A furious mother has refused to send her child to school amid a row over Covid testing.
Elizabeth Jones-Singh said she was making a stand against “excessive” Covid measures.
The Caithness mother-of-four has submitted a proposed plan to home school daughter Olivia, 10, to Highland Council’s area education manager.
Currently registered as a Primary 6 pupil at Castletown Primary School near Thurso, Olivia was sent home after feeling ‘queasy’.
“There was a tummy bug going round the class. Olivia picked it up, so she had a few days off,” said Mrs Jones-Singh.
“Then she went back to school, and she was okay, but the teacher thought she looked a bit peely-wally.
“I was contacted to say she was still feeling a bit sick and was coming home.
“I thought, fair enough, a couple more days off maybe. But I was told that it could be a symptom of Covid, so she’d need PCR tested.”
‘Hamster wheel existence’
Mrs Jones-Singh thought this “ridiculous”, given she didn’t have any of the ‘official’ Covid symptoms.
However, she said she was told that there had been positive tests from children with only a sore throat or headache.
Hundreds of Highland pupils were forced to stay at home this month as Covid cases surged, causing school closures.
Mrs Jones-Singh refused to have her daughter tested –“on principle” – so Olivia had to stay at home for 10 days.
She said: “At the end of the 10 days I thought, do you know what, I’m not sending her back to this hamster wheel existence, where you’re going to send her back to me when she has a sore throat.”
She added: “I don’t believe in just making life easier. If you have a principle, I believe in standing by it.
“My principle is that I’m not going to run out and get a test for myself or the children, ever.
“I don’t believe in all the hysteria. And I don’t actually believe that PCR tests are fit for purpose. I think they pick up on all sorts of things, including dead viral strands from a previous illness.
“So I actually questioned the ‘science’ – I’m the daughter of a scientist myself, so I question the narrative of it, I question all of it and I’m having no part in it.”
‘Where do we draw the line? She has a right to an education’
While some parents might think pulling a child out of school on a point of principle is drastic, Mrs Jones-Singh disagrees.
“What’s more drastic is to send your child in to have a normal school existence, and be told yet again that she’s coming home again because she’s got a headache, the next time a sore throat, the next time because she’s feeling a bit sick.
“They’re going to send her home for every single symptom now.
“Where do we draw the line and say, hang on, she needs to just have her schooling? She has a right to her education.
“I never signed up for this nonsense, where she can be sent home and have to stay at home for 10 days unless she takes this invasive test. I don’t consent to it.”
She said she was “perfectly aware” of what home schooling entails, being herself the only one of four siblings who wasn’t home-schooled.
‘School isn’t what it used to be, it’s toxic’
Olivia has grown unhappy at school with what her mother described as over-excessive Covid measures leading to a “toxic” environment.
“School isn’t what it used to be and Olivia has grown to hate it. She’s actually delighted at the prospect of home schooling, she’d become very unhappy at school.
“She said she is relieved to be away from the toxic environment of school, where so much emphasis is put on excessive hygiene, the current political narrative, and rules, rules, rules. Covid this, Covid that, she’s tired of it all.
“There’s no school assemblies, no Christmas concerts, no parent’s evenings, no sports days – everything’s weird. It’s no way to live.”
Mrs Jones-Singh said her two other school-age children haven’t had any problems during the pandemic.
“My eldest son isn’t having the same problem at Thurso High School. They’re not sending kids home for every little thing.
“The high school have been fab. I’ve phoned in to say he’s not feeling well – they don’t question it, they don’t say 10 days off, they don’t say test. It’s normal, which is great, so he’s staying where he is.
“My five-year-old son is autistic and goes to a special school, and they don’t shut for anything.
“In fact throughout lockdown vulnerable children like him were allowed to keep going because of their condition.
“He’s had days when he’s had a bit of a head cold and the staff have just said ‘oh, he was a bit tired today.’
“But this particular primary school has been a nightmare.”
‘I feel alone, but someone has to make a stand’
She said the whole episode had left her feeling “frustrated”, and that she had no option but to take matters into her own hands.
“I feel like we’re on an endless hamster wheel. And nobody at the school or in authority is stopping to question it.
“The answer is always ‘we’re following the government guidelines’. That’s what we’re always fobbed off with.
“I feel like I’m the only one making a stand, I really feel alone in this.”
A spokeswoman for Highland Council said they were unable to comment on individual cases concerning pupils, and that schools receive advice from the NHS Highland Health Protection Team.
She added: “All Highland schools are following Health Protection advice in line with national guidance to reduce the risk of spread of Covid in school communities”.
An NHS Highland spokeswoman said it didn’t have “much to add” to the council’s statement.
“This is in line with national Covid guidance, which we are following,” she said.
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