Secondary Teachers, what do you think about going back to school for the last term with social distancing?

[sunshineanddaffodils]

My year 8 and year 10 dc are in the best possible situation at this point. Both have their own computer, space to work, pretty good home learning from school and both are cooperating. However, I am so worried about the impact being off school until September will have on them socially, on their mental well-being let alone the academic side of things. When I think about dc who are less fortunate than mine I feel so anxious and concerned. I’d be so happy to see some sort of phased return to school as soon as possible really. Looking at the stats I’m not concerned about the health any of the dc or staff at the school although obviously wouldn’t expect anyone in the vulnerable categories or dc of the vulnerable to be expected to return (there’s only one teacher at at their school who is shielding because he’s diabetic). I think school should reopen and the vulnerable remain isolated so the virus cannot be passed on to them if dc fo pick it up at school.

@LolaSmiles

You were asked if you'd been before we left!

The answer to all questions lola is NO ONE KNOWS. STOP ASKING !

BlessYourCottonSocks
I didn't need a wee then. I do now though. I've changed my mind.

Has anyone actually read the scientific I information coming out on this? Children are not infected and do not spread in the way adults do.

I have in large measure, and this really isn't certain. If @Sunshine1239 is referring to the child who was skiing in Contamines, it's only one child and it would be dangerous to extrapolate from his example to the wider population. The fact that he didn't infect any of a reasonably large number of contacts makes him an outlier by any standards, and why he didn't is no better understood than why Steve Walsh, who infected him, also infected 10+ other people when the R0 is considerably lower than 11. If s/he's referring to the government guidance, it would be as well to remember that that's a political document, not a scientific one.

I also disgree that the alert @KatieB55 mentions is insignificant. It challenges precisely this received wisdom going round that kids are not vulnerable, including kids with no underlying conditions. The HSJ alert also makes it clear that the newly observed syndrome is occurring (amongst others) in children who have apparently recovered from an otherwise unremarkable Covid infection, which may have implications for what (little) we know about the development of antibody. (The current tests are so inaccurate though, that it's hard to be sure about correlations either way.) There is nothing in the alert that says all the children are recovering/have recovered either, although that may be true for all I know. The numbers are small at the moment, agreed, but the number of Covid deaths was small once too and we all know where complacency about that led.

I disagree with @EdgarAllenCrow that this should not have been publicised. I feel the pandemic has gone well past the point where we can all expect individualised decisionmaking to be made on our behalf by professionals. People need the maximum available information to make tailored decisions for themselves and their families. For me, at least, that means no school for the foreseeable future, whatever's announced, whereas OP clearly feels differently. I doubt school will be compulsory for quite some time to come.

I agree Red the question was mentioned at the briefing. They said although rare its a worry and they are looking into this further.

Not read full thread..

I can't even get kids to bring in their own pen, pencil, paper and calculator. I teach post 16. :-(

Imagine having to share physical resources and disinfecting in between uses. Think lab pracs.

As for handing in homework. No thanks. Would have to be quarantined and handled with gloves. No using PCs for research or typing - too few.

How many times a day do you think the door handles, sinks, loos etc would have to be cleaned. some students can't won't even flush a loo in my experience. Litter everywhere too.

Wish parents could see how some kids treat their schools and teachers.

Sorry rant over.

I think it will turn into a bit of a farce attempting social distancing - it's hard enough with the small handful of keyworker children at the moment.
I suspect that media/ public pressures will lead in us reopening too early- possibly June 1st and I don't know if it will work. Schools are germ factories and always have been

17:59

Health sec 'very worried' about reports of serious coronavirus-related syndrome in children
Mr Hancock says he is "very worried" about reports of a serious coronavirus-related syndrome developing in a small number of children and is "looking into it closely".
Prof Powis says it is "only in the last few days" that the reports of this have been seen.
It is being looked at "as a matter of urgency", he adds.
"It's really too early to say if there is a link (to coronavirus)", Prof Powis says.
Prof Whitty says it is "very rare situation" but admits it is "entirely plausible" it is caused by coronavirus.

@Redlentilyellowlentil.

No it doesn't challenge that at all. There are fewer than 20 cases in a population of over 15 million aged 0-19.

They don't know what it is, whats causing it and some of the children have tested negative for COVID and negative for COVID antibodies so haven't had it in the past.

It could be absolutely nothing.

Its an alert shared between medics (of which there are usually several a week) in a time of high alert which should not have been made public.

And in 'normal' times wouldn't have been.

They don't know what it is, whats causing it and some of the children have tested negative for COVID and negative for COVID antibodies so haven't had it in the past.

*What the letter actually said was serological evidence of possible preceding Sars cov 2 has also been observed.

So that is antibodies and likely they had it at some point prior?

20 kids too many for me in lockdown*

@walnutwhip. PICS made a shitty panic-inducing alert on Twitter which PICS are now rightly embarassed about and saying it was only meant as advice for medics to keep an eye out for and shouldn't have been taken as a 'risk' by the general public.

Because of the reactions we've seen today. Emerging reports say the incidence may be as few as 12 children. 12 or 'fewer than 20' doesn't make a difference. They're still extremely small numbers.

HCPs see dozens of similar other 'alerts' a month even pre-COVID. Which may be something or may be absolutely nothing.

And that's why they're not usually publicised.

Because they a) cause concern or fear which is extremely likely to be entirely unecessary and b) possibly used for personal or political agendas with zero sufficient evidence.

If you say so Ed 🙄

I have seen less valid data reported as fact. I for one am glad to be aware and if one person rings for help quicker for their child it will be worth it.

