To write to school to tell them not to give my 7 year old a LFT

[drspouse]

Letter home from school.
If a child shows symptoms of COVID the school team will administer a LFT and ring us afterwards.
If we want them to ring first we need to tell them by writing in their home school diary.
NO.
If my DD has COVID symptoms she needs isolation and a PCR. Done at home. By me.
This is my (mainly) NT child but she screamed and kicked when she had a PCR test (and turned out to have COVID). So on the one hand... Good luck to them!
But I'm not giving her an LFT with symptoms anyway!

I wonder what Union support there would be for school staff if this went wrong, though.

What do you think could go wrong with a complient child ? And I have said if restraint is needed then this shouldn't be attempted.

@Neurodiversitydoctor

It isn't some rare occurrence sadly this is our bread and butter for all of us. Another analogy a year 5 or 6 with a period they were struggling with I would hope the support staff at a primary school would you know-support, maybe find some clean tights, trousers not just hold their hands up and say they weren't trained.

I have certainly cleaned up diarrhoea although it was not my job. In an emergency you do what you have to do. I think that is different from being told to perform a medical procedure on all children on a regular basis. I am surprised the school staff agreed to it - if they have. There is too much danger of the member of staff catching it or doing damage to the child.

Children with covid like symptoms should, surely, be collected by parents and asked to do a test at home then isolate if positive. Alternatively, parents could be asked to do the test on school premises if there is any doubt they are actually being done at home.

LFT s are not for those showing symptoms.

So who gives insulin to diabetic children at school ? Asthma inhalers ?

I think the problem is the grey "cold like" symptoms which we know most primary school children will present with. But not the magic 3 on the government website. Are schools really going to isolate and ask to be collected every child with a runny nose ? Some parents might be cool with that, many wouldn't. Responsible parents would LFT those children but I think many wouldn't bother.

I'm abroad, so it's different. However, our kids test in school three times a week during term time. We have parental consent for all of them...Alternatively, their parents would have to take them to a test centre three times a week to have it done there. They aren't allowed to do them at home. Without a valid test result, they aren't allowed in school. My class of six-year-olds do the tests mostly themselves, with some support from us adults. They are absolutely fine with it.
DS is 5 and does the tests without any issues. He has lollipop tests for at home and the staff at the test centre are really good here, so he's not scared, not squirming and doesn't need to be held.
Kids with positive results need to be picked up immediately to get a PCR done. Kids with symptoms also get send home.

So, you don't want to get your child tested at school. Fine. Just tell them. No reason to turn it into an issue.

A high fever- no problem, child would have been sent home off-topic anyway, loss of taste/smell - ok but can a 5 year old report this ? Cough- well how long is a piece of string what is persistent? What is new ? Most snotty infants will have a cough with any upper respiratory tract infection.

Off topic = pre-Covid

However, our kids test in school three times a week during term time. We have parental consent for all of them...Alternatively, their parents would have to take them to a test centre three times a week to have it done there. They aren't allowed to do them at home. Without a valid test result, they aren't allowed in school. My class of six-year-olds do the tests mostly themselves, with some support from us adults

Thank you Dizzy.

We tested primary children last term. It was to keep us safe and keep the school open at the end of the day. We did a mass test before the nativity so parents could come and watch too. There is no right answer until the pandemic is over really.

It depends what you mean by symptoms. If a child has a sniffle or a headache it's a toss-up over whether they have Covid, but isolating and PCRing is quite a big step - LFTs might be a reasonable pragmatic compromise.

@Thehop

Definitely not okay for them to do this what if they went too high up the nose? Their insurance wouldn’t cover an invasive procedure!!

Can’t check for bits but doing this?

I’d honestly let OFSTED know it’s crackers.

It's not relevant to OFSTED, you need to report to the LA/Academy chain instead.

@Thebig3

This is appalling! There seems to be many cases of things like this happening in schools etc seems many schools are going against government guidelines and making up their own rules.

Our school (primary) has just brought in a rule that if anyone tests positive for covid in the house then no child can attend school for 5 days and must have a negative pcr before they return. This is not in the gov guidelines at all!

Schools are allowed to take reasonable steps to control an outbreak, this rule has most likely been recommended by PHE.

YANBU at all. I've no problem with testing - between me and my two pre schoolers we've had more than 30 PCRs since widespread testing began. 3 year old can do it herself happily at this stage. But an LFT with symptoms would be useless as I'd want a PCR anyway, so why have the row, the discomfort and waste the test.

@Spanielsarepainless

LFT s are not for those showing symptoms.

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/around-a-million-people-isolating-due-to-covid-in-uk-as-testing-rules-set-to-be-relaxed/ar-AASrAWN?ocid=msedgntp

They are now.

I would tell them your DC will be sniffing your hand cream every morning and therefore will not require LFTs

I would be absolutely refusing this for many reasons

A lft is not appropriate with symptoms so I'd have to do a pcr test after anyhow so it's unnecessary trauma which would make the pcr test even more difficult.
Ds has a panic every time we drive passed the test centre and asks every time we're getting in the car are we going for a nose test. I don't want ds worrying every time he goes to school that he might get one or becoming a school refuser.
Ds didn't get the flu thingy at school as he flatly refused and a lft requires restraining to get it done. It's horrific and if I could afford to isolate every time he had a cold I would but I can't afford that.

Those who’s kids really object to the test … is it possible you are going too far up the nose?

Initial guidance was to insert the swab “until you meet resistance (which is quite far, and quite sensitive) but now is just an inch or so (which for a 5 year old is equivalent to picking their nose).

@Neurodiversitydoctor

So who gives insulin to diabetic children at school ? Asthma inhalers ?

My understanding re. diabetes is that teachers can't be compelled to administer insulin, so if the child can't self-administer then a parent (or DSN) has to be called into the school.

We were lucky in that a lovely woman in the front office volunteered to help if necessary, though tbh my two had learnt to do finger-prick blood tests and inject insulin by the time they were 7.

@Neurodiversitydoctor

So who gives insulin to diabetic children at school ? Asthma inhalers ?

I supervised asthma inhalers but the children did it themselves. Once, about 30 years ago, I helped a child use a nebuliser but, more recently, my daughter was told that my grandson would not be allowed to use a nebuliser in school.

I was an early years teacher and was never asked to give insulin. I think, in that situation, a named TA would do it after having training for it.

None of these are anything like doing an invasive medical procedure on a whole class/school some of whom may have a highly infectious disease.

I am retired now so I will never be asked to do it and will leave the argument to those who currently have a stake in it.

We were lucky in that a lovely woman in the front office volunteered to help if necessary, though tbh my two had learnt to do finger-prick blood tests and inject insulin by the time they were 7

I rest my case this will be supervising and helping. I have never heard a nose swab described as an invasive medical procedure.

Paddingtonsmarmlade that sounds terrible how old is your DS and is he NT ? No way should staff be restraining pupils.

@Neurodiversitydoctor

We were lucky in that a lovely woman in the front office volunteered to help if necessary, though tbh my two had learnt to do finger-prick blood tests and inject insulin by the time they were 7

I rest my case this will be supervising and helping. I have never heard a nose swab described as an invasive medical procedure.

It's more invasive than looking in hair for head lice and we weren't allowed to do that at my school.

@dementedpixie

Because with the false negative rate of LFT a negative result couldn't be trusted to be a true result.

That's not the advice any longer.