please read the guidance for schools....

[Ariseandsmellthetea99]

Key points:
-Since hospital grade PPE is neither obtainable (needed for medical staff) nor practical for teaching young children (scary and next to impossible to teach in) this is not recommended

• Since face coverings would need to be worn by all the children to have any effect at all (this relates to the science that a face covering only protects those around you not the person wearing), this isn't practical or recommended.

-They are NOT suggesting children are kept separate from all other children (as some fairly alarming photos on social media have shown).

-Children should be kept away from others who are NOT in their group bubble (the max 15 other children they WILL be mixing with). These groups should remain the same with the same adult to limit exposure for the adult.

• Any staff who are (clinically) vulnerable or live with someone vulnerable should be leading remote learning from home.

-Any children who are (clinically) vulnerable or who live with vulnerable should stay at home

• Parents should be socially distanced. To enable this, each bubble of 15 children should be dropped off at a different entrance or time.

If you disagree with these measures, please say what measure you think would be better, since children remaining home for up to 2 years is neither desirable nor healthy.

Ariseandsmellthetea99 It will be more risky because of the lack of social distancing that is expected in other places and the closer proximity teaching staff have to children in their class than most adults have in their workplaces. That's why schools are such hotbeds of illness. Having been a teacher a long time, my exposure to all the illnesses in classrooms has given me a very good immune system. Unfortunately not much use against a new virus.

I'll just leave this here ...

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/29/no-case-child-passing-coronavirus-adult-exists-evidence-review/

@Wheelsonthebus123 I'm sure there will be a lot more outside play based learning, but children can't be outside all day every day. Some schools also have too little outside space for this to really open things up more.

I'm the short term, only half of the year groups of any school will be in, so they can split across the other classes. I just don't know how the ambition for all of primary to come back could possibly be achieved.

The purpose of this thread is to explore the guidance and alternatives calmly I think that many countries are on the face of it doing better than the UK in terms of suppression, and in relation to getting children back to school I would probably back what they are doing. Such as SKorea, France, Czech, etc. Face masks, distancing, handwashing. Lots of talking about it all and reassurance in age appropriate way by teachers. Most kids will have seen face masks etc by now, more used to them, in relation to concerns about them being scared.

@Piggywaspushed thank you for that, I was getting into a flap over that side of things as I am vulnerable but my children are not

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-dfe-adviser-school-return-plan-could-risk-virus-spread?fbclid=IwAR0cBquSFXadhGKjc1ksq6ITcIHfErmC7HKC753EX1J8ngXfbCXJFI2B1Ls

I’ll just leave this here.

Denmark are also doing introducing children to school very well, there was an interesting piece on the news this evening.

@Puzzledandpissedoff Maybe you should send that link to Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance? Seems they disagreed Monday.

The two year thing here is the most valid and appropriate point.
Until there is a vaccine, there is a risk sending kids back to school.
People seem determined to put obstacles in the way of kids going back to school in June. That’s fine. So when should they go back? Why September when it clearly won’t be safe then? January 2021? It still will not be safe, as there will arguably be second, worse round of the virus will be playing out. May 2021? Probably still getting over the second round of the virus.
If we listen to the unions of that dickhead headteacher who posted on FB, the kids could end up being off until 2022.

@sauvignonblancplz I understand your point. We surely are only debating the point at which it tips and the social and emotional needs of the children become mental health needs. I don't think we should be assuming that home (not home education which ordinarily mostly out of the house!) is guaranteed to be safe or beneficial long term. Short term, children who are not under social services care will be fine even if watching TV all day in a small home. But if we are talking 4-6 months before any in person mixing and playing with other children that could have unforeseen long term consequences too.

People seem determined to put obstacles in the way of kids going back to school in June

I have no problem with schools going back. When it is safe to do so. But when the DfE scientific advisor hasn't looked at the role of transmission amongst children and The CMO and CMA say transmission is possible in children and does affect the r value, I think questions should be asked.

Would supply teachers be used at all to provide cover where needed?

Maybe you should send that link to Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance?
Seems they disagreed Monday

But on what basis have they disagreed? Presumably if there've been cases of under 10's infecting adults they'll have been able to point to them to back up their theoretical arguments?

@Ariseandsmellthetea99
Those children who are most at risk - are worrying. However whilst I was worried and upset over why on earth the govt decided to pay FSM money straight into parents bank account , no one said a thing. No one was shouting and pushing for a better way to ensure that children were fed? This is what keeps me awake at night.

Do I worry about children from abusive families , children who are carers? Yes. This is where we should be focusing.

