Dear Parents/Carers
Your child will have had 3 Lateral Flow Tests for Covid 19 in school by the end of this week and will be ready to begin testing at home. They will be provided with 6 LFT home testing kits.
When?
Year 10 should do home tests on the following dates:
Year 7, Year 8, Year 9 & Year 11 should do home tests on the following dates:
How?
A guide on how to conduct the test had been included in the home testing kits. Your child has had 3 demonstrations of how to carry out this in school. The guide shows that swabs can be taken from one nostril and the back of the throat. However, please be aware that swabs can also be taken from both nostrils if swabbing the back of the throat is too uncomfortable. If swabbing both nostrils causes nosebleeds, it is possible to swab the back of the throat alone but please be aware that these may not gather a sufficient load for an accurate test result. For your peace of mind, at the time of writing this letter, the school has swabbed approximately 3,600 nostrils and we have not had any nose bleeds!
If your child is under the age of 12, an adult must perform the test for them. If you are not comfortable doing this, please inform the school asap.
What to do if….?
The test is negative: please report it on the official Track and Trace website as instructed in the leaflet. However, the government has also asked schools to keep a record of the results. Therefore, please use this LINK to record the result each time you a test is carried out. The link is also on the website and on MyEd app.
The test is positive:
If your child is symptomatic of the virus (fever, continuous cough, loss of taste/smell) please book a PCR test as normal. If your child is positive or is a close contact of a positive case, please inform the school as normal.
Take care and stay safe
Yours faithfully
Mrs N Doward
Headteacher
