Alfredton Primary School will remain closed after recording eight positive cases of COVID-19 up until Thursday.
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It notified parents in a statement that contact tracers were continuing to work with the community but was hoping to reopen to eligible students on Monday.
Principal Laurel Donaldson extended her sympathy and best wishes for a quick recovery to all the families, and confirmed one child had been hospitalised.
The outbreak has been linked to the school after a person who tested positive visited the school last week.
The school has been closed for four days to allow deep cleaning and contact tracing, with Ms Donaldson waiting to hear from authorities when the school will be allowed to reopen.
More than 300 students and staff have been deemed close contacts, having been at school at the same time as the person who later tested positive.
Ms Donaldson said prep, grade one and two students had been at school on October 7 and 8, as well as students from all other year levels who were on site for supervision because they were deemed vulnerable or had parents who were authorised workers.
"We were really looking forward to our students returning and having what we hoped would be a fairly normal term this term," Ms Donaldson said. "There's been so much disruption."
Ms Donaldson congratulated students and families for their "understanding, tolerance and patience" as the school works through the processes to reopen.
And she praised teachers, many of whom are now in quarantine, for their continued work with remote learning.
"I must congratulate staff. It's a very difficult situation remote learning with so many of them having to go in to quarantine, myself included. They've done a fabulous job."
She was hopeful the school would reopen soon.
"It's out of our hands. We have to follow advice and guidelines and we are not allowed to open until we are given approval. I'm fairly certain it won't be any longer than this week, but here we are it's Thursday."
Later she issued a statement outlining her hopes some children would be back in class by Monday.
"I anticipate that the school will reopen on Monday October the 18th for eligible students in F-2, not in quarantine, and 3-6 students approved to attend approved for attend onsite supervision."
The four-day closure comes despite education mininster James Merlino declaring schools will generally only be closed for 24 hours while cleaning takes place, and while contact tracing occurs.
"If there's a positive case and we need to close a school, it will be closed for a very, very short period of time - around a day or so. And that's to do a deep clean of the affected areas, identify the primary close contacts, and then get most students back as soon as possible," he said.
"It's not talking about students across the whole of the school, it's talking about those primary close contacts - it might be a class, it might be a bit larger than a class, but we're trying to minimise the number of primary close contacts and minimise the time that a school is closed."
Alfredton Primary is one of 49 schools across the state closed over the past 10 days because of positive COVID cases among students and staff.
"We've adjusted and worked very closely with the schools to really minimise the number of primary close contacts that get caught up in each school-based exposure," said COVID commander Jeroen Weimar.
"Where children are vaccinated, if they're over 12, where they're in well-ventilated classrooms, where social distancing protocols are in a good place, mask-wearing, we can reduce the number of primary close contacts and obviously minimise the impact it has on their schooling at this time."
But in primary schools where children cannot yet receive vaccinations there is still caution.
With year 12 exams looming Victoria's public health team has changed protocols that will allow VCE students who are primary close contacts to still sit their exams.
VCE students who are primary close contacts will sit their exams in dedicated rooms with separate entrances either by themselves or safely distanced from other students who are also primary close contacts.
Supervising staff will wear face shields and hospital-level PPE in safely ventilated rooms that are cleaned between each use.
Each student who is a primary close contact will have to be tested every 48 hours in their first week after exposure, then again on day 13.
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Apart from attending exams, students will have to comply with all other isolation orders that apply which will be seven days for those who are fully vaccinated and 14 days for unvaccinated students.
Any students who test positive for COVID-19 will not be allowed to attend school or their exams, and well receive a derived examination score for any assessments they miss.
The Department of Health and Department of Education and Training are working on a wider trial of the use of rapid antigen testing in school settings as part of the suite of COVID safe measures for schools.
In Ballarat the tests are being used for staff and some boarding students travelling from metropolitan and other areas that have restrictions who must either be double-vaccinated or have two tests per week.
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