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 way too high and local schools are still experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks. As we are also entering 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. Whilst 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. On the basis of 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:

  1. 1. You should book them a PCR test (ideally on day 3-5 after they were first in contact with the household case)
  2. You should ensure that they carry out a daily LFT at home for 5-7 days, starting on the day you think they were first exposed to your household case.
  3. 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, you must book a PCR and your child must stay at home until you have the results. If the confirmatory PCR test is taken within the two days following the positive LFD result and PCR result is negative, your child can return to school.

Your child can continue to attend school as long as they remain symptom-free AND have a daily LFT that is negative. If ANY of the above tests are positive, your child will need to self-isolate for 10 full days from the date of the test and cannot come into school until the isolation period is over.

We would like to remind you that you can order test kits for your own household via the  online service (www.qov.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.

Regards,

St Mary’s Catholic College