This afternoon, the Department for Education has sent an email
telling secondary schools to prepare to test their pupils on-site
on return to school in January. Julie McCulloch, Director of
Policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“We recognise the importance of Covid testing to reduce the risk
of transmission of the virus, but it is not reasonable for the
government to once again impose this considerable public health
task on schools with minimal support.
“The role of schools should be limited to providing a space for
test centres and communicating with students. But the government
expects them also to handle the logistics of staffing and setting
up testing stations. It seems to have forgotten that school
leaders are educators rather than an ad hoc branch of the NHS.
Their focus is on providing the teaching and learning required by
their students, which is particularly important in the context of
the disruption caused by the pandemic. The last thing they need
is another huge responsibility which does not even fall within
the remit of education.
“It is hardly the greatest timing either that this has been
communicated in an email late on a Friday afternoon, and that
they have been told that they will need to order sufficient test
kits for this task by Tuesday, which seems an incredibly short
timeframe.”
