Students in Year 8 and 9 at St Ninian’s High School have been asked to study at home later this week with staff absences high.

Head teacher Chris Coole has written to parents to ask them to keep Year 9 students home on Thursday and Year 8 on Friday.

The letter said: ‘We are again experiencing higher rates of staff absence than we would normally expect at this time of year. I have therefore had to take the very difficult decision to request that a year group remain at home on Thursday and Friday this week.’

It continued: ‘The situation will be monitored daily and if there are any changes to these arrangements I will inform you immediately.’

‘Please be assured that this decision has not been taken lightly and we have tried to do everything to avoid this scenario happening again, but we have no alternative.’