The whole return to mainstream education , with so little planning... bonkers. No for me the mental health issues aren’t at the front of my mind.
I believe with good support teachers will be able to deliver the curriculum until it is safe to do so remotely to the majority of children.
Those in most need should be focused on also.

But the government are making the opportunity to plan for this hopeless with their knee jerk decision making.
But each to their own.

Hello from Sweden. Our teachers are on their knees over here, doing half/half classroom teaching & preparing materials for kids w symptoms who aren't allowed in school. Their colleagues are sick, they are demoralised, tired and fed up. It's not as black and white as you make out

well well...

Puzzledandpissedoff

I posted other, more recent, research than your telegraph article just a few posts above which suggested children are spreading the virus. As I said, it's still an area of ongoing research but we cannot just say it's fine to open schools because children don't pass the virus to anyone.

Yes Denmark too. France has just started to go back, will be in interesting to see how things are in a few weeks. Interesting view from Sweden here too

@Puzzledandpissedoff

This is from the transcript of Mondays press conference. Now I don't have the actual research this came from because I'm not on the SAGE panel, but if they had solid conclusive proof that children are not spreaders, wouldn't they have said so here?

Chris Whitty:
The second question is, is having the primary schools come back going to lead to a significant upswing or a change in the R? And this has been modeled very carefully by Sage, and Patrick might want to add to this, but the view is, if it’s done very carefully, if it’s done slowly, then it is very unlikely to do that, but it has to be done very, very carefully, and Patrick may wish to add to that comment, very, very slowly.

Sir Patrick Vallance:
Just to add a little bit to that, we said on the way in that actually schools are relatively small part of the overall spread. They’re not nothing, but they are relatively small part, therefore, now in terms of key workers and vulnerable children at school, that’s okay, that’s the bit that’s done now. We didn’t recommend from Sage that primaries came back now, there’s got to be a bit more time to see that there’s room to be able to do that in terms of the changes.And as the prime minister has laid out, that will be done in a very staged way. So, it’s not all primaries coming back. It’s some classes, it’s reduced class sizes that allows that to be monitored so that the effect can be seen. So, it’s not as simple as to say everything comes back now and the R’s okay. It needs to be done carefully step-by-step and measured.

Having the entirity of primary in for the last month doesn't sound like small steps to me?

schoolsweek.co.uk/coronavirus-largest-heads-union-says-it-wasnt-consulted-over-june-1-return-plan/

Guidance is a draft according to DfE Scientific Adviser

@TwoZeroTwoZero

Where would the money come from? Besides the issue is also space.

What will happen in a three-form entry school where there's just one TA per year group?
90 children per year group, split into six classes instead of three. Three teachers plus the one TA could cover four of the classes, so what will happen to the other two?
Across the school that's 10 unsupervised classes (usually more TAs in reception and Y1).
Do you ask part time teachers to work full time?
Do you call in supply teachers?
Do you have the children come in part time? How would this affect working parents?

And the space, where are children meant to go? You need twice the amount of classrooms.

It's not feasible by any stretch of the imagination.

schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-chief-scientific-adviser-admits-he-hasnt-assessed-school-reopening-guidance/
The chief scientific officer for the DfE, as well as admitting that children could well be vectors of transmission of the disease, is now also said he hasn't assessed the school reopening guidance and that the guidance is only draft. I haven't seen anywhere previously reporting that it was only draft guidance. Has anyone here?

@Ariseandsmellthetea99 -Not a teacher, no, I'm school healthcare/first aider and general dogsbody. So even if pupils were in 'bubbles' of 15 I will likely be interacting with at least one child from each group. If they're having a seizure, sick, need a temperature check because they may be infected (let alone daily precautionary checks), medication, asthma attack, fall over, and so on, then it will be me who looks after them.

He also says this, on the 29th of April. If there was conclusive proof of children not spreading it it would be all over the news

Professor Chris Whitty said that while a “great majority of children” either do not contract the virus or have mild symptoms, there is still not enough data on how youngsters contribute to the spread of Covid-19.

He said the lower the transmission rate of coronavirus – or R value – the “greater room for manoeuvre” there is for what lockdown measures could be lifted.

Speaking at the Downing Street briefing on Monday, Prof Whitty said: “If you have schools open, it does contribute to increasing the R.

“If you close schools, the R goes down, it was part of the collection of things that were done in March to try and pull the R from where it was, near three, to where it is now, below one.”

Do you have the children come in part time? This is what is being done in other countries at the moment