16 December 2021 

Dear parents and carers

You may have seen in the news that the government has asked schools and colleges to complete Covid-19 tests in January prior to students returning to the new term. As you can appreciate, the logistics of running an on-site asymptomatic test centre for so many students whilst providing face-to-face teaching for year groups is not straightforward.

Further information about consent and appointment bookings can be found below.  Testing is voluntary but strongly recommended by both the government and the academy as it gives us the best chance of maintaining uninterrupted education for all students in as safe an environment as possible. We encourage you to book your test-only appointment as soon as possible in order to get the most convenient appointment time. As students have been conducting LFT tests at home, you may be wondering why your child is now being asked to do a test in school. We appreciate the potential inconvenience of transporting your child to the appointment. However, the guidance suggests that testing students on site will help us to identify and break chains of transmission in education settings after the Christmas holidays when students may have been mixing with lots of people. In addition, on-site in-school testing is more accurate and participation rates amongst students are nationally much higher than when testing at home, so, the government has decided the most effective way to identify as many positive cases as possible is at the start of term.

Please book using the following link: https://tuxford.schoolcloud.co.uk/

If you have further questions please contact us via parents@tuxford-ac.org.uk or via Weduc. Please note that there may be a delay in answering queries due to the holiday period. However, the inbox will be monitored and we will get back to you in due course.

Kind regards

Tuxford Academy

 

Test only appointment and return to school date

Year Group Column 1 – Test only

(Students arriving for pre-booked appointments for testing  – no onsite education)

Column 2 – First day of school
Y7/8/9 Wednesday 5th January 2022 Thursday 6th January 2022
Y10/11/12/13 Tuesday 4th January 2022 Wednesday 5th January 2022

Test only appointments

We appreciate that you may have work commitments to plan around. However, to ensure we get through the amount of tests required to return students to school as quickly as possible, we are asking for your support in ensuring your child is able to attend their test only appointment on the day listed (as identified in column 1), attending for a short test appointment only. Students are unable to travel to school on the bus for testing as there is no provision for them to remain on-site throughout the day.

In order for us to manage student numbers within the asymptomatic testing site, we request that students attend on the day specified for their year group. However, we appreciate that where there are siblings across key stages there may be no other option. If you need to request a sibling appointment on the alternative date please email parents@tuxford-ac.org.uk with the details of the student to add to the booking.

Students do not need to wear school uniform for their test appointment and should arrive no more than two minutes prior to their appointment. Staff will be on hand to meet students, show them where to go and reassure them if needed. We have put measures in place to control numbers on-site and we ask parents and carers to wait in their car or at the school gate.

Most students will have already taken part in asymptomatic testing at the academy. However, there is a short video available to view here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEKTrqQ-NU0 to demonstrate how simple and straightforward the process is.

Consent for testing

We need to have received a completed online consent form prior to testing, if you have already given consent you do not need to complete the form again. If you are still to give consent, are new to the school, or are changing your wishes, please access the online consent form here: https://covid.dalp.org.uk/student/register  You should complete the form if you do not consent to testing as there is a ‘do not consent to testing’ option and this will mean we will not contact you regarding the non-completion of the form. If you have any issues validating the form, please ensure the date of birth is in the DD/MM/YYYY format and a web browser such as Chrome is used (not Internet Explorer).  If on the day your child does not feel comfortable in having the test they can withdraw themselves from the process and we will sensitively support their decision.

Receiving results

Results, which take around half an hour from testing, will be sent to the parent or carer who completed the consent form via text to the mobile number provided. Students aged 16 and over who completed the form themselves and provided their mobile contact number will receive their own results.

How to book an appointment for your first test

We have an intuitive and easy-to-use online booking system for appointments. Some parents and carers may have already used this for booking video calls with teachers for progress evening events and booking for testing earlier this year.  The system allows you to book a time slot on the relevant date of testing for your child’s year group. It will also help us manage a safe number and flow of students through the testing process. A short guide on how to book appointments is attached to this email.

Appointments will be made live and available for parents and carers to book at 6pm today and will close at noon on the school day prior to the ‘test only’ date for each year group (column 1). All appointments must be booked in advance and students must not turn up without an appointment. You can access the online booking system either by clicking on the ‘Hub’ then ‘Parents Evening’ section on Weduc or by clicking the following link: https://tuxford.schoolcloud.co.uk/ If you do not have access to the internet, please contact the school.