We have received the following guidance in our daily update:
Updated guidance for education settings on coronavirus (COVID-19)
What you need to know:
- staff, young people and children should stay at home if they are unwell with a new, continuous cough or a high temperature to avoid spreading infection to others. Otherwise they should attend education or work as normal
- if staff, young people or children become unwell on site with a new, continuous cough or a high temperature they should be sent home
- clean and disinfect regularly touched objects and surfaces more often than usual using your standard cleaning products
- supervise young children to ensure they wash their hands for 20 seconds more often than usual with soap and water or hand sanitiser and catch coughs and sneezes in tissues.
The World Health Organisation defines the most common symptoms of coronavirus as:
- fever, tiredness and dry cough.
The NHS defines the symptoms of coronavirus in the following way:
- a high temperature – you feel hot to touch on your chest or back
- a new, continuous cough – this means you've started coughing repeatedly
If staff or children are off due to the reasons stated above, they should stay at home for 7 days, even if symptoms improve or stop. If symptoms worsen or are not manageable - please use the NHS 111 online system for advice. If children are off for another reason the usual absence periods still apply.
We have had a number of queries regarding symptoms and whether or not children should attend school. If your child has symptoms of a cold such as; runny nose, sneezing, or headache but you feel they are well enough to attend school, they should still attend as long as they do not have any of the coronavirus symptoms listed above.
We have also received queries regarding whether pupils who have someone in their household who are self-isolating (with no diagnosis at the time) should be attending school. We can confirm that, following a call to the official DfE helpline, the advice at the moment is that in such cases pupils should attend school unless they are displaying symptoms themselves.
We appreciate that this is an uncertain and worrying time for many parents and if you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us. Please note that whilst we will follow up all concerns and offer reassurance where we can, we are not at liberty to stray away from the official advice and guidance given to us by Public Health England and or the Department for Education.