Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to tackle levels of covid-19 infection among children in primary schools.

The department’s priority is to maximise the number of children and young people in face-to-face education or childcare. We have several measures in place to reduce transmission across schools, colleges and nurseries.

Following our rollout of around 300,000 CO2 monitors, schools are finding the monitors helpful to manage ventilation and, in most schools, colleges and nurseries, existing ventilation measures are sufficient. In primary schools, the department recommends that face coverings should be worn by staff and visitors in communal areas.

We are continuing to provide lateral flow device (LFD) test kits for all primary school staff, but we do not advise regular asymptomatic testing of primary aged children. Where cases are high, local health teams can agree with primary schools to advise their staff and students who are identified by NHS Test & Trace as close contacts to undertake daily LFD testing. Testing of primary school children is left to parental discretion and test kits can be accessed via gov.uk or local pharmacies.