The traditional 10-minute sit-down is an “institution that fails us all”, said Eileen Prior, chief executive of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council. “The prime minister is due to set out plans for schools reopening on 22 February, and pupils will return from 8 March at the earliest.Parents’ nights should be abolished because they are a chaotic “nightmare” for teachers and families, the head of a leading parents’ organisation has said.
“We want as many kids back in school as is safe for kids and staff.”Ī Department for Education spokesperson said: “We know schools, parents and pupils need clarity on plans as soon as possible, which is why we have committed to providing two weeks’ notice for them to prepare. That includes the ability to operate a staggered start and, depending on local infection rates, use rotas which will allow children to socially distance more effectively in classrooms. “But we need to be trusted to make the right decisions for our local communities.” “Headteachers are determined to open schools as rapidly as possible,” said Jules White, founder of Worth Less?, the grassroots headteachers’ group. Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, is also said to be “very unhappy” with the idea of all 10 million children and staff returning to school on 8 March. On Friday, nine teaching unions, including the NEU, called for a gradual, phased return of children to school in England, warning that if sufficient time isn’t given to assess the impact of opening schools on transmission rates, it could trigger another spike in Covid infections. Or the child may tell their parents they’ve taken it, when they haven’t. “Some will flatly refuse to stick swabs down their throat or up their nose – and I don’t think there’s much of an incentive for parents to ’fess up if their child won’t take the test. I taught teenagers for a long time, and I love them, but they have really quite clear views about their own bodily space. She also warned it is highly unlikely that all teenage pupils will comply with the instruction to take a home test twice a week after they return to school, and that compliance will be difficult for schools to enforce. “The danger is that these pupils start not to practise social distancing, hand washing and other protective measures.” Lateral flow tests “simply will not eradicate the virus” in schools: “School leaders don’t have any faith they are worthwhile.” “If you’ve taken a lateral flow test which is giving you a false negative, then it’s all too easy to imagine that lots of teenagers will feel confident they haven’t got the virus and behave accordingly. She said carrying out such inaccurate tests could be dangerous and give “an entirely false sense of security” to asymptomatic pupils who test negative. The chief medical officer Chris Whitty is said to be opposed to the plan for all pupils to return on 8 March. So they’ll miss a lot of positive cases.” They’re not sensitive to small viral loads and secondary school pupils are much more likely to be asymptomatic.
Their accuracy is very doubtful for mass testing. “School leaders are telling us that they’re doing these tests and they just don’t get any positives. School leaders who have already set up lateral flow testing regimes for vulnerable children and the offspring of key workers have “no confidence” they are fit for purpose, Bousted said.Īccording to the latest NHS test and trace figures, just 0.31% of lateral flow tests conducted in the week ending 10 February found positive cases – a figure so low it is actually below the 0.32% “false positive rate” for these tests. It could easily take two to three weeks for the average secondary school, which has around 1,000 pupils, to carry out 3,000 tests, teachers estimate. “The idea that we could do three tests and open in one big bang on 8 March – that simply won’t be possible,” she said.
Mary Bousted, the union’s joint general secretary, said headteachers face a huge logistical challenge to set up mass testing in schools, and fear it will be time-consuming and pointless.
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