Dare I dream of a Christmas that is not screwed up by viruses from school? Anyone else?

[Gingerbreadmmm]

Tomorrow is the last day of term. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we won’t have flu, covid, noro or whooping cough etc in the house this holiday. It would be so nice to just have a Christmas and Christmas break that viruses from school don’t ruin again.

Wouldn't it be nice if schools actually did something to lower transmission of viruses? There are clear, effective steps that are proven to work, if we take airborne mitigations. As parents we should be demanding the following:

1. Ventilation. Monitor CO2 levels (many schools have these sensors but don't use them or ignore them) and take action when it's over 800ppm by opening windows.
2. Run HEPA purifiers. The cost of runnign these is lower than the cost of supply teachers.
3. KEEP SICK CHILDREN OFF SCHOOL, forget attendance records
4. Symptomatic kids and adults should be in a mask if they are in school

check out cleanairforkids.co.uk for letters you can use to ask for the above!

Get some sambucol for kids. It has been brilliant for my two.

@AussieManque with the state of school funding and the lack of the (any recent) government doing anything with any common sense with education and school buildings, we will be waiting a very long time, annoyingly.

Do you know what else they should introduce? The children should be cleaning their desk area at the end of the day. They do it in Japan, in fact they do the school not just their desk. The number of times I walked over offering a tissue box to year 4 child with their finger up their nose was ridiculous. I was glad when covid meant each child had their own pencil case rather than shared pencils because finger up nose child just put their germs all over a pencil which then another child would have later on.

Desks should also be wiped underneath too, children tend to put their hands under the desk.

Ventilating the classroom is great but depending on how ancient the heating system is once it is cold it is hard to warm it back up depending on where the thermostats are.

Good soap in the toilets too rather than those shitty bars that dry out would encourage good hand washing. I hope all your children stay well.

My youngest is in bed with a temperature and dodgy tummy.

We have sensors and ran HEPA filters all through the Covid period and for two years beyond as we were part of a ventilation trial. Turns out, even with the filters running and the windows all wide open, you simply cannot get the CO2 levels under 800ppm when there's 30 kids and an adult or two all sharing a tiny space. If you want ventilation to be the solution, it would take more than just windows and a few filters, you'd have to redesign and rebuild classrooms/schools.

As an aside regarding cost, schools don't pay for supply teachers anymore. They tend to cover internally by using TAs because they can't afford it. They'll only hire supply for longer periods because the insurance kicks in and covers the cost.

Having children off when they have colds/coughs would help with illness in school but parents are unlikely to support it considering they already try to sneak children into school when they are more actively sick (vomitting, rashes, etc.) because they can't take the time off. To change that, you'd need a change in employment law, not in schools.

As for masks, we couldn't even get the general public consistently wearing them during a global pandemic when it was still of unknown danger and risk. There is no way parents would support children being masked in school as a regular thing.

As a teacher that gets sick every single Christmas holiday, I agree with the point that something needs to be done. But your solutions are oversimplified and would be unlikely to be effective.

Would love parents to teach their children how to wash their hands. I work in a primary school the amount of children I see coming out of the toilets without washing hands is awful, constantly sending them back in. Have had many children tell me they do not use soap to wash hands at home.

The thing is attendance needs to be monitored. There should just be more common sense.

Parent A sends their child in everyday, but keeps them off for a vomiting bug/flu? Understandable.

Parent B rarely sends their child in, they’re late, off a lot of the time because they can’t be bothered? Something needs to be done.

keeping attendance records isn’t the issue, it’s how they’re used.

Honestly every Christmas since my eldest started school we’ve been ill on Christmas Day. First year it was pneumonia for 3/6, second was chickenpox for 1 then 10 days later for 3, third was sickness that lasted 11 days from first child ill to everyone else getting it, this year I’m yet to see what we’ve harboured. I heavily debated not sending mine in the last two days before the holidays as historically those are the days the selfish parents send unwell children in regardless. It’s not the kids it is 100% the selfish parents who don’t want them at home to deal with once they’ve got whatever the child has.

Apparently people are typically contagious with flu for at least a day before their symptoms start, so probably a couple of days before they realise it's anything major. A child will have spread their germs around who knows how many other children during that time, even if they are then kept off school by their parents.

There's things that schools could do better at and things that parents could too. We need to instill the importance of proper hand washing. Lots of kids just dip their hands in water and think their hands are washed. Both parents and schools need to hammer this message home.

In reality in a class of 30 kids if one kid is ill then it's pretty much guaranteed that the few kids sitting around them will catch it regardless of windows and air filtering. They are sat close to each other for about 7 hours. If someone was ill in your office you'd probably catch it too if you sat near them for 7 hours. We all need to get better at being off if we're ill. It would soon stop things spreading. What's a mild cold for you might wipe another out for 3 weeks depending on their immunity.

