A THIRD of all schools in the Highlands have been impacted by coronavirus, the Highland Council has said.
High schools including Grantown, Kingussie, Culloden and Fort William's Lochaber have a significant number of year groups self-isolating.
Partial closures have affected Aviemore Primary and Thurso's Pennyland while a one-day closure has been announced for Alvie Primary, near Kingussie while others are also being affected by outbreaks.
The region has seen an "exponential increase" in cases of Covid-19, according to the council.
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Around 60 schools in the NHS Highland region, which also covers some in the Argyll and Bute area, have been affected by outbreaks so far.
There are a total of 203 schools in the Highland region.
Highland Council said that online learning or home learning material was available for pupils who were isolating but otherwise remained well.
Chairman of the Highland Council's Education Committee John Finlayson said: "The exponential increase in cases, while to be expected due to the recent relaxation of measures, is having a significant impact on our education settings.
"We urge that communities remain vigilant and everyone takes the necessary precautions and does what they can to slow the spread of the virus."
He added: "We understand that a high proportion (81%) of over 16-year-olds in Highland are now vaccinated and this is excellent news and will hopefully lessen any impact of the virus in time."
NHS Highland said there had been more than 1000 new cases in the health board over the past week.
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This represented almost 10% of NHS Highland's total cases since the start of the pandemic with numbers expected to continue increasing.
Maree Todd, minister for public health, women's health and sport and MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, said Covid in schools was not unexpected given an increase in cases in communities.
She urged anyone who suspected they had Covid symptoms to get a PCR test.
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