Too many assumptions @EdgarAllenCrow. It's 20 cases (if that's accurate) in a population we can't put a number on, as we don't know how many children have or haven't had Covid, firstly because the government stopped meaningful attempts at testing weeks ago and secondly because the test kits aren't optimally accurate. We can't assign the 20 cases to one or other population (i.e. positive or negative) without this information but the worst case scenario is that they are all in the positive group, which is probably substantially less than 15 million. (Worst case in the sense that Covid is highly transmissible and already endemic to the population, not in the sense that this cluster wouldn't be worrying even if it's unrelated.) (And in that worst case scenario, kids who haven't had it aren't relevant, because what we are concerned with here is calculating the risk of children who catch Covid having a severe outcome. Agreed that if the kids in this cluster are genuinely a mixture of positive and negative then this is less immediately worrying for the population at large.)

As you say, these are not normal times. A cluster of cases of what looks like a highly unusual postviral syndrome during a pandemic of a new and poorly understood virus cannot sensibly be regarded as likely to be 'absolutely nothing'. Or at least the index of suspicion otherwise should be high. I presume that that, coupled with the general disinclination of the public to make a fuss about nonspecific symptoms at a time of massive demand on health resources, is why the PICS chose to publicise this. They also made a conscious decision not to restrict their coverage of it to the HSJ alert 'between medics' but put it directly into the lay domain via social media. You can't seriously think they didn't consider the reaction that would ensue.

I feel we are derailing the OP's thread though. The point is that bland assertions (by a pp) that kids can't get it/can't pass it on isn't a useful yardstick to use when assessing whether schools can or should reopen.

This is a pandemic of a highly infectious virus with a high mortality rate. Rapid communication and a warning to the general public globally is ESSENTIAL on the principle that it’s better to be safe than sorry. Thanks PICsociety

I think Boris will be begging teachers to go back to school.
I am not talking about all teachers but some teacher hardly do any teaching staying at home on full salary.
I would be good if the government publish statistics of covid infected people by age.
I bet there will be very few children infected.
Even if poor children get given laptops it doesn't mean they will get some education. They need to be supervised, they need to have internet at home.
Y12 classes are usually small. Why not start with them.

Mine is 25 as it goes, lunar.

I’m a teacher and a mum- we have already had a suicide at both my school and my kids’ school. No one is monitoring the effects this is having on children. I’m still going in to school to teach vulnerable students and they simply aren’t coming in. We don’t know how they are. One Year 7 came in for the first time today and we put her in immediate safe guarding as she was very dirty and thin- her mum just isn’t coping. People think that the virus is the biggest risk to children but I’m not sure it is. There are many many other risks and nobody seems to care.

@sammycat123 why is your school not checking up on these vulnerable kids? They don't have to attend school but school still has a duty of care to them!

People do care and are aware
My kids school I know has been calling and even social distance visiting vulnerable kids. The school I work in is making daily calls to many kids. My friends who work in child social care are still working.
I'm still.flagging up the faintest hint of anything untoward in my communications with my own students . People care and are acting on it.

I wonder if there could be a scenario where only the vulnerable children would go in. 1. reduced class sizes 2. the classes could be streamed and a mixed method learning could be a compromise.

usual arguments.

1. brighter kids would be hindered by moving slower (as this method would be slower for practical reasons and would take time to get used to for teachers). on the other hand: this is happening now, so no new thing. pro: it is easier to assign additional resources, task online than having extra material at hand irl

1. slower kids would be at a disadvantage if learning online as they would not get the support they need. well, actually that could be alleviated by additional resources (+2 vids on specific topic, +x task on lower levels until they get it,...)

1. socializing. ok, I do not have any arguments pro/con here as I'm very introvert and love the whole stay at home part. But I do see that loads of ppl suffer from it. With my team of 4ppl, all extroverts, I do a coffee morning/ afternoon twice a week and a virtual pub every friday. Maybe somewhere along those lines is the answer. My kid's school has put some of the clubs online: bridge, debate,....

-- What would need to happen:

1. on a regulatory level we should forget this very linear and restricted way of advancement. This would allow brighter kids to accelerate, slower ones time to digest. This would be the hardest as the whole system is set up to fit the herd, not the individual. Neither schools, nor teachers are equipped to do this atm. Or only very few of them.

1. material would have to be presented in a different way. (This is my area of work for decades now and process remodeling). With clear guidelines of what the achievable outcomes should be, this would actually be not that much of an issue. Not an easy thing and not overnight.

1. teachers would need to have training on how to do virtual and/or combined teaching. Again, their techniques and methods (updated millions of times naturally), but do stem from some 100 years ago. As much as we'd like to think that teaching methods are hugely different from a classic frontal mode -- it's just a variation on that. It cannot be anything else in the current system setup.

1. administration and responsibility would also have to be re-thought at every level.

-- Bottom line is: if this is something that stays with us than the above are a potential solution pathway. If we think that this is a glitch in the matrix, then we just need to weather it out and no reforms should come out of it. --- personally, I don't think -if things remain similar to what they are now- I will let my son go back to school physically. It's great that they are a low risk category, but they bring home everything. And the ppl the kids are living with are not always low risk. So when we are talking about letting kids back in school, we are also talking of them getting infected. And that leads us back to the starting point of wanting to achieve herd immunity. Which is fine in my opinion as soon as we know for a fact that we can't get reinfected, that the death rate is below 0,001 and that there are enough beds/nursed/doctors. Until then, thanks, but I'd rather not be a guinea pig.

When I was in the state secondary sector our Y12 classes had to average 18 to be viable. One of mine was 27. The classrooms are crammed.

I'm in a private school now and while the classes are smaller, so are the rooms.

Schools simply don't run with spare space nowadays. None of them can afford to.