From 19th July education and childcare setting will no longer be asked to conduct routine contact tracing. This means that school is no longer responsible for the decision making around which children are affected by a positive Covid-19 case. 

At present, a positive case in a bubble means that the whole class is then sent home to isolate for 10 days. Almost every local school currently has one or more year groups at home in this position. The government are trying to lessen the impact that a positive case has on the rest of the children in the bubble.

From Monday 19th July, rather than a parent notifying school of their child's positive result and then the school isolating the whole bubble; the parents will notify school to report their child's absence, and then inform and work with Test and Trace to identify close contacts of the child, who will then let those contacts know directly of the need to isolate. You can read full details of the process in this letter: Letters | Langar C of E Primary School (secure-primarysite.net)

Although this is a step forward out of the disruption that positive test results have caused, I do feel that this may also cause some anxiety for parents and staff. Rest assured, we continue to follow our risk assessment and plan to the letter and sincerely hope we make it through the final week with a clean bill of health and all children still in school. 

As always, thank you for your continued support. Please ensure you adhere to the structures and processes we have put in place to keep your children safe and well. If you have any queries about the new approach, please get in touch with NHS Test and Trace.