A senior Kent head teacher says asking schools to roll out mass testing of pupils is "like asking a nurse to teach A-level Shakespeare".

The Government has announced that secondary school pupils’ return to class in England will be staggered in the first week of January to help head teachers co-ordinate Covid-19 tests.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said the tests would be administered by volunteers and agency staff, rather than teachers.

Further details on how it will work are due to be published this week.

Volunteers carrying out rapid Covid-19 tests in schools in January will not need a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check because they will be “supervised” by staff, Mr Gibb said.

Alan Brookes, chairman of the Kent Association of Headteachers, said the staggered start and testing demands amounted to "an absolute nightmare".

On the reaction of colleagues to the last-minute announcement, he added: "It's been met with almost universal horror."

Mr Brookes, who is executive head of Fulston Manor School, in Sittingbourne, raised concerns about a lack of staff to oversee testing, schools not having enough space to deliver tests and the logistics of recruiting volunteers.

He said there were question marks over whether non-professional people should be administering tests, whether parents would give their consent and doubts surrounding the accuracy of the lateral flow tests.

He added: "And where does liability lie if anything went wrong?

"The Government spent £22billion on test and trace and expects schools to do it at the drop of a hat with no funding.

"Schools are desperate for mass testing to come in. We would welcome it with open arms but being asked to do it ourselves is like asking a nurse to teach A-level Shakespeare.

"To get to the end of term and at the last minute be told 'just sort out mass testing by January 4' will be the final straw for many."

A head teachers’ union has said it will not be possible to recruit and train all the volunteers needed.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “The plans outlined at the last minute by the Government for mass testing in schools and colleges from the start of the spring term are undeliverable in that timescale, and it is beyond belief that they were landed on school and college leaders in such a cack-handed manner.

“It is not possible to recruit and train all the people needed to carry out tests, and put in place the processes that would be necessary, over the Christmas period, and it is extremely regrettable that the Government has given the public an expectation that this will happen.”

The plans to start lessons online for secondary school pupils and college students – apart from exam-year pupils, key workers’ children and vulnerable youngsters – in the new year were announced on the final day of term for many schools.

“We are very concerned that Nick Gibb can be so blase about allowing volunteers to carry out the close contact work of testing with no proper checks on backgrounds.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, warned that schools would “struggle to have testing ready for the start of term” if details on how it will work were not released until after Christmas.

Mr Gibb said the Government would release “very detailed guidance” about what needs to be in place for testing this week, and acknowledged there would be “work to do” over the next fortnight.

He added: “The logistics for carrying out those tests will be volunteers and agency workers so it won’t be teachers that will be carrying out the tests.”

But teaching unions criticised the Government’s decision not to require volunteers to have background checks before administering tests to children.

Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of teaching union NASUWT, said: “Aside from the issue of how these volunteers are even going to be recruited, the idea that they will not be required to undertake DBS checks when they will be on school premises working with children is outrageous.

“The fact that the details of how this mass testing is going to be undertaken are only going to be published next week, when schools have already closed for Christmas, leaves teachers and school leaders with no time to prepare and is symptomatic of the chaos and confusion of the Government’s approach to managing both coronavirus in schools and the test and trace programme.”

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said: “We are very concerned that Nick Gibb can be so blase about allowing volunteers to carry out the close contact work of testing with no proper checks on backgrounds.”

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