Coronavirus Updates/School Reopening Information for Parents & Carers

18th March 2021

Dear Parents/Carers,

We will have completed our full two-week programme of mass testing for all our pupils this Friday, which will be well over 4000 tests. We have not had a single positive result to date, which is obviously great news for our school community. I must take this opportunity to not only thank all the pupils for taking part in this programme, but to commend them on their fantastic attitudes and behaviour whilst taking the tests. They were a credit to you.

Home-testing kits will be given out to all pupils who are eligible this Friday, 19^th March. If you did not consent to the three tests in school, then your child will not receive these home-testing kits. There will be an instructional leaflet given out with the test-kits. Please keep this safe and refer to it as required. This Step by step guide to COVID-19 self-testing – YouTube, which I have sent previously, is also extremely useful.

Whilst the children are now more familiar with the swabbing process, please could I ask that you supervise your child in doing so at home. Government guidance says that for a secondary school student aged 11, the test should be carried out by an adult. For students aged 12-17 it should be supervised by an adult. Children have not been involved at all with the processing of the specimen during the tests in school, so we anticipate that you will carry out this part of the process. As the programme continues, this is something that you may want to include them in, particularly for older children. This is at your discretion.

Please note the following:

• Each pupil will be given two kits (each contains 3 tests). We have to record the lot number of the tests against the name of each pupil, so kits should not be used by anyone else.
• Pupils should complete their home tests twice a week – we are requesting that this is done on Sunday and Wednesday evening. This means you will receive further kits every 3 weeks.
• All results must be recorded, both with the NHS (details in the instructional leaflet) and with the school, via this google form link: Submitting your Covid19 Home-Test Result to School – Pupils
• If a pupil tests positive you must notify the school immediately by emailing, aomcovid@aom.trafford.sch.uk. The household must immediately begin self-isolation and everybody should book a confirmatory PCR test. You must not rely on informing us by just completing the google form, as this will only be checked for recording completion rates, and the purposes of re-ordering and issuing further test kits.
• These are asymptomatic tests, that is, for those who do not have Covid19 symptoms. If your child develops symptoms at any time including a high temperature a new, continuous cough or a loss or change to their sense of smell or taste they, or indeed anyone in the household, must immediately self-isolate and book a PCR test through the NHS by calling 119 or visiting https://www.gov.uk/get-coronavirus-test.

Thank you once again for your continued support.

Best wishes

Nick Parry

Head of Teaching School