In September secondary schools will have whole year group bubbles!

[RippleEffects]

Is it reasonable to have a bubble of several hundred children?

Is it assumed none of them have siblings in other year groups, will teachers be year group specific, how can that even be a bubble?

BBC news link

[Witchend]

Our secondary the years are bigger than that and they can't do staggered starts because most come by bus.

[Blankiefan]

It won't be a very "secure" bubble but it'll catch 80% of the contacts that are school driven. People can then make choices from there (do if you have 2 kids and 1 is self isolating, you could sensibly chose to keep the other off too).

What are the alternatives? Keep the kids off longer or part time until there's a vaccine? Shut down the whole school if there's a case? There's no perfect solution- they need to balance so many things and this broad brush approach is as "least worse" as others I've heard.

[RippleEffects]

At my DS's the years are around 300. Its about 40% who get to school independantly, most bus but its (mostly) public transport so in theory they could stagger.

I can't work out how it's a year bubble when so many will be mixing across years at home. Surely it either is a self contained bubble or isnt. You cant have sibblings in different bubbles. Or in our case DH is a teacher DS2 will be the only one of my three at the same school in September, how can they be different bubbles?

[LucyLastik]

It's back to normal but with kids in rows.

[lanthanum]

Perhaps staggered starts will solve the problem of social distancing on the bus - if someone pays for the bus to do two rounds of the route at each end of the day.

[GuyFawkesDay]

Lunch will have to start at 10:30am 😆

[LibrariesGiveUsPower]

That’s not bubbles, that’s school.

[lunar1]

There was a picture on fb the other day of a child in DS1's class. All huddled together so all 32 members of the extended family could get in the shot.

People are fucking thick, there is no way schools can trust what parents tell them. A bubble of 30 children is pointless when people already don't understand the new rules.

[Appuskidu]

I don’t understand how they can possibly keep each year group from mixing with other year groups?

[YinuCeatleAyru]

I think that if I was in charge of a country that had been really terrible at dealing with the Covid19 threat, and was from a political party dedicated to reducing public spending, I think that these rules combined with the threat of fines for non-attendance would be exactly what I would do.

i would be planning that every parent who possibly could do so would choose de-register their child from state education rather than subjecting them to this, and start paying relatively modest fees to sign up for a distance-learning online-only private school. the number of pupils in schools would be a fraction of their previous numbers, and staff could be cut and entire schools closed due to lack of demand for state education.

massive budget savings.

[AnneOfCreamCables]

As someone said, it's not bubbles. It's just school.

[ChicCroissant]

As other posters have already mentioned, more than one year in my DD's secondary has nine forms and a lot use private bus services to get there. I'm wondering which children will make the cut of 240 in each year!

[SomeHalfHumanCreatureThing]

Our year groups are 240 - 270 here. Should be interesting!

I suppose they will be able to keep the lower years mostly within form groups, so that'll help.

[RubyViolet]

I don’t understand. Matt Hancock said tonight that children had been particularly affected in Leicester. As he pronounced lockdown he talked about the children .... What are we not being told. Because l was under the impression kids were untouchable, immune.
We need clarity.

[flamingochill]

It will be interesting to see if teachers are assigned to bubbles considering that they can teach y7 right through to y13. If a teacher tests positive do all the years that they teach have to self isolate?

[flamingochill]

Ruby - children catch it but they tend to be in the no symptom/mild symptom category rather than needing hospital category.

There are schools and nurseries that have closed

[SomeHalfHumanCreatureThing]

@RubyViolet

I don’t understand. Matt Hancock said tonight that children had been particularly affected in Leicester. As he pronounced lockdown he talked about the children .... What are we not being told. Because l was under the impression kids were untouchable, immune.
We need clarity.

I've been trying to find more info on this, but have had no luck so far, so taking that comment with a pinch of salt atm. Hopefully there will be more information tomorrow.

[noblegiraffe]

What are the alternatives? Keep the kids off longer or part time until there's a vaccine? Shut down the whole school if there's a case?

Well, not pretending that a year group in a secondary school is in any realistic way a ‘bubble’ would be a start. Testing the whole school if there is a positive case would be the next step.

[Kitsandkids]

I don’t think there’s any point in saying a year group is a ‘bubble.’ I’ll have 1 in Year 7 and 1 in Year 8 in September and I’d guess a good 30% or more of the school will have siblings in other year groups. They’ll have to mix at home so will pass any germs to the other ‘bubbles’ anyway. I think they should just enforce hand washing/anti bac gel upon entry to the building and each classroom, cancel any gatherings where loads of them are crammed in together such as assemblies and maybe stagger lesson finishing times so that not too many are milling around the corridors together. The numbers of cases and deaths are decreasing so the risks of catching the virus are decreasing too. Hopefully by September the figures will be even better and schools can be as normal as possible.

[Muppetry76]

Our school has a ten form entry, nearly 2000 kids including 6th form.

Each year group has a 30 minute lunch break, how the hell is that going to work - supervision/catering staff/timetabling never mind breaks, staggered entry/exit.

We currently have less than 20% of y10 in. Reintroducing fines may increase numbers but I suspect parents will challenge fines if they refuse to send kids in because social distancing rules in schools are almost non-existent compared to having visitors to your home.

Teachers want kids back in the classroom. Or engaged with learning, somehow. Parents are the power behind this, and (as we can see with reception, y1, y6, y10 and y12) despite schools being safely open, the kids aren't rushing back.

[Penguinsarethebestest]

This government are an absolute joke! That's not a bubble. My 2 DC are a year apart in the same school so that's already a double 'bubble' for every child there really.
Just say - they're going back, they'll wash their hands more and please parents, for god's sake, if your kid has symptoms keep them home.