Hong Kong schools prepare to teach in post-pandemic world: masks while singing, no basketball and recess inside

Hong Kong students will have to wear masks while singing during music lessons and maintain social distancing during ball games when they begin to head back to classrooms at the end of the month, according to government guidelines to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection.

The suggestions, which were released on Wednesday, also ask students to keep at least a metre apart in classrooms, when lining up for the toilet or waiting at the tuck shop.

Some schools the Post talked to said they would request that students remain in the classroom during recess and take turns going to the toilet in small groups.

As the pandemic eases in the city, education officials last week announced classes would resume on a half-day basis starting from May 27, after a four-month suspension.

Senior secondary students will be the first to head back to school, while junior secondary, primary school and kindergarten graduating class pupils will return in June.

The Education Bureau and the Centre for Health Protection released the detailed directions for schools to follow.

Pupils must have their temperature checked before entering campus, while schools should also maintain good indoor ventilation, close all drinking fountains and avoid group discussions or gatherings.

Students should enter and leave campuses and take recess in batches, possibly according to their grade level. Ball games that usually did not require players to be in close contact, such as table tennis and tennis, could gradually resume during physical education lessons. But other sports including swimming, volleyball and basketball, where social distancing would be difficult to maintain, should resume only when there was a negligible risk of community transmission.

Baptist Rainbow Primary School in Wong Tai Sin has nearly 600 students and 24 classrooms, which have been thoroughly cleaned this week, and desks have been placed in single rows and farther apart at just under a metre.

Pupils must spend their recess inside the classrooms, while teachers will allow only one boy and one girl from each class to go to the toilet at the same time.

Principal Fielie Fung Yiu-cheung said the school would further review the latest guidelines. “If desks are to be placed one metre apart, we might need to use every possible space of a classroom to make adjustments, for instance by [rearranging desks again],” Fung said.

Partitions could be put up in the computer lab where the machines were close together due to the room’s setting.

Quarantine rules pose a problem for some 27,000 cross-border pupils

Some pupils might have outgrown their uniforms, so they would be allowed to wear casual clothes for the first week back to give them time to collect their larger uniforms.

About 350 senior students at CMA Secondary School in Shek Kip Mei will be the first to batch return to campus on May 27. Vice-principal Chow Sau-leuk said desks had been placed at about 0.8 to one metre apart in some of its 24 classrooms.

All students will have their temperature checked upon entry on campus, and fewer students will be in each PE class, which would mainly involve stretching exercises. Half of the urinals in boys’ toilets would be out of use to ensure social distancing.

“We will also arrange two recesses [in the morning] rather than one recess before, so that students will have more flexibility to spend their time [in smaller groups],” Chow said.

Cheung Yung-pong, honorary chairman of the Aided Primary School Heads Association and principal of SKH St James Primary School, said students would be taught how to properly use masks, as well as wash and disinfect their hands. “We might film a short video to remind pupils upon their return to campus,” Cheung said.

Pupils will be reminded to carry a bottle of hand sanitiser at all times, and the school will be disinfected, including with antiviral mist treatment.