Salisbury school welcomes back all pupils after successful mass testing
Primary and secondary school students in England were allowed in for the first time since January yesterday (Monday 8th March)
A plan to avoid a staggered restart for a secondary school in Salisbury proved to be successful after mass testing was carried out last week.
Over two days, 1,171 students at Wyvern St Edmund's were tested for Covid-19, meaning that all pupils could return safely yesterday.
Head of School Bruce Burley said he was committed to getting them back in classrooms as soon as possible and took on the huge logistical challenge.
They managed to test 90% of the pupil population through their LFD (Lateral Flow Device) testing clinic, which they have been running since the first week of January.
Operations Manager Rachel Ure said that this challenge was made possible thanks to "a lot of planning and preparation" and the number of experienced people in the clinic.
In order to carry out the tests in two days, they managed to scale up their centre to ten bays, meaning they could test an average of 27.5 students every 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, a team of school staff "pro-actively followed up on consent and registration information from parents" which helped them to achieve such a high percentage of students being tested.
Mrs Ure described the atmosphere as "truly special" and that pupils were reassured by how "calm, friendly and supportive" the clinic was.
Gwen McClure, whose daughter attends the school, said:
"it was just so important to get students back to school. It has been run very professionally and, as a parent, it gives me complete confidence that the school has put everything in place."
Their second and third tests will take place at some point between yesterday and the 15th March, after this the students will be required to carry out of their own tests at home.