As we enter the final week of home schooling for much of the UK, let’s take a quick look at the testing roadmap for students and parents as it currently stands.
Whole families and households with primary school, secondary school and college age children, including childcare and support bubbles, will be able to test themselves twice every week from home as schools return from 8 March.
Testing will continue to be a vital part of the government response to coronavirus (COVID-19), supporting the roadmap recently set out by the Prime Minister. As laid out, secondary school and college students will now be tested twice a week, receiving three initial tests at school or college before transitioning to twice weekly home testing. Primary school children will not be regularly asymptomatically tested due to low levels of transmission between younger-aged children but will continue to need to be tested if they have symptoms.
In addition to this, the government has confirmed twice-weekly testing using rapid lateral flow tests will be given for free to all families and households with primary, secondary school and college aged children and young people, including childcare and support bubbles, to help find more COVID-19 cases and break chains of transmission. Twice-weekly testing will also be offered to adults working in the wider school community, including bus drivers and after school club leaders.
We all hope that this easing will result in a widespread return to a safe and robust educational system.
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