We have now concluded our COVID testing on-site. Moving forward, all students will be expected to carry out the test at home. 

This afternoon, all students were given three boxes of home testing kits, one with seven tests and two with three tests. They are therefore set up to carry out 13 tests, between now and early May. Please follow the below schedule:  Phase 1 – tests to be completed on the evenings of Sunday 21st March and Wednesday 24th March; Phase 2 – Six tests to be completed twice weekly over the School holidays – we suggest you continue to test on a Sunday and Wednesday.

Whilst we have yet to receive official confirmation of what will be expected of us in April, we anticipate that the schedule will look something like this: Phase 3 – tests to be carried out on evenings of Tuesday 20th April  (the day before term starts) and Sunday 25th April; Phase 4 – tests to be carried out on evenings of Wednesday 28th April, Monday 3rd May (Bank Holiday weekend) and Friday 7th May.

Please note, the boarding houses will work in tandem with parents to coordinate the administration of this process whilst also ensuring that those pupils who will need to quarantine with us in April are appropriately supported. Similarly, those A Level pupils who will be returning to School before the term officially starts to sit RCAs will be expected to take their first test the night before their first assessment.

Once a test is taken, the pupil will be required to register the result in two ways, as follows. Please ensure results are logged in both places each time: For our School records, the pupils will register their test result using SVEP. They will find the necessary form under ‘activities’ – they are used to making choices via this link – and they will find a new category each week. By doing it in this way, we can meet our GDPR obligations and ensure that these records are deleted after 14 days; The pupils must also record their result to the NHS via this site – www.gov.uk/report-covid19-result. The testing kits come with full instructions on how to conduct the test and how to record the results. You can also find the guide here. 

We will, of course, continue to update you when we receive clarification from the Department of Education. However, all of the indicators we are receiving about how to run sports fixtures after Easter would suggest that home testing is going to become a key feature during next term. In the meantime, we would like to reiterate how fantastic the pupils have been in cooperating with the testing so that the inevitable disruption to lessons has been kept to a minimum.

We would also like to express our sincere thanks to all of the staff who have made this process run smoothly and efficiently, we truly appreciate everyone’s efforts and are so proud of our team.