Coronavirus: Assembly recalled over school Covid absences

Some principals have voiced concern about high absence levels due to the test and trace policy

The Northern Ireland Assembly is to be recalled to discuss the situation regarding Covid-19 in schools.

The speaker has decided that the recall, which follows a petition put forward by Sinn Féin, will take place on Thursday at 12:00 BST.

Some principals have expressed concern that guidance on testing and tracing has caused a high number of pupils to miss classes.

First Minister Paul Givan has suggested a quicker test could be used.

Education Minister Michelle McIlveen said proposals for dealing with Covid school absences were being finalised, and would be discussed with the education sector this week.

She said discussions had been ongoing between her department and the Department of Health.

Assembly members were officially due to resume assembly business on Monday.

The recall, proposed by Pat Sheehan MLA, needed 30 signatures to pass.

Education Minister Michelle McIlveen needed to give "clear guidance" and put in place enough resources to support staff in keeping schools open, he said.

On Tuesday, Mr Givan, a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) colleague of the minister, said the executive may need to consider other options for Covid-19 testing and contact tracing in schools.

It comes after more than half of the pupils at Larne High School were absent on Monday because they were in close contact with a positive case.

'Carried out at home'

The current guidance issued by the Public Health Agency (PHA) last month advised that close contacts of a positive case can avoid self-isolation if they had recently tested positive themselves and present no symptoms.

Otherwise, if a pupil is a close contact and has no symptoms but has not had a positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in the previous 90 days, they are advised to self-isolate until they have taken a test.

Mr Givan said this policy was supported by all the parties in the executive and should be followed, rather than children having to self-isolate for the previous requirement of 10 days.

The word that you hear a lot is "unsustainable". Principals are saying they can't go on like this.

Michael Carville, who is head of Regent House, a secondary school in Newtownards with 1,400 pupils, said to me on Monday that he hasn't done any education since he got back to school at the start of term. It it has been all contact tracing.

And a number of other heads [principals] are in the same position.

We are only just a week into term, and there is a recognition right across the board that it cannot go on like this.

The problem is, what do we do about it?

Any major change in self-isolation rules would have to be approved by the executive.

It is hard to know if that would be palatable to the executive, or what other changes could be made without executive approval.

Mr Givan conceded it was "becoming difficult" to find available slots for PCR tests and questioned if the education system should "go back to a system of lateral flow testing", which are not as accurate but provide quick results.

He told BBC News NI that such tests were considered sufficient for access to venues such as sporting events and could be "carried out at home by parents".

Paul Givan said politicians, parents and teachers want to see children in school

"Every option needs to now be considered because if the system within the Public Health Agency cannot support principals to implement a policy which was to prevent children being put out for 10 days and to have a turnaround of 24 hours, then we need to be considering other options," he said.

But St John the Baptist Primary School principal Chris Donnelly said lateral flow testing did not give the same security.

Two classes at the Finaghy school were sent home because of positive cases last week, he said.

Over the weekend he asked parents to provide documentary proof of negative PCR tests.

The same documentary proof would not be available with a lateral flow test, he said.

He said he also had to stop two children from coming into school because they had not been tested.

• What are Northern Ireland's Covid-19 rules now?

• What are lateral flow tests?

"There's a trade-off in society at the moment. We know that opening the schools can only do one thing. It's only going to lead in an increase in the number of cases," he told BBC's Evening Extra programme.

"But we understand that society needs to function. If we're going to have that system in place then we need to trust that the system is robust.

"I do not think relying on lateral flow tests is robust, I don't think that it would provide the reassurance that parents, that staff members and school leaders need."

'Added pressure and more admin'

Brain Guthrie, head teacher of Ebrington Primary School in Londonderry, said the first positive cases since the school year started were identified at the end of last week.

He told BBC Radio Foyle some of the messages coming from the PHA have been mixed.

"If a child tests positive here at Ebrington, having reported cases before I am feeling confident enough myself to get information out to parents. We have our letter ready to go, we adjust the date appropriately," he said.

"I then make the phone call through to PHA and make them aware of that. The only thing is, is the pressure of time, the amount of added administration that is putting on principals."

Turned away at the school gates

Lori Campbell, who is a mum of four and also works as a childminder in Londonderry, was instructed to take one her children home when she arrived at the school gates on Monday.

"Her class was involved in a close-contact situation and they needed us to return home and organise a PCR test," Mrs Campbell told BBC Radio Foyle.

"It left me in a situation where I was meant to be working, I had another child on board who was then at risk and my husband was at work."

She said her daughter's Covid-19 test results came back negative.

"If her test had came up positive, I would have to close my business and that would be me closed until her PCR test came back clear," she said.

"That's not a great position to be in and not a great position to then land other parents in who have to come and pick up their child."

Mrs Campbell has called for the current testing and tracing protocols in schools to be changed.

BBC News NI asked the Department of Education and Education Authority (EA) for figures for the number of pupils absent from class, but they directed us to the PHA.

The PHA directed us to a Covid-19 bulletin, which has not been updated since August 29.

Stormont education committee chair Chris Lyttle said he had requested that both the PHA and chief medical officer attend Wednesday's education committee meeting.

"We need greater clarity on what the evidence is behind the system we have in place, and whether the system is operating as it is supposed to," said the Alliance assembly member.

SDLP education spokesperson Daniel McCrossan said the lack of planning by the Department of Education had "plunged schools into crisis".

"I have been inundated by school principals complaining about the current guidance, it's not fit for purpose and resulted in them and their staff spending countless hours focused on contact tracing and other Covid-related issues instead of education," he said.

Following the absence levels at Larne High School, the PHA set up a mobile testing facility at Larne Leisure Centre.

The real business on Thursday may not happen within the assembly chamber but at the executive meeting which is also due to take place.

The education and health ministers have been tasked by the executive to go off and listen to what's been said by teachers on the ground, to speak to public health officials and the chief medical officer.

They will come back to the executive on Thursday with some proposals as to how they may be able to tackle this current crisis.

It was anticipated there was going to be difficulties but ministers have now found themselves in the position where they are going to have to look again at this problem.

Perhaps the scale of the problem that was coming down the track was underestimated.

Behind the scenes, there is probably a lot of scrambling going on.

Republic of Ireland figures

On Sunday, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said some schools had decided not to follow the PHA guidance because they feared it could lead to greater infection rates.

The union said some principals would like pupils to have longer self-isolation periods to reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to their classmates.

The first minister said he wanted the Department of Health to provide an update on the situation at Thursday's executive meeting.

Up to 12,000 pupils are out of school in the Republic of Ireland, RTÉ has reported.

About 1,300 schools are reporting cases but the "vast majority" are traced to community transmission and not picked up in school, according to the Health Service Executive.

Irish Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said "we are seeing a large number of students having to self-isolate because they have been deemed to be close contacts and they of course will get tested".