Two West Lothian secondary schools are taking part in a national pilot to enable education staff to voluntarily access weekly asymptomatic testing.
The Scottish Government’s PCR Testing in Schools pilot aims to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in schools and break the transmission cycle.
Details of the project were described to councillors at a meeting of the Education Executive.
Staff from both St Kentigern’s Academy and Whitburn Academy will take part in the programme which begins this week.
The pilot is initially focusing on providing teaching and wider school staff access to a weekly test. The Scottish Government will then use the learning from the pilot to inform decisions as to how to scale up or widen the scope of the programme when schools are able to return.
Andrew Sharkey, Headteacher of St Kentigern’s Academy said: “Staff are pleased to be given the opportunity to take part in this pilot. Those who wish to take part will collect test kits from the school and self-administer the tests either on site or at home. The member of staff will then drop their used kit into the collection point within the school which then goes off for testing.”
Tracey Loudon, head teacher of Whitburn Academy, added: “We are happy to take part in this pilot project. Anything that can be done to reduce the transmission of this awful virus is to be welcomed.”
