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Daily rapid testing of school pupils who are close contacts of a Covid case is a safe alternative to home isolation and doesn't lead to more virus spread, a study in schools has found.

Daily testing could reduce school absences by up to 39%, the Oxford researchers said. 

Covid rules in many UK schools will be different for the new school year, BBC News reports.

But the policy has created huge disruption to children's education since September.

Any requirement for children and adults to self-isolate as close contacts will be removed in England from mid-August, as already announced by the government.

The Scottish government is reviewing its approach to self-isolation for school children, who return to lessons in August. In Wales, the education minister has said he wants to minimise the number of pupils self-isolating.

Since March, schools have offered twice weekly rapid tests to all pupils, with those testing positive having to self-isolate, along with close contacts, for 10 days. They replaced PCR tests, which were sent away to a lab for results, when students had symptoms.

But that's meant growing numbers of pupils absent from school - around one million were off due to Covid in England last week.

But only 47,000 of those actually had Covid - the rest were defined as close contacts so had to self-isolate and stay off school, even though they were in the routine of taking tests to establish whether they had become infected.

This pre-print study, in 200 secondary schools and colleges in England, between April and June 2021, suggests there is another way, with less than 2% of children exposed to Covid-19 in schools ending up infected.