Headteacher has posted this to facebook

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The headteacher at my DCs school has posted this to Facebook. He says that social distancing is impossible and unless we would be happy to let our DC play in a supermarket for hours to 'not even think about' bringing them to school. I have 2 expected back on June 1st. AIBU to keep them off after this?

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10222994594279008&id=1403891361

Many of that number would ordinarily have died of seasonal flu or other illnesses, or were terminally ill.

And yes it's a lot, but compared to a population of over 60 million, it's still a tiny number. Risks of developing heart disease or cancer are far greater, and now some people are so afraid they won't even leave the house, our even more sedentary lockdown lifestyles are going to increase those risks even further.

This chap has been making great extra cash via his consultancy whilst school has been closed.

I accept his valid concerns. However, it feels that he and many teachers are not looking for solutions in all of this. Their job is to educate. A solution needs to be found. Most other professions are looking for solutions, and many are taking risks to do their job.

It seems there are so many teachers not looking for solutions, digging their heels in, not wanting to do what they are paid for.

I know this is an unpopular opinion but it's one found everywhere in society, in the media and on social media and that is because there is some truth in it.

The government is showing a lack of understanding about the dangers of the spread of coronavirus within schools, and outwards from schools to parents, sibling and relatives, and to the wider community.

Have the teaching unions seen fit to share the evidence base they are using when making statements like this? It would be good to know why they feel they have more definitive evidence than any of the main research bodies.

Jassy
Teacher or not, personally I have reservations about anything our government says after they promoted mass gatherings the day after Italy went into lockdown.

The government seem to pick and choose what the evidence suggests depending on who is leaning on them, and those leaning on them seem to have financial interests. Anyone who thinks Boris and his crew are making decisions for the good of the general public are misguided.

@LolaSmiles

Nope. It is just written like it is being positive. It clearly isn't

It basically says no one in teaching will countenance an increase in student numbers until the government has track and trace up and running. To be honest, I don't think that is realistic at all. I think that the bubble idea is quite sensible to be honest - it is what other countries are doing. It is what people will very likely doing in other working scenarios where distancing isn't possible.

It basically prevents the government from doing any proper planning or trying to get teachers to engage with some of their pupils and test some of the models that they could adopt before September.

I said upthread, I'm genuinely interested in how many people who have gone to work throughout have actually caught this virus. The people I know who caught it were on furlough or wfh. Nobody I know who has been working in a school during lockdown has caught this, despite being in close contact with kids of key workers. And yes, in close contact - not permanently 2m away from them.

Teacher or not, personally I have reservations about anything our government says after they promoted mass gatherings the day after Italy went into lockdown.

I’m certainly not accepting anything uncritically, regardless of source, or suggesting others do so. I didn’t mention the government at all; I was talking about research institutions around the world and their work on paediatric COVID and the role of children in transmission.

It’s an interesting but currently hopelessly inadequate evidence base and certainly nowhere near strong enough for the sort of statements made in that press release. Which is irresponsible and in the current climate shouldn’t be any more acceptable than the government playing fast and loose with statistics, as they have been caught doing more than once.

Their job is to educate

I don't think a head teacher's job is to educate. As I understand it, it's more about running a school so that education can happen. Which means making sure that that all likely eventualities are prepared for, making sure that you have the physical resources - in terms of building, equipment, staffing etc, Schools here are quite overcrowded and a lot of learning takes place via groupwork and - in the early years - via play. To teach safely in a pandemic is a huge change and the Government should be helping through investment in making building safer, procuring additional resources for cleaning etc, That would be 'common sense'...

As with any negotiation there will be movement on both sides though.

The government is passing the buck on a monumental scale. They're telling people to go back to work, but not to use public transport to get there, knowing fine well that busier tube trains in the capital would be shared whilst people bitch about it. They're telling people to reduce going places, whilst also relaxing restrictions, saying stay alert instead of stay home when the bulk of the regulation hasn't changed. Now they're saying adults should have masks on in indoor places but not in schools, that workplaces should have appropriate PPE, but not schools. They're then saying go back to school, but not taking into account many of the challenges that will affect teachers, children, parents and all 3.

They are setting this up so that the public will be too busy bickering among themselves that we fail to pay attention to their systematic failure to handle this crisis appropriately.

SpanishFly I've been at work throughout (in a hospital) and as far as I know haven't had it. Ditto my DC, who have been in keyworker school throughout. One of my team believes she had it early on (can't know as at the time only hospital patients were being tested), yet none of the rest of us or any of our households have despite sharing a small office, sitting round the table for team meetings, washing up each others cups etc with her up to and including the day she got a temp and self isolated. Make of that what you will.

