Govt plan to one-off test all secondary kids on return to school, too late to Christmas safer

[noelgiraffe]

The DfE have just woken up and realised that schools might be in even deeper shit come January than they are even now, due to Boris's Insane Christmas Covid Bonanza.

So they are going to offer a round of tests to all secondary and college students and staff on return to school in January to try to mitigate the effects.

It will be optional and consent will be required. This will be two lateral flow tests 3 days apart and is separate to the daily testing for close contacts.

This is good news, but it's a shame they didn't think of this before Christmas and allow secondary kids and staff to be able to visit elderly relatives more safely and minimise the Covid Bonanza in the first place. Reactive rather than proactive as ever.

www.gov.uk/government/news/staggered-rollout-of-coronavirus-testing-for-secondary-schools-and-colleges

Seriously though in all honesty who did you really think would end up having to administer them?

Someone whose job it was? Someone properly trained and insured and so on? They’ve had 22 billion pounds to spend.

It astonishes me that some on MN are willing to accept such shit for their kids.

There are so many logistical problems with this, though:

If schools recruit extra temp staff, who will DBS check them in time?

If school staff are doing it, who is teaching live lessons, teaching the kids in school, supervising key workers/vulnerable, dealing with normal pastoral issues and so on and so on.

How are these kids going to get into school? Many students rely on busses or parents dropping them in. If they're coming in for a test appointment, how will this be possible?

How do we keep all the kids isolated from each other, and what happens if one does test positive?

How do they get home again quickly afterwards (so they are not all hanging around on the school site)?

What happens if parents refuse consent, or the student can't be tested at the time? Do they just not get to come back to school?

If staff are being exposed to positive cases at close proximity, what happens in the second week of term, when they are all off ill?

Very last minute so it will be chaos.

• How will teachers do online and in person teaching at same time?
• Who will perform the tests? Nobody is trained. There is no time to train them now.
• Will parents consent to tests?

@noelgiraffe

Seriously though in all honesty who did you really think would end up having to administer them?

Someone whose job it was? Someone properly trained and insured and so on? They’ve had 22 billion pounds to spend.

It astonishes me that some on MN are willing to accept such shit for their kids.

Who said I was willing to accept it? Maybe I'm just more realistic where our government is concerned. Theyve prioritised zero funding for children so far why would that change now? It actually astonishes me that given the shit show its been so far that you thought this would be any different

Great plan, very sensible. Some people are never happy!

@reefedsail

It's OK because Ofsted will be popping round to give us feedback on how mass testing policies are impacting quality of education.

Schools will be chucked under a bus on this next ofsted

1. Evidence of parental permission slips needed
2. What did you to enforce testing for refusers?

3 Was every vulnerable/pupil premium child tested on a regular basis? 4 Where are all the testers/visitors DBS checks? Yes we know Gavin Wiiiamson was one but really he should have one

And the biggie

1. Your school attendance is shit. What did you do to improve it? Clearly it hasn’t worked

Who said I was willing to accept it?

What are you doing about it? I’m about to write to my MP to complain. I suggest others do the same if they are also not willing to accept the circus being foisted on kids here.

Their teachers cannot teach them and be a covid testing centre. They will end up losing out.

@3littlewords

school staff will be expected to administer these tests

Fuck me theres been a 1001 threads begging for mass testing in secondary schools and now they get it no fucker wants to do it ! When you were all pleading for this and writing to your MPs who the hell did you think would do it? The unlimited HCPs and army we have?
Previous threads have already ruled volunteer parents and god forbid the children themselves as too incapable.
Got what you asked for and still not happy!

1There is a testing system that carries out PCR tests that are sensitive enough to be useful.

Some universities have been pooling tests for asymptomatic students, it's a cost-effective use of a scarce resource.

Schools could possibly do that? though the government would have to work out how to collect the tests

1. If work colleagues were possibly positive and needed testing, would you be happy if your workplace expected you to carry out the tests? If not, why would you expect teachers to carry out the tests? They aren't HCPS, you know.

1. Teachers did not ask to run their own testing service. Ergo they are not keen on this.

Hope this helps, since none of it seems to have been comprehensible to you.

The fuckers that should be doing it are Dido Harding and Serco, since you ask. Go and direct some anger appropriately at them?

I don’t see much of an issue if they send the self testing tests to schools. They are easy to do and the pupils could do them themselves and they would make an excellent biology practical class. I’m sure if these tests were dumped in offices then office staff wouldn’t have a problem doing them. People need to stop being jobsworths.

