Testing in your school

[Icequeen01]

I work in a very small SEN school with very little space and have spent the last week setting up a testing area and sending out consent forms etc. We have so much PPE (a good thing I know) but really don't have anywhere to store it. We have to use a classroom as a testing room as it's the only place that has a suitable flooring. We only have 5 classrooms in total and this will cause a problem once all the children are in (both primary and secondary age).

We have had to buy so much stuff, endless cleaning materials, bins, sick bowls, arrange for medical waste disposal it's a nightmare (and have no where to store the medical waste whilst it's waiting to be collected!) Staff are being tested today in readiness for the kids coming in on Monday (although half are either currently positive for COVID or SI). It's been exhausting and we haven't even started yet!

How are things going for everyone else?

I'm in mainstream secondary and I would say so far it's going pretty well. The biggest problem is the Registration process, so many of the students struggle to do it and it takes ages. The actual tests themselves are very straightforward I feel. Storage is a major issue. We've converted the school hall into our testing centre and there's an office very nearby that's vacant as the member of staff is long term sick so we've been storing all the PPE etc in there but we have no idea what we'll do when they come back. Did you receive any PPE or equipment like we were promised or did you have to source it and pay for it yourselves? We received nothing, it has cost loads and the HT says she has no idea if and when we will be reimbursed for it.

I work in a primary special, as yet we have no tests! Are you testing special schools for staff or children? I'm interested to know how we are going to test the children. Nasal flu vaccines are a nightmare!!

Yes we received lots of PPE and storage is definitely our issue. I am having a real issue finding someone to take our medical waste though. Our usual refuse collection company won't touch it and the other company who deal with our sani bins etc say they can dispose of the PPE but not the COVID tests themselves as they can't find anyone to incinerate them! This means at the moment we are having to securely store them until we can source someone which is less than ideal!

The testing itself is going fairly smoothly but I don't trust the tests. My HT had a negative test on Monday but then started having symptoms that afternoon. Got herself a drive thru PCR test and it came back positive yesterday!

@Shieldingending We are testing both staff and secondary children at the moment.

Also I'm guessing you won't be sent tests yet as schools are only testing secondary age children at the moment and not primary age children?

Yes, we're only primarily so that's probably why we have no tests. Worrying about your HT though! Are your children able to self administer the tests?

And now I too have tested positive after having a negative test that morning! However, I have heard that today we had a positive result on a lateral flow test for one of our TA's who is completely a symptomatic! So they are very hit and miss.

@Icequeen01

And now I too have tested positive after having a negative test that morning! However, I have heard that today we had a positive result on a lateral flow test for one of our TA's who is completely a symptomatic! So they are very hit and miss.

Oh no, I hope that you're not badly affected

At the moment I'm not feeling too bad and fingers crossed I stay that way! My HT is feeling pretty grotty though.

I just realised I didn't answer your question @Shieldingending about whether our children would be able to administer the tests themselves. In theory they all could (and some of the older ones already have) but our children are all SEMH so it would really depend on their state of mind on the day!

Hi @Icequeen01 I'm sorry I didn't reply on another thread.

I'm so sorry to hear you're positive and your school has suffered. How are you today?

We've been told we are getting lft for teachers to use but not what for! We are primary. Are you secondary or all through?

Sen schools are so hard aren't they? So very much need to be open but so vulnerable to infection due to close working, high ratio of adults to pupils and usually use hired transport. So many contacts.

Hi @TrashedWarrior We go right through from primary to secondary but we are a very tiny school. We only have 17 children (they are also all LAC children). We have so many staff positive now that we had to shut our school last Friday and will have to revert to remote learning until after the Feb half term, which will be tricky for our kids.

I am guessing the lateral flow tests are for staff. They are being used so staff don't have to isolate if in close contact with someone who tests positive. Close contacts have to test daily for 7 days. That worked well for us as you can see!