More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
A Kent teaching head has hit out at the government over their plans to mass test for coronavirus in secondary schools.
Alan Brookes said that the plan announced by Gavin Williamson was a "dubious" move that had caused "confusion" and "nervousness" among staff.
Watch: Alan Brookes reacts to school testing plans
Mr Brookes, who is the Chair of the Kent Association of Headteachers, was reacting to the Education Secretary's announcement yesterday that secondary schools would be delayed in returning in order to implement mass testing of both students and staff.
Mr Williamson announced on Wednesday that the normal term start date - today - has been pushed back, with exam years to return on January 11, with all other year groups coming in on January 18.
Mr Brookes said that the delay was "inevitable", but questioned why the announcement had come so late.
"We're still trying to work out what schools in Kent are going to do," he continued, "This is causing all sorts of challenges.
"(A delay) was obvious well before Christmas with the surge in cases we were finding in schools, and the complete impossibility of the announcement on the last day of term that all secondary schools would start the next one with some form of mass testing regime."
In addition to the preparation for mass testing, teachers are also facing having to prepare for remote learning for the exam year groups for next week.
They will also be looking after vulnerable children, and the children of key workers, who will be returning on Monday as normal.
As the executive head of the Fulston Manor Academy's trust in Swale, Mr Brookes said that the situation facing his teachers and their colleagues across the country was "a very big ask".
He said: "I'm not trying to play the moany teacher front to this but it is going to be very challenging for schools.
"Mass testing is dubious at the moment, some can, my own secondary school will require eight testing stations and 15 staff to administer and supervise the tests.
"If you take my school as an average, children students and staff makes just under 1,600 people to go through a testing process, they all have to be tested twice within a five day period.
"The simple maths of that suggests it could be an impossibility, but once, if we do, we get through all of them, we then have to have the facility to test the staff every week, and if any student tests positive, to test all their close contacts on a daily basis for a seven day period.
"It's very difficult, despite what the Secretary of State may suggest. I would point out we've spent £22 billion on a test and trace system which really hasn't worked very well, but in a few days schools are expected to pick it up and do it for millions of children and staff. It's very very complicated.
"We've already had several positive tests or self isolation among staff over the Christmas period, and the others are just keen to know what they're being asked to do.
"The confusion doesn't help them, and there is just a great degree of nervousness among staff - we're apparently asking them to come back into potentially risky and dangerous situations at a time where the pandemic is surging through the country, and it's a big ask.
"The Prime Minister said that schools were safe but people mixing within schools wasn't... that didn't reassure terribly many people as it turns out!"
