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School principals and governors have written an energetic letter to the prime minister “imploring” him to personally take charge of the crisis in Covid testing, warning that the return of children to education is at risk from failures in the system.
In an unusual move that underscores the urgency of the situation, the three organizations representing school leadership in England surpassed the Department of Education and Secretary of Education Gavin Williamson to directly call on Boris Johnson to intervene.
As reports of parents of symptomatic children and teachers struggling to access testing increased, a union leader warned that the lack of availability could lead to a “default lockdown,” with thousands of students and staff sent home to isolate themselves for a fortnight, leading to staffing problems and widespread closures.
Meanwhile, the education secretary, giving evidence to MPs in the Commons education selection committee, said schools should rely on their “one-time” supply of test kits, which are provided to all schools by beginning of the trimester, to avoid situations where staff and students are unable to access tests.
“We have always been aware that with children going back to schools, there will be a situation where people will need to have more access to tests, which is why we make sure that tests are delivered to all schools in England.” said. .
However, unions have warned that the 10 kits supplied to each school, regardless of size, are not enough and in some cases are already out of stock.
The National Association of Teacher Principals, the Association of School and University Leaders, and the National Governance Association told the prime minister that they felt compelled to express “growing concern” about the difficulties staff and students were facing in obtaining exams. .
The two unions said they had received around 600 emails from members over four school days, with almost all reporting symptomatic staff and / or students having difficulty accessing tests, with many complaining of problems communicating with the teams of the local public health.
“Delays in testing cause further interruptions in children’s education after the shutdown since March and put pressure on staff coverage in schools and universities,” the letter says. “We are also receiving reports of difficulties in obtaining timely advice from local health protection teams when there are positive cases.
“Schools are left in the position to leave close contacts of the infected person at school while they await guidance, or to make a public health call themselves and decide who to send home. This places the leaders in an impossible situation ”.
The letter says there is a “deep sense of apprehension” about the system increasingly plagued with delays as more cases emerge. “This would be increasingly detrimental to children’s education and would make staffing unsustainable.
“Schools and colleges are frustrated that after spending the summer painstakingly implementing security measures to allow for reopening, they are immediately left with a lack of public health testing and capacity. They feel the government should have anticipated the likely demand for the system and made sure it was able to cope. “
One of the signatories to the letter, ASCL Secretary General Geoff Barton, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that directors were forced to decide that the “bubble has to stay at home” if a student or teacher of one school year he had had Covid-19 Symptoms and was unable to get a test to prove they were negative. Protective bubbles in secondary schools can contain hundreds of students in a one-year age group, who can be affected by one sick student.
“I think this will feel like a default crash; it will be more frustrating for parents because you can’t predict if it will happen.”
Barton also cited a director who had emailed him overnight to say they felt “cheated” by the government.
He summed up the email: “I feel like everything that we put in place, the one-way systems, the bubbles and all that, we’ve done, but now we’re stumbling over the fact that whether it’s a child or a staff member, just they can’t get a test and it leaves us in a position where I don’t know if I can teach some of those lessons tomorrow, or indeed for the next two weeks. It’s infuriating. “
When asked to ensure that staff and students could access the tests locally within 48 hours, Gavin Williamson responded: “I think schools are the only organization that really has a set of test kits that are available to them. has shipped directly, to be able to ensure that if they are in a situation where someone is not in a position to be able to take a test, that they actually have test kits in place to enable access. “
The Department of Education told schools Tuesday that they could reorder another 10 Covid test kits in 21 days. The DfE guidance states that individuals should first attempt to be tested via other routes, and that school test kits “should only be offered in exceptional circumstances where a person exhibits symptoms and believes they may have barriers to accessing testing elsewhere. “
Williamson told MPs that “it is recognized that [testing capacity] needs to keep growing, “adding:” This week I met with Baroness Harding from Test and Trace and the NHS, and she highlighted the concerns schools have had in terms of recovery and to ensure that teachers can be assessed as quickly as possible, and they are in a position to reteach at the earliest possible stage. “
