Following government guidelines, all members of staff will have the opportunity to take Lateral Flow Tests for coronavirus from the week beginning 25th January 2021.  They will do this twice a week on Sundays and Wednesdays, and the results are available within 30 minutes.  We have been asked to do this to limit the spread of coronavirus in the community, as it will pick up any asymptomatic cases (currently estimated to be 1 in 3 people who are infected but do not have symptoms).

We are telling you this because, if a test shows a positive result, then affected bubbles will have to be closed for 10 days or until the staff member gets a negative result from a PCR test (undertaken at a testing centre).  This could happen at very short notice so it is important you have some sort of contingency plan in place for childcare. Of course, if a follow-up PCR test shows a negative result, we will welcome your child back to school as soon as possible.  However, a confirmatory positive result will mean that children in affected bubbles will need to follow self-isolation rules for the full 10 days from their last contact.  We will inform you as soon as we can in these circumstances and confirm the dates involved by email.  Please ensure we have your correct email address and mobile number to avoid delays with communication.

Please note that we are bound by data protection regulations and will be unable to identify any individual(s) who test results relate to.

Closed bubbles will switch completely to remote learning, so please make sure you are set up and ready to access this on Teams (KS1)/Tapestry (EYFS) and Bug Club.  If you do not have your child's login details, please contact the school office at parents@maun.notts.sch.uk so these can be sent to you.

Please also be aware that:

• if a number of staff members test positive at once, this could enforce a whole-school closure as directed by Public Health England and/or closure for a few days for deep cleaning of the site to take place.  In both these cases, learning for all children would switch to remote provision
• if the school office has to close, email via our parents email address (parents@maun.notts.sch.uk) will be the best way to make contact but it may take us longer to respond - please bear with us!

In all circumstances, we'll try to ensure that communication is as swift and clear as possible.  Though the instigation of staff testing may cause some inconvenience, we hope you will understand that these are necessary and positive steps to help keep our school and the wider local community safe.

Many thanks as always for your support during these unprecedented times.

Best wishes,

Miss Norman