Concern over quick-result tests giving pupils false positives

CHILDREN may be kept off school wrongly because there is a risk that the “majority” of positive cases detected by lateral flow tests could be false, experts have warned.

Ministers have distributed 57 million lateral flow tests (LFTs) to schools in England as part of the Government’s plan to get children back to classes. Boris Johnson last night declared the reopening of classrooms a “truly national effort to beat this virus”.

However, Sheila Bird, a member of the Royal Statistical Society, which produced a paper on the accuracy of lateral flow tests, said yesterday that every positive quick-result test of a school pupil should be double checked with a PCR test to ensure it was accurate, as false readings were “very likely”.

The paper states: “While the usual concern with LFTs is false negatives, when infection-prevalence is low there is also a risk that the majority of ‘positive’ tests could be false positives.”

The paper, published on Friday, also warns that 60 per cent of positive cases may be missed by the tests.

The opening of schools in England is the first step out of the lockdown ahead of all restrictions being lifted by June 21. All secondary school students must wear masks in class and will be offered three LFTs to be taken voluntarily three-to-five days apart from tomorrow, followed by twice-weekly tests from March 19. Pupils must report their results to NHS Test and Trace.

Mr Johnson said: “It is because of the determination of every person in this country that we can start moving closer to a sense of normality – and it is right that getting our young people back into the classroom is the first step.”

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Jake Berry, chairman of the Northern Research Group of Conservative MPs, warns of the toll of the months of missing classroom time. He says: “As the health crisis recedes, the crisis in education is just beginning … Now is the time for a veritable ‘Dad’s Army’ of teachers to return to run summer schools just when their country needs them most.”

Tomorrow will see pupils returning to classrooms across England for the first time in months, a moment that represents the greatest opportunity for any prime minister since Margaret Thatcher to deliver real reform in education.

Top of the list of changes should be addressing the structure of the school year. Over the long summer holidays, pupils from the most deprived backgrounds suffer most. They miss out on free school meals and they miss the social interaction with their peers. Over the past year, most pupils have spent the majority of their time outside the classroom, so we should scrap the sixweek summer holiday and focus on educating them.

At school in Liverpool, my favourite teacher was well past retirement age. He limped, he smoked a pipe and was the strictest disciplinarian. Like so many of his generation he had seen active army service and this gave him a different aura of authority. No one would have dared call him by his first name, no one asked him to go to see the school counsellor. However, no one failed an exam in his subject.

For far too long we have lost some of our best teachers to retirement when they have a lot more to give to education. That is why we should be asking recently retired teachers to return to take on the task of helping pupils to catch up after Covid-19. This strategy has been successfully pursued in the NHS, which saw more than 20,000 workers return to help tackle the pandemic.

As the health crisis recedes, the trouble in education is just beginning. That is why now is the time for a veritable Dad’s Army of teachers to return to run summer schools just when their country needs them most. These retirees would collectively bring centuries of experience back into the classroom while helping our children climb back up the educational ladder.

I can already hear the cry from the teaching unions in opposition to using the summer holiday to provide more teaching. Undoubtedly, teachers have worked hard during the pandemic and we should be grateful for their service. No one is suggesting that they do not need a break, nor that the summer holiday be abolished in its entirety.

However, we need to acknowledge that many other public and private sector employees have worked throughout this pandemic to keep our nation going. No police officer, intensive care nurse or factory worker will have a six-week holiday this summer, so I see no reason why the school holidays should be sacrosanct.

When Boris Johnson was mayor of London one of his proudest boasts was the success of the London Schools Excellence Fund in improving schools. It took a lot of guts and even more cash to change the system, but he showed he had what it takes.

To build back better, sometimes we need to have the vision to build back differently. A system of longer half-terms and shorter end-of-term holidays is better for children and better for parents. Now is the time to seize this opportunity to make the change.