PUPILS at a North Yorkshire school are being kept at home by their parents amid fears over the SARS virus.

Up to ten per cent of pupils at Woodleigh School, a private boarding and day school near Malton, have been pulled out of classes following the return of eight pupils from Hong Kong - where more than 100 people have died from the virus.

Those pupils - three who returned to school at the weekend and five who returned on Tuesday - are not being quarantined, but their temperatures are being taken morning and evening.

Head teacher Michael England said advice from the World Health Organisation and the Public Health Laboratory Service was being followed and he expected all pupils to return to school next Friday.

He said: "It is true that there are some parents who have elected to keep their children at home.

"What they are electing to do is something they have the freedom to do. From our point of view the SARS virus is something we have got reams of advice on, all of that advice is completely constant and it all says there's no need to quarantine healthy people. We are monitoring those who have been in a SARS-affected area just out of common sense and good practice."

Updated: 11:46 Friday, April 25, 2003