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B&NES Local Outbreak Management Plan for COVID-19

Schools and early years settings

Archive COVID-19 document

This document was published in July 2020, in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Data was correct at the time of publication, but regulations and advice in force, and services available, may have since changed.

In the event of a new outbreak of a variant of COVID-19 with a severe and widespread impact on public health and services, we would expect to update or replace the Plan. 

For the latest information on provisions to manage COVID-19 at a national level, please visit the GOV.UK website.

Update: Risk management in Early Years settings, Schools, Colleges and Universities

Steps we have taken

  • Creating a Covid-19 risk assessment for schools and Early Years to adapt to their settings

  • Supporting on-site asymptomatic testing facilities at both universities and Norland College, offering twice weekly rapid (lateral flow) testing to staff and students. There are arrangements in place to share capacity if needed.

  • Making asymptomatic (lateral flow) testing available through community testing sites for staff and students living off campus 

What’s next?

  • Encouraging high uptake of COVID-19 vaccination amongst eligible staff and university students

  • Supporting settings to maintain the mental health and wellbeing of staff, children and young people impacted by COVID-19, including delivery of the Wellbeing for Education Return programme

  • Supporting the prevention and management of COVID-19 cases and outbreaks in education settings

 

Relevance of this setting for outbreak prevention and control

Outbreaks of infections of COVID-19 can occur in education settings, due to the potential close contact between children and staff, and the frequency of touching shared surfaces in the closed environment. However, the impact can be greatly reduced by recognising possible cases early and acting promptly, and meanwhile following robust prevention practices, such as the following:

  • ensuring that symptomatic people stay at home
  • following social distancing guidance
  • practising good hand and respiratory hygiene
  • adopting good infection control practices

Children can be infected with SARS-CoV-2 and become ill with COVID-19. However, evidence suggests that younger children (up to age 11 to 13 particularly) are less susceptible to infection than adults, and their symptoms are generally milder. There is not enough evidence yet to say whether the susceptibility of older children is different to that of adults. There is no evidence to suggest that children transmit the virus any more than adults. A PHE study is underway to better understand the rates of transmission within schools.

The numbers of children and young people in B&NES are shown in the table below:

Number of children and young people in B&NES
Age group Approximate number
0 to 4 9500
5 to 9 10500
10 to 14 10000
15 to 19 13500
(including some term-time Higher Education students)

Nationally, approximately 7% of school children attended an education setting at the beginning of June. This percentage is expected to remain static until the end of term, and then increase when schools re-open in September.

Some children and young people are particularly vulnerable to more severe illness from COVID-19 infection. PHE guidance states that vulnerable children and young people’s attendance in education is expected, where it is appropriate for them (that is, where there are no shielding concerns for the child or their household, and/or following a risk assessment for children with an EHC plan), so that they can gain the educational and wellbeing benefits of attending.

Local provision

School setting

There are 81 maintained and academy schools in B&NES (63 primary, 12 secondary, 3 special and 3 studio). Schools vary hugely in size, with numbers of pupils in primary schools ranging from just over 50 in the smallest to over 600 in the largest. For secondary schools the range is from under 280 to over 1700. The risk of spread of infection in larger schools is substantially reduced through the protective measures they have put in place to create safer environments.

Of the 81 schools, 71 are academies and 10 are maintained. There are thought to be 9 independent schools in B&NES spanning ages 3 to 18 years.

Early years sector

The early years sector is made up of group-based provision in the private, voluntary and independent sectors (76), school based nursery provision (16 providers), and childminding provision (112 providers) plus a small number of independent providers.

Communication with providers

The Local Authority (LA) uses a range of methods to get its messages to education and childcare providers, including regular meetings with maintained and academy trusts, hosted by the Education Director.

Responsibilities of the LA to providers

The LA directly governs maintained schools, and so has influence over how these schools follow outbreak control advice. Schools with academy status are governed by boards of trustees, who are independent from the LA. The Regional Schools Commissioner (appointed by the Government) has direct responsibility for the academies and the LA has limited authority to expect academies to follow guidance and advice. However, the relationship between the CEOs of the trusts and the LA Officers is good, and generally the academy trusts would look to the LA for advice. The LA have a duty to challenge schools and respond to parental complaints, which may involve directing concerns to the Regional Schools Commissioner and Ofsted.

The statutory duties of the LA can vary significantly for different types of educational providers. There are several teams and service areas that provide advice and guidance to all parts of the educational sector, including the following teams and services:

  • Attendance & Welfare Support Service
  • SEN specialist support teams
  • School Improvement Advisory Service
  • Education Psychology Service
  • Early Years Foundation Stage team

The LA has a role to support education and childcare settings in accessing local PPE markets and stock availability. It is also responsible for organising and providing Home to School Transport. The Passenger Transport team issues advice to schools and to coach and taxi organisations on outbreak prevention.

No major changes are anticipated in the provider landscape or LA that would impact on the prevention or management of COVID-19.

Public Health team, B&NES LA

Public Health provide relevant advice and guidance on COVID-19 to education and early years settings (including private EY providers and academy and independent schools). Specifically, but not exclusively, this relates to issues such as hygiene, social distancing, PPE, testing, tracing, case management, cleaning and waste disposal. Relevant documents are stored on the Public Health Programme pages of the Hub. When new guidance is published, educational settings are alerted by email. The Public Health in Schools and Early Years Programmes provide audits, guidance and teaching resources on a number of public health areas.

Public Health receive notifications of possible and confirmed cases in education and early years settings and will lead, or be part of, outbreak control team meetings, established as agreed in collaboration with PHE’s Health Protection Team.

