Test and trace and schools

[Iggly]

Can anyone explain the logic of removing test and trace from schools? Did schools advocate for this??

Now, as a secondary school parent - I don’t know many of the other parents, that’s just how it goes, especially as we are year 7 and it’s early days. There have been so many cases in my son’s class, some of which I’ve only heard about via my son’s friends texting when they’ve had it. Then I have to ask DS if he sits near them (easy if they sit next to each other) and then get twitchy if he gets a cold.

WTF is this government playing at? Have they read the health select committee report on their poor response in 2020 and decided that they want to carry on doing a terrible job?

So I decided the next best thing is to get DS vaccinated ASAP - luckily he’s 12 (unlike most of his y7 cohort). But there’s only one vaccine centre opened in my whole county for his age. With only one afternoon slot available in the whole of half term and we are away 😐 school vaccines aren’t available until mid November by which time he may catch it via school and scupper his chances of getting a jab.

I
Hate
This
Inept
Government

We’ve booked my DS into a centre near where we are on holiday

I am also a secondary school parent and am really pleased that schools are no longer responsible for close contact tracing. It has placed a huge burden on them and a distraction from their core responsibilities as educators of our children. I also think that continued bouts of isolation when there is nothing wrong with them is far more disruptive than actually having covid for teenagers. That said, though, whereabouts are you OP? I am in London and our school has already completed the vaccinations for all pupils who wanted it, and there are loads of local centres you can go to if you missed it at school.

@GreenWheat

I am also a secondary school parent and am really pleased that schools are no longer responsible for close contact tracing. It has placed a huge burden on them and a distraction from their core responsibilities as educators of our children. I also think that continued bouts of isolation when there is nothing wrong with them is far more disruptive than actually having covid for teenagers. That said, though, whereabouts are you OP? I am in London and our school has already completed the vaccinations for all pupils who wanted it, and there are loads of local centres you can go to if you missed it at school.

The problem is that we’ve got cases in our schools and we as parents have no idea if our children are close contacts as a result. So it keeps spreading. Yes happy not to have bubbles close, but not happy that I don’t know if my child could need a test (and LFTs aren’t always accurate), especially when seeing vulnerable family.

We are in Sussex. The school vaccination programme starts in a few weeks. I’ve just checked again though and there are more vaccine centres opening again, so hopefully we can get him jabbed next week!

@CarrieBlue

We’ve booked my DS into a centre near where we are on holiday

Good idea!!!

But the disruption it caused schools to act as travers was huge - unless you worked in a school you would have no idea how much work it took to work out who had been near who. It could not continue as it was, schools would be failing children if it did.