School teachers welcome States Covid precautions

States schools are due to restart next Friday and tests have been sent out to pupils to check themselves for Covid before returning to the classroom.

National Education Union Guernsey representative Connie Armstrong said the union had a representative in every school and there had been no negative feedback about the testing.

‘All the teachers are quite used to having to test regularly,’ she said.

‘The States, and particularly Public Health and Education, have listened to us when we said we wanted to be consulted.

‘We, and the NASUWT [union], had a meeting recently with Dr Brink and the senior education leaders. It was very constructive and we are pleased to be kept in the loop and for having the opportunity and for us to feed back.

‘We are quite pleased something is happening and with the course of action the States is taking on the return to the school.

‘The testing helps our schools to maintain a resilience in the teaching staff.

'We too want to keep teachers in school. There are not many supply teachers in Guernsey and this plan for schools should help maintain staffing levels.’

The States released a frequently asked questions web page yesterday to give more details on the return to school.

This week it confirmed that non-symptomatic contacts of positive cases would usually be able to stay in school, as Education tries to lessen the impact of the outbreaks on students’ learning.

It also confirmed that the lateral flow tests being sent out to students were not compulsory, but they were important.

‘The majority of children and young people under the age of 16 are unvaccinated and have enjoyed a summer of mixing with family and friends,’ the FAQ section states.

‘While the number of cases of Covid-19 detected within the Bailiwick remains lower than other jurisdictions, we have seen cases of community seeding over the summer. In order to minimise the potential impact of Covid-19 cases within educational settings, and to reduce the risk of the virus spreading more widely within our community, all children and young people are being offered Covid-19 testing before they return to an education setting.’

The testing was valuable in terms of protecting the operation of schools.

‘This surveillance testing will reduce the need to close education settings.

‘The aim of testing is to therefore keep children in school and avoid the need to isolate them. If we don’t test children and staff and cases rip through a school, we might have no choice other than to close the school for a period of time. No one wants this further disruption to our children’s education.’

There are currently 115 known active Covid cases in the Bailiwick.

n The education FAQs can be viewed at https://covid19.gov.gg/faq/EducationTesting