Whilst it is no longer the responsibility of the school to carry out contact tracing, we will assist our public health colleagues by working with them in order to mitigate against the risks to our students and the wider community of St Peter’s. With this in mind, we would like to reinforce the message that if your child has any symptoms of COVID-19: high temperature new, continuous cough; loss or change to sense of smell or taste; then they should self-isolate and book a PCR test.

All other measures such as ensuring good hygiene, keeping spaces ventilated, and cleaning frequently touched surfaces are still as relevant as before. In liaison with PHD, we continually to review the system of controls we have in school and are open to bringing back some of the procedures and protocols we had in place last year, if the need arises. Having two INSET days on 1 and 2 November will act as a ‘fire-break’ for any potential spread in school, as the students will be away from school from Saturday 22 October until they return on 3 November.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of our students and the dedication of our staff, this half-term has gone exceptionally well. It has been superb to have opened up more of our rich extra-curricular experiences, and I am delighted so many of our students have availed themselves of these wonderful opportunities.

As we draw closer to the end of this term, as there has been an increase in cases both locally and nationally, the guidance on testing in schools has been updated:

• It is still very strongly recommended that students participate in twice weekly lateral flow device (LFD) testing at home. Regardless of whether the outcomes are positive, negative or void, the results should always be reported directly to the NHS using this link. You only need to notify the school if the test is positive, please use this email to inform us of POSITIVE test results. We have noticed that the number of results entered online to the NHS has decreased in recent weeks; these results enable us to monitor and make informed decisions with regard to the situation within our school community, it is therefore important that everyone is on-board with the process.
• If your child is believed to be a close contact of a confirmed case and books a PCR (lab based) test, then they should take daily LFD tests whilst they are awaiting the result.
• If cases in a particular year group are high, Public Health Dorset (PHD) may recommend that all students in that year group take a daily test for a minimum of 5 days.