B&NES School Nursing Service, Virgin Care

The B&NES Public Health School Nursing Service offer wellbeing support for children and young people during school closures and if self-isolating. This includes the following:

  • Helping schools with individual health risk assessments for vulnerable children
  • Support packages, or onwards referral to partner agencies, when appropriate. A texting service to enable young people to speak to a school nurse
  • A confidential telephone drop-in service for young people, Monday to Friday, 12 to 2pm
  • A duty nurse is available for telephone support and advice for parents and carers, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, for support with any school-aged child.

Health Safety and Wellbeing (HS&W) team, B&NES Council

The Council’s HS&W team provide the following services potentially relevant to the prevention and management of COVID-19 to those schools which contract with the service:  

  • Health, safety and wellbeing advice
  • Access to online resources
  • Regular newsletters
  • A completed COVID-19 risk assessment for school opening.
  • HS&W compliance checks and site visits, which will be updated to include COVID-19

Outbreak management plan for schools and early years settings

Case definition

  • Possible case: A child or staff member with a fever, new continuous cough or loss of, or change to, smell or taste
  • Confirmed case: A child or staff member who has had a lab test result confirming COVID-19, with or without symptoms

Contact definition

  • Direct close contacts: Face-to-face contact with a case for any length of time, within 1 metre, including being coughed on, a face-to-face conversation, unprotected physical contact (skin to skin). This includes exposure within 1 metre, for 1 minute or longer. Children and staff within the class and/or bubble would fall into this category.
  • Proximity contact: Extended close contact with a case (within 2 metres, for more than 15 mins, or having travelled in a small vehicle, such as in a car to school)

Outbreak definition

  • Two or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 among children or staff who are direct close contacts, proximity contacts or in the same cohort or ‘bubble’* in the school within 14 days
  • A cohort or ‘bubble’ might be a class, year group or other defined group within the school/college. This definition aims to distinguish between transmission occurring in the community versus transmission occurring within the school setting.

Monitoring arrangements and the flow of test results

Critical to identifying localised outbreaks is the ability to access very timely data, preferably within 24 hours or sooner of a suspected case being identified.

The Health Protection Team in PHE will be informed about confirmed cases amongst children or members of staff through the national NHS Test and Trace system and will then carry out contact tracing with these cases. In those situations where children or staff become ill while in the setting, the HPT will know about these people as possible cases before any confirmation comes through the Test and Trace system, as schools and early years providers are asked to notify the HPT of suspected cases of respiratory illness which could meet the definition for COVID-19.

Staff and children will be eligible for testing if they become symptomatic, as will members of their households. A negative test will enable children to get back to education or childcare, and their parents to get back to work. If a child or staff member test positive for coronavirus, and have been in the education or childcare setting during the infectious period, the group of people within the school who have mixed closely with them (their cohort) will be sent home and advised to self-isolate for 14 days. Identification of the cohort will take place during discussion between the HPT and the setting. Extended swabbing/ outbreak investigation may be recommended, following national guidance.

There is no requirement for self-isolation of contacts of possible cases, only confirmed cases.

The pathways by which local authorities receive data on possible or confirmed cases are developing all the time. At present, the local authority is made aware of possible/confirmed cases through the following routes:

  • Notification from the Health Protection Team of individual possible or confirmed cases in educational and childcare settings
  • Daily line lists received about confirmed cases in B&NES, providing information on age group, gender, Middle Layer Super Output Area
  • Weekly line list received on confirmed cases in B&NES, providing information on age, gender, and postcode

The following tables give an overview of the multi-disciplinary response to scenarios in schools and early years settings. A more detailed Schools and Early Years Outbreak Management Development Plan will be produced to sit behind this.

No suspected or confirmed cases (prevention)

Organisation/team Role
LA Public Health/Health Safety and Wellbeing /Comms Disseminate prevention and communications materials and encourage uptake of learning opportunities. Seek assurance on preparation for dealing with cases. Enable PPE access. Develop risk assessment.
Virgin Care School Nursing Service (schools only) Reinforce public health communications materials and encourage uptake of learning opportunities. Individual health assessments for vulnerable children returning to school.
PHE Health Protection Team Develop guidance and prevention materials and encourage uptake of learning opportunities.

Single suspected case

Organisation/team Role
LA Public Health/Health Safety and Wellbeing /Comms Disseminate prevention materials.
Virgin Care School Nursing Service (schools only) Reinforce public health communications materials and encourage uptake of learning opportunities. Individual health assessments for vulnerable children returning to school.
PHE Health Protection Team Follow national standard operating procedure. Notify LA.

Single confirmed case

Organisation/team Role
LA Public Health/Health Safety and Wellbeing /Comms Contact provider to offer support.
Virgin Care School Nursing Service (schools only) Reinforce public health communications materials and encourage uptake of learning opportunities. Individual health assessments for vulnerable children returning to school.
PHE Health Protection Team Follow national standard operating procedure. Notify LA.

Outbreak

Organisation/team Role
LA Public Health/Health Safety and Wellbeing /Comms Lead / Be part of outbreak control team meetings. IP&C officer/health protection practitioner/EHO contact school to offer support.
Virgin Care School Nursing Service (schools only) Reinforce public health communications materials and encourage uptake of learning opportunities. Individual health assessments for vulnerable children returning to school. Contribute to incident management.
PHE Health Protection Team Follow national standard operating procedure. Notify LA and consider holding outbreak control meeting in collaboration with LA PH.
LA Environmental Health team Contribute to contact tracing as required.