Delayed restart - private schools? SW London in particular?

[Letsgetreal]

We have just been informed that our DSs school is just blindly and unquestioningly following the DofEs 'guidance' and delaying restart next term and linking it to testing.

In SW London in particular are all secondary schools (St Pauls, Kings Wimbledon, Harriodian etc) just doing this or have any decided that being independent means you get to make up your own mind and dont have have to follow any half-witted 'guidance' (which has no legal basis anyway) or decrees from the government or local council?

Can anyone tell me what other schools are doing or is it 'we will just do the same as the state sector' regardless of the consequences.

My DCs indy day/boarding school starts tomorrow....my dc is going back in a few hours. All year groups back. They have had testing system in place.... Just done instant test on dc in readiness... School posted these to us over Xmas.

Not heard about any other schools going back as normal though.

Let's hope the test sent by your school is not the Lateral Flow Test as that's barely 50% accurate.

@LizDiz

Let's hope the test sent by your school is not the Lateral Flow Test as that's barely 50% accurate.

I thought that was what every school was using as you get an answer ASAP and don't take up lab testing capacity which may day days to come back. My daughter's secondary are definitely using lateral flow tests.

Yes they all are and the tests are unreliable www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4848

The dpt of Education provided a template letter for schools to send to parents claiming they are 99.68% as accurate as PCR. That was misleading as that was only the case when the test was carried out by a healthcare professional and the person had a high level of the virus. It is deliberately intended to mislead parents into believing they are reliable enough to not require the 10 day self isolation period for anyone in close contact with a positive case. The truth is they don't know what the accuracy of the test is when children swab themselves or by a volunteer who will not be a healthcare professional, but it seems it will be closer to 50% www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4848

This was meant to be the second link www.sciencemediacentre.org/evidence-on-mass-testing/

Don't know if all of that was for my benefit. If so please don't feel you need to. Number 1 is I wasn't arguing but number 2 is I guess its better than nothing.

I didn't think you were arguing. I was trying to be helpful. I don't agree it's better than nothing when used instead of 10 days self isolation, the tests are so unreliable they will lead to more children in school who are positive. Just my view on it though.