Schools are to be asked how many staff and pupils have developed Covid-19 symptoms and how many home-testing kits they have used since reopening, in a new government survey.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will also ask why these testing kits have been used and how satisfied schools are with the Department for Education’s guidance on using them.

The new survey comes amid controversy over school staff and parents’ inability to access Covid-19 tests across the country and warnings that the 10 home-testing kits given to schools at the start of term are already being depleted.

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Schools were each given 10 Covid-19 home-testing kits to be used in “exceptional circumstances”.

A new DHSC survey about the use of these kits in schools has now been launched.

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It asks how many staff and pupils have “developed symptoms while on site since this school year has begun.”

It also asks how many of the 10 tests have already been used and which of the three main symptoms did the person who had this test display: a high temperature, a continuous cough or a loss of taste or sense of smell?

The DHSC survey also asks what barriers the people given the test faced in being able to access a Covid-19 test elsewhere, as schools were given the home kits to use in “exceptional circumstances”.

The reasons schools can give in response to this question include: 

• A school does not believe the pupils’ parent or guardian would book a test or believes that they would be unable to.
• A school is concerned that the parents could not drive to a regional test site or are not close to a local test site.

Schools will also be asked how satisfied they are with the communication they received before the kit arrived and the guidance they have had from the DfE about how to use them.

The DHSC has been approached for a comment.