Testing at School

If you have already given your consent for your child to be tested, you do not need to take any further action. Please make sure you have checked below what time your child should come for their first test on Thursday 2nd / Friday 3rd September; they do not need to wear uniform for this.

Please note, if you also have a new child joining us in September, you will need to fill out a consent form for that child only. 

If you have changed whether you consent to your child being tested or not, please click here and fill in the consent form to update your preferences. We will always use your most recent response. If your child is unable to attend the in-school testing, I'd appreciate it if you could consider having them take a test at home instead before returning. 

Testing at Home

Please note that the government have also asked that students continue to test themselves at home, twice a week and report the results to Test and Trace. We will be giving out new kits in September. I would be very grateful if you could continue to report these results to Holmeigh Park as well by clicking here.

Testing At School

If your child is joining us in Year 7, it's likely they will not have taken a test in school before. I appreciate that this is far from ideal for your child's first experience of Holmleigh Park, and I'm very sorry that this will be the case. However, I hope you'll agree with me that it's better to get the test out of the way before their first full day so they don't have too much to worry about on their first full day!

Students should come to the lower playground on Friday 3rd September

• If their surname begins with A-L, they should arrive between 08:30 and 09:30.

• If their surname begins with M-Z, they should arrive between 09:30 and 10:30.

You will be welcome to wait in the queue with them before they go into the testing centre - once in there, it should only take a few minutes before they re-emerge. There will be lots of staff on hand to reassure and support students throughout the process.

The main thing we need from you in advance is your consent. We will only test students if you have given your permission in advance. You can do this by filling in this form.

If you do not wish to give consent, I would be grateful if you could still complete the form and indicate this at the end - this means we won't then contact you to check your preference as we will already know that you do not consent.

Students will then take a second test on Monday 6th September - this will be done during their lessons; our experience is that this second test is much easier as they've already done one!

Testing at Home

The government ask that secondary age students take two lateral flow tests per week when they are in school. For us, this will be from Wednesday 8th September, after our in-school testing finishes.

You may already be familiar with Lateral Flow Tests, and, of course, we will show your child how to do this if they take an in-school test. 

We will be giving these out to students from Monday 6th September onwards, and the packs contain full instructions. We ask that students complete two tests a week: one on Sunday evening or Monday morning, and another on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. 

Although I appreciate it's another hassle, it's helpful if you can report the results both to NHS Test and Trace (click here) and directly to the school (click here). Obviously, this is particularly important if the result is positive!

Further Information on COVID processes for new parents

If you are new to the school, you can find more information on our COVID precautions in the section below. 

Many of you will already be familiar with our COVID protocols, but please can I remind you of the following:

• Holmleigh Park will no longer carry out contact tracing if a student tests positive for COVID-19. Instead, NHS Test and Trace will work with the affected family to identify a small number of close contacts.

• We will no longer notify parents of each positive case in real time - but I will continue to update you on overall case numbers through my weekly letters. 

• Those close contacts will be advised to take a PCR. If this is negative, they will be able to return to school instead of self-isolating.

• We will no longer operate a bubble system for lessons (although we will be keeping the social time bubbles as the feedback from both parents and students has been very positive!. 

• If we detect a surge in the number of cases in the school, we will consult with Public Health England, and may temporarily reintroduce some restrictions like bubbles, facemasks etc.

Full details of our COVID-19 controls can be found in our COVID-19 Risk Assessment in the policies section of our website.