School wants an LFT done everyday

[Lauren1983]

My DD's primary school are asking for children to be given a LFT everyday before school. Is this the norm in other schools?

They have never asked before so maybe something has tipped the scales. I've heard that half of her class is off but don't know if that is due to false positives or the children actually having covid.

Going to have fun getting the tests. My local pharmacy has had a notice on the door all week saying they are out. If all the kids test that is 1000 tests a week just at one school.

And this is why they'll start charging for lft soon. We simply cannot afford to be forking out on testing children every day, my sister works in care and doesn't have to test every day so it's a bit ridiculous.

If they want it tell them to provide you with tests.

Normal here as part of an increase in numbers which has triggered the next stage of their management outbreak plan. We've been asked to do it for 7 days initially. From our perspective it worked as DD tested positive on the first day they asked, and has had absolutely no symptoms at all. So daily LFTs are a way of stopping the spread by identifying non-symptomatic cases in the school community. We've had such a big outbreak some years have reverted to home learning for a week too.

I love it! Parents moan when schools close and then moan when measures are put in place to try and minimise Covid to keep school open. All school staff have to test daily too, it's boring but it helps keep your little ones in school.

don't know if that is due to false positives

Surely it's unlikely since the test is quite accurate, and more likely to have false negative than false positive?

Anyways, if they want children to be tested, they should provide the test for them, like they do in secondary.

Ours have for children in certain classes because they’re classed as close contacts.

It’s so easy to order lft online. Once you’ve set up an account it takes less than a minute and a few clicks on your phone.

Yes normal if there are multiple cases in the class. We are doing it too as 8 cases in our Dd class. Better than the class closing like it used to do

You can order the tests online. They are available every day.

Yes if your child has been in contact with positive cases (sounds like they have) then they need to LFT every day.

My school is doing this for all of the adults as we have half the staff off and almost half the students.
We think we will be closed by next week.

Hardly a chore is it?

You’d not think twice to visit granny, but keep their friends safe …. Not so much?

We have to do this at our primary as cases have reached a certain threshold. Ordering online seems ok now. Parents that had difficulty getting tests just borrowed spare tests from other parents.

Our primary has now asked every child to test every morning before school. We had been doing it all last week, got to the end for DD1 and then Sunday got a text about starting again. There are cases in every class. 9 new ones today. Its about 25% of school absent at the moment.
School managed to get some tests and sent every child home with a pack of 7 yesterday.

Our school is asking us to do this too (there have been 6 cases in a class of 30 this week). Supply is a problem though; unlike secondaries, primary schools aren't able to hand out the tests for pupils to take home and we have to get them through the usual channels. It's proving hard to order enough online / collect from chemists as there isn't enough stock.

Most towns have a pop up testing tent visiting once a week. You can pick up a box of 20 lft from there.
We've been testing daily since last week due to increased cases in school.

Ds's class continues with supervised hand washing, and will continue to wear masks in corridors and on the bus, but not in class. LFTs twice a week with results registered online.

The last time we tried this was September. There were 20 cases within a couple of days and the head teacher reimposed masks in class by the end of the week.

So we'll see what happens.....

Re ordering online: it was a problem in December/early Jan but it’s been absolutely fine for at least a week, I order a pack every other day and they arrive next day (it’s quite inefficient only sending 7 at a time when you have large families but 🤷‍♀️)

My two school age kids do them daily in class first thing. Every damn day.
Makes sense. Doing so they've caught 5 cases.

To add, 2 different schools

Primaries can give out tests, we have been giving them out for a year, I spent yesterday tripping over the huge boxes of tests waiting to go out to families tomorrow.

Well, we are still on daily tests here due to ever rising cases.
And my test today is positive, second time.
Both times almost certainly caught at school.

Yes, beginning of last week our primary school asked us to test kids in ks2 classes daily for a week (despite already asking us to do weekly tests). Mine had just tested negative on the Sunday evening, and that was the last of my LFD tests. By the time I got some more on the Tuesday all 3 of my kids were testing positive. As were half the rest of the kids in their classes and almost half of the staff (even some who'd had delta only 6 weeks ago).
It spreads so quick (and often asymptomatically in kids), that daily testing is the only hope of keeping Omicron under control in schools.
Despite this, apparently ks1 classes have had hardly any cases, but they also haven't been doing regular testing either, so there might actually be loads of asymptomatic kids in those classes...

Our school has asked this also. I think it's reasonable when they've been close contacts and cases in the school are high.

False positives are very rare. The likelihood of half a class of kids ALL having false positives is essentially zero: they've got covid.

However, I can't help but feel that it would probably be cheaper, in the long run, to pay for proper ventilation and air filtration in the classroom so covid rates overall could be kept lower. Given this situation of very high rates of covid in schools is playing out across the country, surely the savings in LFTs would more than offset the costs of air filters and opening windows (which arguably schools should have for multiple reasons)?

FGS who is paying for all this unnecessary testing!

When the government make tests chargeable, which I believe is the plan in the not too distant future, people will actually have to think about whether it is worth taking a test - not just taking them willy nilly when there's no need.

My DDs school asked the other day as they've a few cases in the youngests class. Although she's under 5 so I'm under the impression it's not to be done daily by the government guidelines currently for close contacts. I test both every few days any ways.

I was more shocked they'd asked for LFTs as they used to be straight on the phone asking for a PCR and asking us to keep them off until results arrived.

Yes for weeks now. I do test them but certainly not everyday, despite the emails from the school.

Excessive.