A top public school is continuing to quarantine a number of its Far East students until fears over the deadly Sars virus subside.

Polam Hall in Darlington has confirmed that a number of students and staff who were among the last to arrive back after Easter from Sars affected Hong Kong remain in isolation.

Twelve girls and two staff who arrived back in the UK on Sunday April 27 are continuing to stay away from school for at least ten days and will not go back until Thursday at the latest.

The Northern Echo understands that some residents living near the school have expressed concern about students and staff affected by the self-imposed controls remaining in the local community.

Polam Hall says that the action taken has been appropriate in the circumstances and it would not have done things differently.

A spokeswoman for the school said: "We are still monitoring the situation and it is constantly under review."

Elsewhere most independent schools are getting back to normal having taken precautionary measures to combat the disease.

James Darley, a spokesman for Roman Catholic Ampleforth School in North Yorkshire, said twice daily checks for students returning from the Far East were brought to an end last Friday.

Some 28 children who were being kept away by worried parents from the Ampleforth complex had now been allowed to return, he said.

Michael Featherstone, headteacher at Barnard Castle School, County Durham, said that none of its foreign students were now expected to return to the Far East until September at the earliest.

He said: "We hope that by September things will be fully back to normal and this will not be a problem."

Despite health advice to the contrary a number of independent schools quarantined or placed a ten day buffer on students from the Far East where the flu like disease Sars has killed hundreds of people.

The Health Protection Agency has said that no preventative measures need to be taken by schools unless anyone recently travelling to the region returns showing symptoms of the disease.