Testing Times

Always up to the challenge, Forest School Staff have worked tirelessly to bring together everything needed to have a government recommended asymptomatic COVID Testing Hub operational and ready to hit the floor running from the start of this term.

Out with the coffee and in with the swabs! Working closely with Waltham Forest’s Local Health Protection Team, our staff room is now a fully compliant Testing Hub. Many dedicated staff team members are now fully trained, in PPE, up and ready to go (complete with a Registered General Nurse to oversee tests – we want to ensure confidence and reduce the risk of invalid tests after all).

A quick swab of the throat and up the nose and then off? No, not quite. The lateral flow COVID-19 test takes 30 minutes to produce a result. Then, thanks to the skills of our fabulous IT team (who worked tirelessly over the Christmas break), our very own Test and Trace system lets the subject know the result mere minutes after it is in!

A gold star for Forest School! Not only are we in a position to handle an incredible 500 tests a day once everyone is back on-site, but the Local Health Protection Team also confirmed our facilities were good enough to be considered as a vaccination centre in due course.

We could not do it without our Forest Family. We want to say a massive ‘thank you’ to all our staff and volunteers. Having a Testing Hub will help us keep our staff and pupils, on-site for Key Worker provision, safe at this critical time.