How are schools currently dealing with outbreaks?

[headachehair]

If you work in a school / hub taking key worker children or are sending your children to one, how many cases of covid are you seeing? Particularly as social distancing will be so difficult.

And when there is a suspected or possible case, what happens? Closing the school? Sending everyone home to isolate? Mass testing (if recent)?

Would be interested as it will indicate on a much smaller scale the risks of schools reopening and also set the tone for how outbreaks will be dealt with when schools fully reopen.

[MissClarke86]

0, but we only have 5-10 kids in each day

[HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime]

Staff can be tested as can the children as family members.

The vast majority of the school is closed up and has been professionally deep cleaned. The small area teachers and students can now access is thoroughly cleaned every night.

[Whatsthis1515]

1. I work in a big school. I'm doing 2 days a week on our 'rota' of covering. We have about 20 kids in a day.

We haven't seen any Coronavirus outbreaks.

[headachehair]

@HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime thanks. I meant really after you've had a suspected or confirmed case, what do you do? Good to hear the unused bits have had a good clean though!

[clareykb]

We have 15-20 kids in each day and I send my own children to their school when I'm at mine and they have similar maybe a few less. We are only using 2 rooms and the hall each are deep cleaned daily, we attempt to social difference and keep them outside a lot . I currently have 9 ks2 children in a room that normally has 28. I could just about fit 9 following the 2m rule. No kids have had it as far as I know however we are in the semi rural North East so don't know of many local cases. We have had 2 poorly staff members though with covid however but they were high risk and not at work at the time

[HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime]

We've had one confirmed case just after lock down happened, that's when they closed it up and deep cleaned and decided to restrict access so that cleaning could be concentrated every night. So they closed for 1 day. I've been in twice, 6 students the first time and only 1 when I was in over Easter.

[BlessYourCottonSocks]

I don't understand the question, really. We have 4 kids in in our school. They sit away from each other in the library, so no - we haven't had any cases of Coronavirus, but that bears no resemblance to what would be likely to happen were the school to re-open.

[altmum]

The teacher unions are concerned about adequate contact tracing needing to be in place before schools reopen fully

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/plan-to-open-schools-on-1-june-in-doubt-as-unions-say-safety-in-doubt

[Barbie222]

We've had 10-15 children in from about five families. At one point all of them have done 2 weeks self isolation and not attended. Bar one family, who must be made of steel!!! Not aware of any positive tests though as the key worker tests have only just come out.

[Keepdistance]

It is probably in relation to before school 'closure' when a parent had cv our school
Didnt tell parents for days
Didnt close school. No cleaning.

Considering the gov chose to release positive cv care home residents back to homes.

[WyfOfBathe]

We've had 0, in a MAT hub with around 20-30 students each day.

Anyone who started having symptoms during the day would be isolated until parents could collect.

We haven't been told what would happen to the other students/staff - I hope someone in SLT has a plan I assume most workplaces (supermarkets etc) are staying open even if some staff have confirmed cases, though, so I had imagined that schools for keyworker children would too.

[Drivingdownthe101]

Our school has had around 30 key worker children in throughout. No confirmed cases. A couple isolating with high temp and/or cough but not many.

[headachehair]

@BlessYourCottonSocks I was reading on a different thread about how risky it is having key worker children in so therefore I was wondering if there were more cases springing up in these cohorts currently.

I was also wondering about how it was being dealt with when it does happen because other posters had said that if you had 1 case when schools open, the whole school would have to shut etc so I was wondering if that was happening with the smaller cohorts now?

I know it's not representative of when schools are full. But the full closures now would set the tone of what to expect in the future.

[Sleepyblueocean]

No confirmed.Some staff and pupils self isolated in March but nothing new since lockdown. Special school with now about 30 pupils in.

[headachehair]

It doesn't sound like there is much circulating despite having key worker children?

[mlou93]

On the first day that schools were open to key worker's children, we had one child who, by lunchtime, had a high temperature and felt poorly. She and her brother were isolated until their parent could collect them.
We now take the children's temperatures before they come in and throughout the day.

[headachehair]

Did you feel like you needed to send everyone home?

A different poster said that they thought if schools opened and 1 child had symptoms, all 2000 would have to be sent home - that feels over the top to me.

[DaisylovesDonald]

We have about 20 kids in per day, primary, reception to yr4. No confirmed cases either before lockdown or since. Kids are kept in the hall, library and a couple of open classrooms. No real social distancing between the children.

[stuckindoors77]

Small hub, 10-14 children. No issues with sickness of either staff or children. No specific social distancing put in once the kids are in, but they spent practically all day outside which helps a bit.
Also, staff are only on rota every 2-3 weeks so they're not being exposed much. The children seem a healthy bunch so far though.

[wonderstuff]

We've got about a dozen kids, not really social distancing, not sure why, most staff seem unbothered. We have had some self isolating and we're keeping school is a few rooms to allow frequent cleaning.

I think when we go back will be a completely different ball game. I think it would make sense to separate year groups during break times so any cases mean only a portion of school is affected. Wonder if it would make sense to reduce the number of kids each adult sees? Although I don't think anyone would want to completely change the timetable.

[wonderstuff]

We had staff sick at the time of shut down and soon after but I don't think anyone has been unwell recently.

[headachehair]

I'm actually surprised that there aren't more cases in these settings given you can't social distance and you've got key worker children who are likely to come into contact with covid more. It's really positive and good news for schools opening at some point.

[Destroyer]

Surely people can social distance when there are only a very small number of children there. It’s when there are 30+ squeezed in a small classroom that it becomes a problem.

[headachehair]

I don't know...people have said on here that the children aren't doing social distancing with medium size groups of children. It would be even harder with more children, yes.

[mlou93]

OP, we didn't feel like we had to send everyone home, but then the temperature testing of children and staff was reassuring. Everyone else in that week was thankfully fine.
Not sure how that would work on a bigger scale, though!