Dear parents and carers

I hope you are all enjoying the half term break and I apologise for emailing during the holiday period but as you will know, from today (24 February), the legal requirement to self-isolate following a positive covid test has been removed.

The Government continues to recommend that people who test positive, should still stay home and avoid contact with others.

I wished to confirm that we require all students and staff to continue to follow this advice until 1 April 2022 when further Government updates will be provided.

As students and staff are no longer asymptomatic testing (using the LFT kits), they are only likely to test positive, via a PCR, if they become symptomatic.

Therefore:

·     If your child has covid symptoms please book them for a PCR test and keep them at home until the result is known.

o  If the result is negative they can return to school

o  If the result is positive you should send a copy of the NHS email notification to school and they should remain at home, accessing remote learning, for a period of 6 days min. and 10 days max. Full guidance is below:

When to stay at home if you have Covid

·     Students should no longer be asymptomatic testing, using LFT, when they have no symptoms and this is therefore no-longer a valid reason to be absent from school.

·     Students should only be absent if they have symptoms and are booked for a PCR test.

Our Google Form has been updated from today, to only record positive PCR test results see LINK below.

WHS Google Form Link

We will continue to make LFT kits available to students and staff. Please ensure you do have some at home as you will need to use them to test from Day 5 onwards if you unfortunately test PCR positive over the coming weeks.

Kind regards

Pan Panayiotou

Headteacher/CEO