The simplified protocol applies from Monday in zone B before being generalized to the rest of France, upon returning from the winter holidays.
Thanks to the decline of the omicron wave, elementary school students in zone B, returning from vacation this Monday morning, find a reduced health protocol. Come into force: the lifting of the obligation to wear a mask in the playground in elementary schools – the mask was already not compulsory for kindergarten children -, a reduction in the rules for mixing students, who can now be more widely mixed with comrades of their level and no longer just of their class, and the end of the attestations on honor that families gave after the first self-test.
The rules will also be relaxed for the tests: from February 28, contact case students will no longer have to do three but only one after two days (D2). This relaxation will concern all contact cases in the population. Colleges and high schools remain at level 2 protocol.
The first to return are the schoolchildren of the academies of Strasbourg, Nancy-Metz, Reims, Lille, Amiens, Rouen, Caen, Rennes, Nantes, Orléans-Tours, Nice and Aix-Marseille. It will be next Monday for zone A and March 7 for zone C.
And the end of the mask in the classroom? The Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer recently evoked this hypothesis: children should “very likely” be able to remove the mask indoors at school before the end of the school year.
The reduction of the health protocol for the start of the winter holidays is made possible thanks to a health situation “significantly improved”. According to figures published Friday by the rue de Grenelle, there are currently – with two areas on vacation – 2,274 classes closed, against 16,836 on February 3.
According to the level 2 protocol, “students can be divided into a class corresponding to their level in the absence of their teacher”writes the ministry in the updated Frequently Asked Questions on its website.
In the canteen, “the stability of the groups is sought and, as far as possible, the same pupils have lunch every day at the same table in the first degree. It is recommended to organize an individual service (trays, cutlery, water, dressing on the plate or on the tray)»he continues. “Meetings with the parents of students must first and foremost be organized according to a system of making appointments, to avoid too many people mixing together”he notes.
For Guislaine David, general secretary of SNUipp-FSU, the first primary school union, “the resumption of school will be much more serene than it was in January”. “This protocol relief is being done gradually, it is reassuring because you still have to remain vigilant..