ONLY a "small number" of positive coronavirus cases have been found in schools in Oldham since the start of the term, the council has said.

The local authority has been helping schools with testing.

And "limited disruption" to learning has been caused, according the the council.

Cabinet member for education and skills at the council, Cllr Shaid Mushtaq, said: “Since the beginning of the new term, we have been assisting local secondary schools and colleges in testing their pupils to ensure we can identify the virus as soon as possible and prevent it from spreading within our educational settings.

"This has been done with very limited disruption to their learning. It is very important for all of our young people to continue getting regularly tested twice a week, even if they are not showing symptoms, as we know the virus can be spread asymptomatically. We are finding a relatively small number of positive cases from our onsite secondary school and college testing, which contributes to the current data showing an increase in infection rate in this age group, but finding these cases means we can take action to reduce the onward spread of the virus.”