@jacks11
A very sensible and reasoned response. Are you ok if I quote this to people I know? You explain it much better than I can.

This seems to summarise the state of play at the moment.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/13/are-children-less-susceptible-to-coronavirus

@Fairyliz

Yes, quite happy. I am not keen on underestimating the risk- easing lockdown too quickly is not something I’d advocate. What I do wish is that we could have a reasoned look at the evidence and base our next steps on that. I think the government are petrified of doing anything that goes against public perception for fear of later being blamed for something. That troubles me greatly.

Head teachers are, in part, I think acting based on fear, lack of understanding of the evidence and wanting to protect their staff and pupils. I think the government needs to clearly lay the evidence out to reassure parents a day teachers alike. The fact they haven’t (or at least not to my knowledge) is a great failure on their part.

@Fairyliz

I can also pass you on some sources of information that have been useful to our department/from a colleague who is heavily involved in research.

I wouldn’t take my child to supermarket because they may indeed spread it to a more vulnerable group if they were in there all day.

But you are happy to send them into a school where there will be staff in the "vulnerable" category that could be in a room with them all day? In my school, only staff who have received a shielding letter will be allowed to stay off.

Why would sending kids back in September be safer than June?

Probably because by then the number of cases in the general population would have reduced significantly enough for a rigorous test, trace and isolate programme to manage the virus. The risk wouldn't have been eliminated but it it would have been significantly reduced.

The suggestion is that less than half the children return from 1st June.

And then two weeks later all primary school children will be back. It may well be manageable for those two weeks but it certainly won't be possible to have double the number of classrooms and teachers when all the children come back. I think you'll find then that there will be two groups of 15 in each classroom. In reality that's likely to mean part-time school so working parents will get half a day of childcare and will need to be available to do drop-offs and pickups that involve waiting around in long socially-distanced queues. The classrooms will need deep cleaning between groups too.

I have gone to work all through this
I work in a hospital
I have not caught COVID and only two of my colleagues (from a large team) have

Oh and one caught it from his wife whilst he wasn't in work
So I suppose that's one who has caught it

There will be a second peak - the idea was never to stop us all getting it - it was to slow it down. Surely a peak in the summer is preferable to a peak in the autumn/winter?

Why do you think a peak in summer will mean there isn't one in winter?

Oh and not one of the teachers from my husbands cluster of schools has caught it from children many of whoms parents are medical professionals

An honest HT, well done them.

SpanishFly I know several people working in hospitals, different parts of the country. They are not frontline as such, not dealing with Covid patients. All have been working throughout, doing overtime too. None of them nor any colleagues in their departments have had it.

I (distantly) know 2 people who have had it; 1 was already seriously ill in hospital with respiratory issues. The other worked on public transport and had pre-existing conditions. Both are still very ill but recovering.

Within our department of c 400 people at work (all of whom have been WFH since 23 March although many have spouses or family members who are keyworkers and still working) not one person or their immediate family has had it.

I am sure they can do alternate days, look to the rest of Europe to see what they are doing?

The BBC keep showing clips of Denmark, the voiceover says they are making children practise social distancing but the images show children clearly touching each other. There's a classroom with tape across it to separate the children (clearly the virus respects tape) and in the footage a child ducks underneath the tape to get to the other side.

They also have Primary schools on the same site as Secondary so have been able to make use of the currently empty secondary school classrooms. Here our secondary schools will be using them for year 10 and 12 and are on different sites. They normally have 20 children in a class so they've been split into groups of 10. They have had outdoor sinks installed (there will be no budget for that here) so the children can wash their hands.

Oh and in Denmark there have "only" been 533 deaths so far.

I have no issue returning under Denmark’s guidelines. Let’s do that. 👍

Oh..... but we don’t have well funded, well equipped schools with large grounds and outdoor spaces.

We can’t meet U.K. guidelines let alone the Danish ones!! In addition, Denmark has 91 deaths per million, we have 491 per million, so yes Danish teachers and parents may well feel safer.

Under U.K. guidance (15 per class) We need an extra 24 classrooms at my school. It’s pretty hard to think positive when you need to produce 24 new learning environments in 3 weeks without money.

To the people suggesting using secondary schools, how do we determine which primary schools get priority?

Practically I’m stumped.

Returning to schools in Germany has correlated with an increase of the R value. Many posters are correct, it is not the children who are dying, as a result of this increase (or even their teachers) but the elderly and the vulnerable.

I would rather the economy ‘tanked’ as people like to say, but consequently elderly and vulnerable lives are saved.