Read on Twitter
DfE & Covid: A thread. Today the DfE paused a part of its school Covid testing regime which saw people who were in contact with the virus stay in school if they tested negative with a rapid lateral flow test rather than having to self isolate . 1/17 https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-school-daily-teacher-and-pupil-covid-testing-paused
The DfE paused these tests on the recommendation of Public Health England who said that the new variant had moved us into a new phase of the pandemic and the balance of risk of carrying on with these tests was now unclear. 2/17 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/daily-contact-testing-in-schools-statement-from-phe-and-nhs-tt-about-next-steps/position-statement-regarding-daily-contact-testing-in-schools-from-phe-and-nhs-test-and-trace
So there was a potential risk of transmitting Covid by using test results like this. Last term a close contact of a Covid case had to self isolate. This term DfE wanted to test people daily for 7 days and keep them in school if they tested negative. 3/17 https://www.tes.com/news/covid-secondary-teachers-tested-weekly-january
The DfE said yesterday that the aim of testing Covid contacts and keeping them in school was to improve attendance. A senior official told @CommonsEd that keeping close contacts came with a potential risk of transmitting the virus. 4/17 https://www.tes.com/news/daily-school-covid-tests-carry-risk-says-dfe-scientist
Concerns about this testing plan have been growing since last year. Uni professor @deeksj revealed the same tests done on Birmingham University campus may have picked up as little as three per cent of Covid cases. 5/17 https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-scary-stuff-school-rapid-covid-test-fears-explained
And @NEUnion 's joint general secretary @MaryBoustedNEU told @tes that keeping people who were in contact with Covid in school on the basis of a test that can give false negatives was a "recipe for disaster" 6/17 https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-school-mass-rapid-covid-testing-recipe-disaster
Last week @Tes revealed how concerns were escalating. Public health directors have been advising schools in their area not to use rapid tests in the way the DfE wanted and to send any contacts with the virus home to self isolate. https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-exclusive-health-chiefs-warn-schools-over-covid-tests 7/17
And the @neupresident Robin Bevan said the DfE use of the tests to keep contacts of Covid in schools goes against the manufacturer's own instructions. https://www.tes.com/news/dfe-covid-test-plan-goes-against-manufacturers-guide 8/17
And there were concerns among the schools that had already started using the tests that they could be missing positive cases. @WorthLessFF found the majority of schools with figures had not found a single case of Covid yet. 9/17. https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-most-schools-finding-zero-covid-cases
The DfE was not been planning to test close contacts in primary schools. @RealGeoffBarton said this created a two tier safety system where self isolation was recommended in primary but secondary. He called on the DfE to pause the contact testing. 10/17 https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-heads-want-confusing-covid-tests-paused
And @ASCL_UK had already written to Gavin Williamson asking for scientific evidence of why keeping contacts of Covid in school was "believed to be safer and more effective" than self isolation. (Last time I checked they not had a response). 11/17 https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-schools-heads-question-safety-dfes-mass-covid-test-plan
But did the answer come this week in the @commonsed hearing mentioned above. The DfE said the contact testing regime was actually about improving attendance. The DfE adviser told MPs of concerns that Covid cases were resulting in too many pupils missing school last term. 12/17
However with worsening Covid picture children's minister Vicky Ford gave a clear indication that a change of policy could be coming as she revealed the DfE had asked for rapid health advice about these tests given the high Covid transmission rates. 13/17 https://www.tes.com/news/dfe-requests-rapid-health-advice-school-covid-test
And today the DfE confirmed daily contact testing is being paused. School leaders have welcomed the decision but said the DfE now has questions to answer over "why it has pursued a policy which has proved to be risky". @NAHTnews @JamesJkbowen https://www.tes.com/news/covid-tests-heads-frustration-yet-another-u-turn 14/17
The DfE has said today that Covid testing of contacts of the virus rather self isolation continues to have the potential to keep more pupils and staff in school and that it will be doing more evaluation. 15/17
It is important to stress that the other elements of the DfE testing regime remain in place. Gavin Williamson wrote to schools today to say they should test staff twice a week. Primary school staff are also being sent kits to use at home. 16/17 https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-schools-told-test-teachers-covid-twice-week
I have tried to pull together where we are with Covid testing in schools in this piece here. If you made it to tweet 17 I really hope this thread was useful. 17/17 https://www.tes.com/news/covid-testing-schools-what-do-we-know
