All coronavirus guidance for educational settings can be found in one place on GOV.UK. We recommend that you sign up to receive updates directly from gov.uk.
It is important that all schools and settings understand and follow the processes for:
- managing confirmed cases of COVID-19 in MK
- carrying out asymptomatic LFD testing
Step 4 COVID guidance
Our local health protection team have created a short briefing PPT which summarises key parts of the guidance for you.
We recommend that you engage with this as soon as possible and share it widely with staff in your school or setting. You may also like to share parts of it with parents to support their understanding.
MK process for managing cases of COVID-19
The MK process is outlined on an updated flowchart for educational settings. There is also information about it in the briefing PPT, as above. There is also a flowchart for parents and carers. We recommend that you share these flowcharts as soon as possible to support wider understanding.
Early Years, Primary and Special Schools should continue to report covid cases.
Secondary Schools and Colleges should report covid cases every Monday and Thursday via a spreadsheet. A template is available on request. The spreadsheet should include the following information:
- Initials (not full name)
- Year group
- Class or Form
- Onset date of symptoms (or test date if asymptomatic)
- Test date
- Type of test
- Known links to other cases
Outbreak management plans
All schools and settings need to have an Outbreak Management Plan in place so that they can ‘step up’ their control measures if required.
As outlined in the contingency framework, the ‘stepping up’ of measures will be required when the following thresholds have been met:
- 5 or 10% (whichever is reached first) test-confirmed cases of Covid-19 within 10 days, among students or staff who are likely to have mixed closely
OR
- if a pupil, student child or staff member is admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (or there is a death)
In these situations, MK Public Health colleagues will work with you to consider introducing temporary measures to prevent further spread of the virus. You must therefore continue to keep accurate records of positive Covid-19 cases in staff and students.
You may find these outbreak management plan templates helpful:
Our local health protection team have also created a useful checklist for additional measures for you to use when a threshold has been met. This will be a helpful addition to your outbreak management planning.
Requesting support
You should contact the DFE National Helpline (0800 046 8687) in the first instance for any general concerns, support, or issues. Doing this will mean that you get the help you need whilst local Public Health colleagues are left free to focus on the work outlined below.
For support and guidance relating to managing outbreaks, you can contact our Local Public Health Team by emailing C19SettingsandSchools@milton-keynes.gov.uk.
You can also email public.health@bedford.gov.uk for general support, including over weekends and out of hours.
Contacts
To support you, we’ve established a key education contact list for all MK schools.
If it’s necessary to establish an Incident Management Team (IMT) to support your school in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak, your KEC will be part of this.
Suspected cases
You do not need to report these.
Asymptomatic LFD testing
All households with children of school age can continue to test themselves twice a week at home. Twice weekly testing is also offered to staff and adults working in the wider school or setting community (including bus drivers and after school club leaders).
Further details on how to access testing can be found on the NHS asymptomatic rapid lateral flow website.