This is news to me! Households with children in primary and secondary are expected to perform two lateral flow tests at home each week ...

[justanotherneighinparadise]

is this common knowledge? I honestly had no idea. I knew secondary schools were going to do on site testing and that’s all I had heard.

My child’s primary mentioned yesterday to one of the parents that the expectation is that all the parents should be testing weekly and now we have literature from the local council saying the same. How has this completely passed me by?!!!

Don’t know. Think it was first mentioned when return on 8th March was announced. Certainly been regularly in the news for the past couple of weeks.

Very easy to do.

It’s not compulsory though as far as im aware. I don’t think schools can make you.

I wasn't aware either- our primary school have said nothing about it.

Yes, the council sent a letter to the school and the school forwarded it on to us. We picked ours up yesterday. Check the gov website.

Not compulsory, but it's been on the news and schools (generally, clearly some haven't!) have publicised information about where to get tests locally.

www.gov.uk/guidance/rapid-lateral-flow-testing-for-households-and-bubbles-of-school-pupils-and-staff?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_source=ca1c659b-95d6-490e-87c6-d6c09e85ecfb&utm_content=immediately

What annoys me about this is that they are concerned enough about virus spread in schools to provide all the testing kits, yet still won't vaccinate teachers and support staff. I am very glad I'm not a 50 year old teacher with all the kids back in school now - old enough to be deemed 'vulnerable' but not old enough quite to have had the vaccine.

I was aware (have a 17 year old child and a teacher husband) but I'm not doing it.

Not sure it's "expected", just "are able to if they want" - in the same way many people working outside the home are now able to access regular LFT.

Can I ask why people are not willing to do the home testing?
My understanding is that a lot of kids are asymptomatic so the testing would potentially stop a child spreading it round the school. The test doesn't hurt and takes 15 minutes to do but could save more children and their families from catching it - do I have it wrong?

It's a 'soft launch'. As in there is hardly any publicity around this. Presumably because they won't be able to meet demand if they tell everyone and try to enforce it.

My excuse is I have been some entrenched in home schooling that I just haven’t been able to keep up with all the information out there currently. Okay it’s voluntary is it? That’s something at least. We are incredibly low risk so I’m not going to rush out and start getting the kits unless it’s compulsory.

@Comeonmommy

Can I ask why people are not willing to do the home testing? My understanding is that a lot of kids are asymptomatic so the testing would potentially stop a child spreading it round the school. The test doesn't hurt and takes 15 minutes to do but could save more children and their families from catching it - do I have it wrong?

I have no issue but honestly the likelihood of any of us contracting it is so low I’d be robbing another high risk family of the tests.

It's not expected but you can if you want.

You can also order them online from the government website. Ours arrived the day after ordering, but DS is at secondary so we'd been expecting to do this anyway.

I hadn't heard of this for primary schools either.

I missed this too and I do read news etc on Covid updates quite a bit. Our primary school has said they have tests available but haven’t said who should use them.

Still not sure how we are supposed to get the kits...

You get kits from testing centres.

My teen has to do them. My teen years were spent on first kisses, sneaky fags, sneaky booze.

Her teen years are spent doing Covid tests😢 and being inside.

I have kids at primary and secondary. I am happy to be tested to keep the primary kids safe - I assume the testing in secondary schools itself (and then at home) will pick up some asymptomatic cases in secondary.....but as primary kids aren't tested this seems like a good thing to do.

I was going to pick up the tests but it was really unclear where I do this. So I ordered online. I couldn't order for my partner though.

It’s been incredibly poorly advertised. All the stuff about getting kids back to school has been focused on staff and secondary students tested.

I went to a pick-up site to get some tests and it was me and one other person to pick up tests and about 15 people to hand out the tests. Incredible waste of money.

I have no issue but honestly the likelihood of any of us contracting it is so low I’d be robbing another high risk family of the tests.

I don't think there is any shortage of lateral flow tests currently? They are being offered to loads of different people.

I wfh and don't see anyone, but I figure it's worth taking the tests in case one of my DC has picked up Covid asymptomatically and passed it to me ... so that they know not to keep going to school.

@averythinline

Still not sure how we are supposed to get the kits...

Our kits are being provided by the school.

It hasn't been well advertised.

They can be ordered from here, or follow the directions to find out the nearest pick up point for tests.

www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests

@averythinline

Still not sure how we are supposed to get the kits...

www.gov.uk/find-covid-19-lateral-flow-test-site