By Leow Si Wan & Corrie Tan

SOME schools have cancelled activities and lessons this week in a bid to stave off the possibility of a spread of the Influenza A (H1N1) virus within schools, although most are sticking to their plans.

At least six schools The Straits Times checked with have taken the added precaution and postponed all activities for this week.

Park View Primary School, for example, has cancelled all remedial classes and co-curricular activities.

Others, such as St Gabriel's Secondary School, are doing the same because there are staff and students returning from flu-affected countries, based on travel declaration forms submitted before the vacation started.

At CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' School, lessons scheduled this week for Primary 5 and Primary 6 students will be cancelled. According to its website, the school will make arrangements to cover these lessons and activities during the official school term.

Most schools, though, are going ahead with their plans for the last week of the June school holidays.

Serangoon Junior College principal Tan Teck Hock said: 'We will follow MOE's guidelines and continue with temperature screening. But right now, the measured response is to go on as normal while taking necessary precautions.'

Other principals echoed this view, emphasising the need to 'assess risk and find a balance between keeping pupils safe and being excessively worried'.

Meanwhile, some schools have plans to strengthen precautionary measures for next Monday, when schools are due to reopen.

One secondary school will change its examination venue from the hall to classrooms to avoid mass gatherings. It will also replace the current arrangement where students move from class to class with designated classrooms for the first week of the new term.

As for Nan Hua Primary School, principal Lee Hui Feng said: 'We will be calling, e-mailing and SMS-ing every student to check their travel history again before school reopens.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.