On Friday 22 May childcare at our school was running as usual with eight children from four different families on site. One of the key stage 2 bubble said to a teacher that he was going for a test after school.

Naturally, it didn’t occur to the teacher that he would have been sent to school with suspected coronavirus and that he was referring to a test for Covid-19. 

But, as we would discover, that is exactly what he meant.

A situation no-one expected

Three days after the test, the family received the news that the result was positive. At this point, the school was closed for half term.

The only contact we received from the family was by email to say that they didn’t need childcare for the week after half term as mum would be staying home, but that they would need childcare again from 8 June.

Thankfully, on Thursday 4 June, one of the Year 6 children told a member of staff that the absent child had coronavirus. The staff member assumed it was a miscommunication but phoned home just to check.

As the facts were relayed, panic hit.

This was day 13 after the positive test had been carried out. Eight staff had been on site that day in addition to the eight pupils.

The process for reporting and gaining advice was not straightforward. First, I rang the Department for Education coronavirus helpline, which instructed me to phone the local branch of Public Health England.

As this was already day 13 and a scenario that was not expected - the assumption being that a parent would not take a child to school with symptoms and would also report a positive test result - they needed to think through their advice carefully, so they said a clinician would call me back.

I also knew that I needed to report locally, so emailed the local authority (LA) and LA Public Health as requested in our LA guidance. I spoke to both, who confirmed I needed to take the advice of Public Health England.

The local Public Health team recognised the need to communicate to parents to ensure that they understood that if they or anyone in their household had symptoms, the whole household should self-isolate and get tested.

I found out about the incident at around 12.30. It was around 5pm before I spoke to the clinician from Public Health England.

She was extremely helpful and questioned me carefully to complete a survey in order that she could advise. She consulted with colleagues and by around 7pm we were advised that we should stay open as Friday would be the 14th day since the child had last been in school.

In the morning, we were sent an email to forward to the children from the childcare who attended that day and to the staff. Public Health England phoned again to check that we had not heard of any other cases.

Lessons learned

I am stunned and relieved that no staff or pupils contracted Covid-19. I am extremely proud that the staff followed guidelines to the letter and that the children maintained social distancing, which enabled them to stay safe.

I am also surprised that this child’s only symptom was loss of taste - no temperature and no cough.

Knowing that we won’t necessarily be able to tell if a child has the virus will increase our vigilance, ensure we follow guidelines and do not become complacent.

We are going to talk to the children about loss of taste and ensure that they let us know if their food tastes funny.

We have altered some of our procedures in light of my extensive conversations with Public Health. We had already planned to open very small bubbles of six and one staff member, for half a day.

We are stipulating children’s toilets and staff toilets so that infection control will be simpler if we have another case.

Our bubble teachers will phone home before they open and explain that, if a child has symptoms, we must be told immediately and ensure that they have a trusting relationship with parents.

The author is a teacher at a primary school