As a provider of secondary and college education, late on Friday afternoon we received a letter from the Department for Education regarding the rapid roll out of mass testing facilities in our area, due to the increased rate of Covid 19 infections in Essex, London and Kent.

We have been asked to inform our staff, students, parents and other stakeholders about this development, and so we are preparing a series of communications to do this.

At this time, the information we have received is limited on specific detail, but we have been asked to support the testing process and encourage as many people as possible to come forward and take a test. The walk-in testing units are designed to make sure as many people as possible may have a test and we are encouraging all staff, students and their families within the area to take a test at a Mobile Testing Unit or any other local site, regardless of whether they are currently showing symptoms.

Regarding the location of the testing facilities, we are waiting further government updates and will continue to publish further information when this becomes available.

We would like to thank in advance all staff, students, families and local stakeholder partners who will join with us in playing our part help control and stop the spread of the virus in our area.

Dr Sam Parrett OBE
Group Principal and CEO