Dear Parents and Carers,
You may be aware that rates of COVID-19 in Wirral seem to be very slowly decreasing. However, they are still very high and local schools are still experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks. As we are also in the Winter season, viruses other than COVID will be circulating, so local schools will face a huge challenge in attempting to reduce the risk of infections spreading.
We have had cases in our community and have been liaising with Wirral’s Public Health team to ensure we have in place everything we can to limit transmission and enable all our students to continue to receive the quality of education that they deserve. Although we know that infection can and does happen within the school environment, our local Public Health team has told us that almost half of all Wirral’s current COVID-19 cases are due to infection within households. Based on this, we have been asked to issue the following guidance:
If any member of your household has tested positive for COVID-19 or has any of the main symptoms of COVID-19, your child can continue to attend school only under the following conditions:
- You should ensure that they carry out a daily LFT at home for 7 days, starting on the day you think they were first exposed to your household case.
- You should let the school know what the daily LFT result is. If the test is negative each day, your child can continue to come into school each day. If any LFT is positive, they will need to self-isolate for up to 10 days. If they test negative on day 5 and day 6 (spaced 24 hours apart) then they can return to school on day 6.
Your child can continue to attend school as long as they remain symptom-free AND have a daily LFT that is negative.
We would like to remind you that you can order test kits for your own household via the online service (www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests or by calling 119
We are recommending the above measures to ensure the safety of children and staff in our schools, to minimise the disruption to young people’s education and to ensure our schools remain open. Thank you once again for your continued support and co-operation.
Kind regards
SJP