrie said children at Ebrington did receive it.
However, it was less than a week until the illnesses started, and the NHS states that it takes up to 14 days for the vaccine to work.
“So the majority of the children had their vaccination but it maybe didn’t have time to work because this particular stream this season just seemed to have come about two weeks earlier than usual,” Mr Guthrie said.
He is hopeful the worst of winter pressures have now passed.
“By last week, we were up to 90-91% attendance. And then this week, we’d be 95% this week,” he said.
“We’re up to what you would expect an average school attendance to be and I’m back with just about every member of staff back as well.”
The Public Health Agency (PHA) said that during winter months it anticipates an increase in illnesses such as norovirus, flu, colds and other common respiratory conditions.
The PHA advises that people take simple, practical steps to minimise the risk of illness such as getting a flu vaccine, staying off school when sick, regularly washing hands and speaking to a pharmacist about over-the-counter remedies.