@noelgiraffe

Who said I was willing to accept it?

What are you doing about it? I’m about to write to my MP to complain. I suggest others do the same if they are also not willing to accept the circus being foisted on kids here.

Their teachers cannot teach them and be a covid testing centre. They will end up losing out.

My local MP is worse than useless but if the opportunity arose I'd be more than happy to be "Kevin's mum" and help out if I could, i doubt teachers have anymore special swabbing skills than anyone else in the untrained in health care community.

I'll repeat i understand your frustration just shocked that you couldn't have predicted it given the lack of funding and support thats been evident throughout all of this

Great plan, very sensible. Some people are never happy!

How is it going to be implemented? There is absolutely no detail.

@stairway

I don’t see much of an issue if they send the self testing tests to schools. They are easy to do and the pupils could do them themselves and they would make an excellent biology practical class. I’m sure if these tests were dumped in offices then office staff wouldn’t have a problem doing them. People need to stop being jobsworths.

You are making the assumption that the halfwits will delivery enough tests.

If it is anything like the laptop promise or the tutoring catch-up sessions we will be lucky to 50 delivered by February half term. After that it will be something that is quietly and quickly shoved into the corner of an interns desk

My local MP is worse than useless

Email him anyway. Ask him to refer your concerns to Gavin Williamson and the DfE and that you expect a response. This is allowed, apparently.

the lack of funding

22 billion pounds. What have they spent it on that we have to rope in Kevin’s mum to do it for free?

The fuckers that should be doing it are Dido Harding and serco

I dont disagree with you. But I envisaged any such mass testing to be a schools responsibility a mile off

I have to admit I have rather a lot on my plate atm, so skimmed the guidance, but I think the plan is for volunteers to be recruited by schools to do this?

Our LA have said do nothing until they've made their case to DfE. The LA have been superb in the support they've offered to schools throughout, actually.

It's OK Sansa they've considered trapsort issues, kids who can't get home until the school bus comes can stay in school all day doing their remote learning......
on all the spare laptops /PCs not being used by remote learners who are actually at home or by the exam years who are in school.

I'm still trying to work out how a teacher is supposed to
*teach a class in person,
*deliver online content

• answer questions at same time, *clean, *mark (after quarantining books), *now test / swab children, *contain the infected children
• provide cover for teachers off sick
• deal with myriad of phone calls home to worried parents

It's getting a bit insane.

Testing for schools =/= schools staff doing the testing

The lateral tests are only really effective when HCPs administer them. Fully trained practitioners should be doing the testing, while school staff do their jobs.

@W00t

Testing for schools =/= schools staff doing the testing

The lateral tests are only really effective when HCPs administer them. Fully trained practitioners should be doing the testing, while school staff do their jobs.

Well, of course.

I'm sure the guidance says it won't be school staff, it will be volunteers, who schools will have to recruit, train and supervise, easy peasy.

School staff are number one on the list of suggestions, ahead of volunteers.

Should be primary too.
Child in my class had a bit of a runny nose- tested positive and 120 are now off plus staff and our xmas and most of the break is probably ruined.
Child was in school and took test after school as recommended by doctor while at an appointment for a completely diff issue.
We have been told a snotty nose is fine to come to school with- well no actually it’s clearly not!!!

Why do they keep announcing all school initiatives in the final 24 hours of a term or the holidays?

Is this some game to them to punish heads etc for calling them out on their shit "kids don't spread it" campaign?

Someone whose job it was? Someone properly trained and insured and so on? They’ve had 22 billion pounds to spend. It astonishes me that some on MN are willing to accept such shit for their kids.

This. 100% agree.

There's someone in the Tory policy department shaking their head at the extent to which people will accept rubbish for their kids. I envisage it like this....

"But surely they're noticing now that class sizes are bigger and schools more underfunded than everywhere else in Europe, and that instead of giving schools more money to manage covid we're just giving vast sums of money to Serco shareholders and private companies, and a few individuals are becoming millionaires. I mean, surely they're just not willing to put up with it indefinitely?"

"you'd think but apparently parents are happy for things to keep on getting shitter and shitter.....they're happy to do Serco's job for them now for free " (wanders off shaking head and chuckling)

Teachers aren't trained or qualified to do this. It's not in their contract. I very much teachers and unions will just say no.

They just can't keep on putting ever more demands on teachers - it's not as if they're paying them any more.