Advertisement

Covid app 'causing confusion over whether children can go to school if parents told to isolate'

The NHS Covid-19 app, which has a minimum user age of 16, launched last week - Jason Cairnduff/Reuters
The NHS Covid-19 app, which has a minimum user age of 16, launched last week - Jason Cairnduff/Reuters
Coronavirus Article Bar with counter
Coronavirus Article Bar with counter

The NHS Covid-19 app is causing "huge amounts of confusion" for parents, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has warned, saying it was not clear whether children could still go to school if their mother or father received a self-isolate alert.

NAHT called for ministers to explain the rules because they were "just not clear enough" and warned that the confusion could mean children who had lost months of education due to lockdown falling further behind on their studies by being made to self-isolate unnecessarily.

The NHS Covid-19 app, which has a minimum user age of 16, launched last week. It alerts people to self-isolate for 14 days if they have come into contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus.

The app, which has been downloaded more than 12 million times so far (watch Matt Hancock urging people to do so in the video below), uses Bluetooth connections on users' smartphones to track when they come into close enough contact to potentially spread the virus.

However, the app's alerts are not mandatory and people will not face fines if they do not self-isolate, as they do if contacted by human tracers.

The system has caused confusion among parents, who have been left unsure whether their children can still go to school if someone in their household receives an app alert.

James Bowen, the NAHT director of policy, said even the association was unclear about the precise rules. He said its interpretation was that a child could still go to school if a parent had got an alert but did not have symptoms, but that the whole household had to self-isolate if someone was symptomatic.

"It is so complex [for parents]," he said. "There are huge amounts of confusion. The concern would be that if there is not absolute clarity about what that notification means for families then you could have families keeping children at home, which then means they are going to miss out on further education."

Mr Bowen added that the confusion also created a risk of infectious children still going to school if parents started to ignore the app. The NAHT called for the Government to create clear guidance for parents around when to take their children to school and build it into the technology.

The Telegraph has contacted the Department of Health and Social Care for comment.