If we all did this then kids soon wouldn't have 5-6 colds a year and wouldn't be off as often.

Schools should get better at opening windows, ensuring access to regular hand washing, not just at toilet time, wiping down tables half way through the day, quietly and subtly moving a poorly child to somewhere in a corner to minimise the number of pupils around them (not by themselves of course but less pupils near them and they should change layouts of classrooms in the winter so everyone is facing forward and not in table groups.

Parents need to send children in with hand gel, teach proper hygiene e.g. not picking nose, washing hands thoroughly etc. They also need to suck up the attendance stuff and just keep their child off if they're ill. They'd soon be ill less often if this happened. Near Xmas parents should also carefully consider what things to go to e.g. is going to soft play worth it when they're likely to end up ill and then spread it to several in the class.

Are you assuming that if we 'instill the importance' of something, kids will actually do it? Schools are constantly trying to instill the importance of all kinds of things. Unfortunately a lot of the time it goes in one ear and out of the other. Btw, who is supposed to be doing the wiping down of the hundreds and hundreds of tables in a secondary school in the middle of the day?

Are you saying we shouldn't try to instill the importance then? Just because some will ignore we just don't bother? Surely if a lot do listen and action it's better than currently? I used to be a teacher and during the winter used to wipe my own tables at lunch time during the winter or at other times when illnesses were going around. It took me about 3 minutes. Obviously it would be better if a cleaner or caretaker could but 3 minutes to possibly stop myself and the kids getting ill was worth it.

No, we can and do remind them to wash their hands, but ultimately it's winter and lots of people will get colds. I just don't think there's much you can do about it tbh. If all teachers who had a sniffle took time off, schools would be closing. Frankly I'm not spending my unpaid lunch time cleaning tables. I do more than enough unpaid overtime as it is. I have a cold right now. It's normal. Nobody made such a fuss until covid.

Instilling the importance is more than just reminders though. Colds are normal but it's certainly possible to stop them spreading as much as they do meaning everyone would be ill far less. What's a simple cold for you might not be for someone else's immunity.

It can be done, but you are right it would require schools to be rebuilt.

Our new temporary science labs (thanks RAAC), all have full venterlation systems that keep the cO2 below 800ppm. We did manage it in some classrooms during covid by opening windows (old building pre RAAC). But that was again in science rooms which are much bigger then a standard classroom. Our small classroom was impossible to keep low enough.

We have just broken up and I'm sick with a cold, but I can't blame the school I work at its definitely from my own children.

Commiserations OP, we’re all sick too, totally sucks.

Have no energy to tackle the wrapping, neighbour cards, decorations or baking stuff I had planned. Just hoping the worst will have blown over by the Christmas Day..

So did your school stop using the HEPA filters after the trial? Why? Given that they help with Pm2.5 and allergens like mould it seems counterproductive to just give up. The whole point is to use them as an additional layer: since you couldn't get CO2 below 800ppm, the filters were going to be an extra step to lower risk. There are studies from schools that show that using ventilation+ HEPA is effective at reducing sick days. (Filters do not reduce CO2 levels)

It's all about layers of protection. Ventilation+ filtration + source control.

Ideally we'd also be installing far UVC in classrooms but that seems further off, though it's proven to be effective and safe.

Attitudes to masking need to change. For a start the UK HSA/ NHS itself needs to get its act together and make it clear that FFP2s are required, not surgical, and that proper wearing is required. If healthcare modeled proper and effective masking that would be a start. Unfortunately hospitals start requiring masks only once infection rates have shot up, when it's much harder to control. If they were worn consistently in healthcare, you wouldn't get crazy stats like 70% of patients in hospital with COVID having caught COVID in hospital (Wales tracks this).

In Asian countries people have no problem masking up, in the UK people act like it's a breach of their human rights.

People always act as though schools do nothing. What's this about wiping tables at the end of the day? Of course that happens - cleaners do it daily. And actually ours are wiped at lunch too. I constantly have the windows open because even in winter it gets stuffy. There is a sink in the classroom and I'm always sending sneezing or snotty children to wash their hands. I've never worked in a school where children have been limited to hand washing after the toilet only - I don't think there's a primary teacher in the land who wouldn't be delighted if the children washed their hands more. There's still plenty of bugs going round. We certainly don't have better attendance stats because we do a whole-school table wipe at lunch.

Now my middle one is ill. It didn’t use to be like this. The new normal pisses me off. Sorry to those having the same.