I wrote this if anyone wants to steal/amend. This would seem to be even more important now that the papers are reporting a 'battle' about schools in Downing Street.
Replacing sending home close contacts with dodgy tests is a massive concern.
Dear
I am writing to you because I am deeply concerned about the current situation in schools and the dangers of this new strain that caused so many problems in secondary schools in London and the South East before they broke up for Christmas.
The science seems to suggest that the new strain is more transmissible, and was severely disruptive to education, with attendance in Kent secondary schools on 10th December only at 55%, with other areas also badly affected. This is very worrying in terms of the ability of schools to provide quality education if large numbers of children are at home and also if staff are badly affected.
Cleary, it would be foolish to re-open secondary schools in January without major changes to account for this new strain. I welcome the move to a staggered start in secondary to reduce the number of pupils in school for the first week to reduce the risks caused by increased infection rates due to Christmas mixing.
I understand that the government has decided to test every secondary student in the first week of January. This would be a positive move, however the plan was announced very late in the term, giving Heads one working day's notice, inadequate resources, inadequate funding and no staffing. All the teaching and headteaching unions, including from the private sector say that this is impossible and will not be implemented in time. In addition, the testing is to use lateral flow tests whose usefulness is now heavily disputed due to only catching 50% of positive cases.
It's clear we cannot rely on mass testing as a solution to the schools problem and this should be discarded from any planning for schools at the start of January.
I am also horrified to hear that secondary schools are to be instructed to no longer send close contacts of positive cases home to isolate and instead test close contacts in school for 7 days using these ineffective lateral flow tests. This means that pupils at high risk of covid will be travelling to school on school buses and public transport, and then potentially released into classrooms if the test fails to detect their infection. This would appear to be less safe than the current scenario of sending those pupils home to isolate and should be abandoned on health and safety grounds.
The current mitigation measures in schools are wholly inadequate to deal with this new strain and need an urgent review. I am very concerned that the debate seems to focus on a binary between schools open or closed, with no discussion about making them safer.
I would suggest:
Mass testing of pupils using gold-standard tests before re-entry to school, properly administered and resourced, not given to schools to organise
Urgent funding to improve ventilation in classrooms
Masks to be worn in secondary classrooms.
Removal of the threat of fines for clinically vulnerable pupils
Testing of bubbles where there are positive cases and wider sending home of contacts where further cases are found.
In Tier 4, or in schools with significant numbers affected, rotas should be implemented to ensure that more pupils get some consistent face to face teaching.
Please can you pass my concerns to Gavin Williamson and the DfE and seek an urgent response to these issues?
Many thanks, and Merry Christmas
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