Schools: Coronavirus

(asked on 18th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent guidance has been given to protect primary school children and staff from the Omicron variant of covid-19.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 26th January 2022

COVID-19 continues to be a virus that we learn to live with and the imperative to reduce the disruption to children and young people’s education remains. The government continues to manage the risk of serious illness from the spread of COVID-19.

While it has been announced that face coverings are no longer advised for pupils, staff and visitors in classrooms, and from 27 January, face coverings are no longer advised for pupils, staff and visitors in communal areas, a range of protective measures remain in place in primary schools. Additionally, local directors of public health may temporarily advise the use of face coverings in communal areas where this is proportionate due to specific local public health concerns.

Testing remains important in reducing the risk of transmission of COVID-19 within schools. Staff should continue to test twice weekly at home, with lateral flow device (LFD) test kits. Schools are encouraged to ask all visitors to take an LFD test before entering the school.

Young people aged 5 to 18 and fully vaccinated adults who are identified as a close contact of someone with COVID-19 can take an NHS LFD test every day for 7 days and continue to attend their school or college as normal, unless they have a positive test result. People with COVID-19 in England can now end their self-isolation after 5 full days if they test negative on day 5 and day 6.

Children aged 5 to 11 years in a clinical risk group or who are a household contact of someone who is immunosuppressed are now able to get 2 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine 8 weeks apart.

We have provided carbon dioxide monitors backed by £25 million in government funding. Over 99% of eligible maintained schools, further education colleges, and the majority of early years education providers have now received a carbon dioxide monitor with over 350,000 now delivered. The government is also making available a number of funded air cleaning units for poorly ventilated teaching spaces where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible.

Schools should regularly review their risk assessments as well as continuing to comply with health and safety law implementing proportionate control measures in line with our guidance, such as ensuring good hygiene for everyone and maintaining appropriate cleaning regimes. All education and childcare providers should already have their own contingency plans in place in cases of outbreaks within schools, as set out in the contingency framework here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-local-restrictions-in-education-and-childcare-settings, to help break the chains of transmissions.

The evidence is clear that being out of education causes significant harm to educational attainment, life chances, mental and physical health. This harm disproportionately affects children and young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Therefore, the government has made it a national priority that education and childcare providers should continue to operate as normally as possible during the COVID-19 outbreak.

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