Plan for testing in schools in New Year

[Orangeblossom77777]

Just wondered what you thought about the new plans for using the lateral flow tests in schools in England after the New Year?

www.gov.uk/government/news/secondary-schools-and-colleges-to-get-weekly-coronavirus-testing

I doubt VERY much that any member of staff, be it support staff, teacher or SLT, would want to force students to get it done. Not in a million years. It’s in nobody’s interests to do that. I’m assuming the ability for teachers to give consent is reserved for rare circumstances where there’s worries about safeguarding issues (eg family background meaning the child will not be self isolated properly or taken to be tested/parents outright refuse to follow guidelines and are known to be neglectful - but this would be an extremely small number of cases and a complete last resort).

I think parents will be asked to do it at home, otherwise it could mean infected children coming in, waiting for results and then being sent home, which could be more disruptive.

@loutypips

It says: Consent will be given in all cases by the staff member, student, or parent as appropriate

So that means that staff could force children to have it done. Surely it should be up to the parents?!?

Staff can get them as well as they will consent to theirs. Pupils or parents will consent to the pupil ones, depending on the child’s age.

It says they will be offered to close contacts of a positive case.

We need to test whole bubbles when there’s a positive case. The close contact thing is bobbins.

Like all the announcements it's a bit light on details. Where are schools going to find a space to do all these tests, and presumably staff to supervise the whole thing.

If they are sent home for people to do there, will schools actually be allowed see the results of the tests? Can the refuse to have people back in who are declining testing? At the moment schools seem to have little choice but to have children in class if paternity send them.

Yes - because close contacts were isolated anyway. You need to test the other students in the classroom beyond the magic protective imaginary 2m barrier.

The cynic in me is thinking they are trying to get even fewer students sent home so the attendance figures look better, rather than, I don't know - trying to actually make schools, students, families, communities, teachers safer.

@noblegiraffe

It says they will be offered to close contacts of a positive case.

We need to test whole bubbles when there’s a positive case. The close contact thing is bobbins.

Is the idea that this is instead of sending close contacts home?

So, Alfie in Noble’s class tests positive and goes home. Noble is then asked to swab Alfie’s close contacts daily for 7 days during her lunch break. Do all of these contacts stay in school breathing all over each other and every other subject teacher until one of them tests positive and finally goes home?

Read your contracts, especially support staff. Depending on the school you work in, your contact will vary. In some schools under their contract, it will be support staff who do this. Just in the same way they administer meds, set up feed pumps, do physio and more depending on the school needs.

Generally teaching staff don't have this in their contracts. However it varies on the type of school.

2 metres concerns will be dismissed because it's a medical thing surely? Plus support staff enter that zone regularly, some will be constantly in the 2 metre zone as part of their normal working condition in the class.

School nurses, unless it's a SN school afaik they are assigned to the whole borough. I say they, it's usually a couple of nurses, and many aren't just assigned to schools but they are community nurses. Like many within NHS, they might have also been sent elsewhere.

Personally, it's like everything, I shall watch and see how this develops as more info gets released. IIRC, a part of schools opening after Lockdown 1, was to have testing in schools. Or maybe I dreamt it because here we still are.

Our experience with these in our NHS Trust has been pants

I have personally been resoundingly negative on these lateral flow tests even whilst having symptoms and my PCR test has now come back positive. Thank goodness I did not trust the lateral flow and isolated.
Other colleagues have experienced the same.
This is despite us all being health professionals who ought to be reasonable at this stuff.

The accuracy is only 50:50 at the best of times apparently.

The worry is that it will give false reassurance if someone tests negative and mean they don't distance or wear a mask or isolate because they believe they are negative.

I don't think this is any kind of worthwhile protection at all.

We actually do have a school nurse. But she was requisitioned by the NHS in March.
We've been asked to do it. Parents are absolutely not being asked to do the tests at home. The expectation is that students come into the school site and school staff test them.

It definitely isn't a substitute for isolating contacts. A negative test if you are a contact means nothing because you can still be brewing it up despite a negative test.

The only use of this testing really is to mass test the whole school twice a week to pick up asymptomatic cases and get them isolated.

I welcome this, and I'm a secondary TA.

No, lateral flow tests aren't gold-standard, but as long as everyone is educated that negative doesn't mean negative then the asymptomatic cases they do highlight are worth it.

My 10 year old with SEN managed to swab his nostrils so I really can't imagine any sort of teaching staff will be doing invasive 'nasally damaging' tests in secondary schools, most kids will do a decent job themselves and those that can't face a swab aren't the ones that are going to let anyone near them with one anyway.

It's basically terrible specificity but good sensitivity.

A negative means almost nothing. Could be positive or negative in reality. Doesn't exclude anything

But if it is positive it's likely to be correct so that's where the value is

It definitely isn't a substitute for isolating contacts. A negative test if you are a contact means nothing because you can still be brewing it up despite a negative test.

Exactly my point. Is this what’s being proposed? Testing close contacts of positive cases daily, but continuing to expose them to whole year groups/teachers/clubs/bus journeys for a week whilst waiting for the results seems insane to me.

I don't mind a staff member supervising my teenager as he does test. Won't be giving them permission to do test on the child. He is old enough to manage it himself and they are not medically trained.
If they have an actual nurse come in that is different (so never going to happen).

Excellent news school staff can get tested regularly too. One thing everyone has been asking for since schools opened.
Better late than near (or though earlier would have been better)

What they're also not saying is that students can't use public or school transport on test days.

I also don’t want secondary staff members having to do this in their lunchtimes, break times, non-contact time or after school.

Surely the children can test themselves. We have a mass non symptom testing facility in our area I took my eldest to be tested he did it himself without issue.

Something involving horses, stables, doors and bolting.

Our training consisted of watching a video with a charming Irish chap narrating

I shouldn't expect schools training is going to amount to much more than that.

It doesn't appear terrifically hard on the face of it but I do wonder if poor technique is why we are getting such poor results.

It’s a pretty easy thing to do, no need for nasal trauma as another poster suggested
I’d say year 4 and above could do without too much issue and a bit of supervision. They love picking there noses at that age don’t they

@EnPoinsettia

Something involving horses, stables, doors and bolting.

Not really. There’s 2 months left of winter to go by January plus March and April too.

Taking the swab you have to do yourself at a test centre often too but the difference with lateral flow is you also have to extract the sample yourself and then put it on the test strip. Appears straightforward but I think it makes a big difference to the results if you use too much or too little reagent, squeeze the swab too hard or not enough and if you put the exact right amount on the strip.

Ours take 20-30mins to give a reading too so not quite instant. It would certainly take up the whole of break time.

@DougRossIsTheBoss

Our training consisted of watching a video with a charming Irish chap narrating

I shouldn't expect schools training is going to amount to much more than that.

It doesn't appear terrifically hard on the face of it but I do wonder if poor technique is why we are getting such poor results.

What role do you have? Do you work in a care home?

I feel that people should be either doing covid testing, or doing their normal job. What this sounds like is, telling school staff to do this whilst either not being able to do their normal job or doing it whilst still doing their day job.

This would either mean teachers doing it in non-contact/breaks.
SLT doing it instead of their normal job
Office staff doing it instead of their normal job

Or, what is more likely, TAs doing it, instead of supporting children with SEN.