To wonder why people are even talking about "bubbles"

[schoolsoutforcovid]

"Bubbles" can't exist in schools. All of this 15 to a class business is bollocks, lots of kids have siblings. So I send my year 6, year 1 and year 3 (key worker group) kids back to school. Then they come home....surely the "bubble" is burst?

We were discussing this at school yesterday, we have set up our bubbles, we can ensure our bubbles stay separate at school. Theoretically that reduces risk, but yes families of 4 children in different bubbles, their mum also works in a different school so that family is exposed to the germs of 5 bubbles.
We have parents who have been meeting up having parties so lots of children together at home.
We have tried to put children who live near to each other in the same bubble knowing they will walk home together but as much as we suggest only travel to school with bubble members we can't enforce it.
The other issue with mixing is staggered start/finish if you have a couple with start times 20 minutes apart how many are going to be able to walk all the way home and back again in that time, people are just going to hang around near school waiting adults and children mixing our gate open straight onto the pavement of a long narrow road- not enough rooms to stand 2 feet apart nevermind 6. Our bubbles are small enough that it is possible if parents drop and go at their allotted time but if they need to be back 20 minutes later with the next one who us going to?

Working in a school I would say the bubble system does somewhat reduce contact, but it's not perfect because it would be impossible for each bubble to in no way have any contact. For example at lunchtime hot meals are delivered to the class and dirty plates return to the kitchen so people and possibly contaminated items are traveling about the school. It's still way, way better than having over 200 children and adults in the hall very close together and moving about at random.

Of course they don't exist.

The kids have siblings, teachers have their own children going to different schools. Our local schools talks about smaller "groups" - because that's all they are.

Once the parents decide to allow their children to be in contact with 10 or 15 different other children, they have no reason to refuse meeting with friends anyway, and why would they?
Unless you know for a fact that all the other 15 families are strictly shielding, it would be silly to assume they are. Of course some of theses families would have been in public transport, in various gatherings.

If one child in the school bubble tests positive for Coronavirus then that bubble isolates at home. The other bubbles don’t have to and can stay in school.

Am sure it’s a load of old BS OP so I agree with you. Designed to keep the we’re all going to die crowd happy whilst getting the schools back. Our school very honestly said that reception children were very unlikely to observe any of this.

It’s just a way to reduce risk and break the chain of infection.
All measures however small can and do break the chain sometimes.
It’s not a case of nothing except total quarantine being worth the bother. Each small measure is worth it.

I find it an odd solution. It also means that I cannot see myself working any time soon (no pre or post childcare if bubbles cannot mix as I use a childminder and also I do secondary supply - how the hell can a supply move from school to school or class to class - in a given week theoretically I might see 5 different schools and 625+ different children).
I am obsolete.

Well for some people school will be their main exposure, both parents wfh, no grandkids, deliveries etc, so it will help them. Only children, too. Why sneer at ideas that will reduce contacts. When growth is exponential, every contact removed helps.

In fact your logic makes no sense in general.

I’m exposed to 20 contacts at school

I might as well expose myself to 10 more after school too then with play dates etc, it will make no difference

Defeatist. In a pandemic, you need to think more along the lines of:

I need to have a certain number of contacts to live a reasonable life, so that contacts in society as a whole stay as low as possible, but I need to ration them starting with the essential ones and limit anything extra.

It’s like trying to diet, eating a choc bar open day but using that to reason that you might as well just have takeaway every night now

Supply teachers are not obsolete

It just means that those of us who can need to limit our contacts even more to make up for the infections that will inevitably result from your work

Obviously, many hands make lighter work in that regard. If everyone just abandons their limits overnight contacts and risks shoot up immediately. We are truly all in this together. it’s just maths.

That’s why I don’t understand the ‘it’s not Your business if I break lockdown, stop curtain twitching ‘ brigade. It is everyone’s business - provided the contacts are significant, of course, ie more than mere brief passes outdoors etc

I could have been hired 5x over in the week preceding lockdown fascinated but, if this bubble system is to work effectively, how can supply do day-to-day, school-to-school...that's even if work does become available, given the current plans are to focus on individual year groups only then all cover will be internal.

I’m exposed to 20 contacts at school

I might as well expose myself to 10 more after school too then with play dates etc, it will make no difference

it doesn't, because they are all part of the same family.

I am just reading various posts here and there, it's clear that if kids are back at school, birthday parties are back on, parents swap kids for childcare.
As you have no idea who the kids in the class have been in contact with, you might as well.

It’s about reducing risk of transmission , not removing it completely.

It’s not the virus then, it’s their structure. There will need to be exceptions to the bubble but it is still better than no bubbles.

How are the ten kids from the same family?

That’s precisely my point though - people should not be having birthday parties and play dates etc etc. Our “rations” are already used up with school contacts, which are more important...

Agh, this is so frustrating!

It's lowering the risk.

My son's bubble has 10 kids in it, they all have siblings at home.
I'm not sure how else they could organise it.

His bubble doesn't mix with other bubbles at school at all.

As for the learning - he is certainly doing a day of school work and with just 10 in the class he's really benefitting from the lower teacher/child ratio.

I am a single parent working full time from home, it's been hideous and I'm very glad he's back at school.

I don't know of anyone in my village who has had covid-19 (I am sure there are some).

Whilst everything I said stands true about bubbles.
None of it is actually relevant to my particular school as throughout the whole pandemic their have been 7 cases and no deaths in the village.
667 cases and 240 (ish I can't remember exact figures) in the council area and no new cases for a week. Our hospital is now designated Covid free and anyone with suspected symptoms is being sent to the other hospital in the trust who currently have less than 5 Covid patients.
The risk in our area is now almost none existent I really do think it is time the government looked more closely at localised figures and passed control of lockdown easing back to Public Health England and local government.

*If their sister is in the keyworker bubble then they will also be in the keyworker bubble so I'm not sure what your point is there.

Yes, there are childen who have to be in different bubbles for their year group but given how few parents are sending children back it's not increasing the contact much. My DCs have

*240 deaths in the council area

In the good old days it was much simpler when a plague quickly swept around despatching off the first born sons in a night. No new-fangled bubble malarky.

The point of a bubble is that it reduces direct contacts. So a family with 2 siblings in school and one at home are only potentially exposing 2 smaller cohorts rather than their full class/ year group/ key stage/whole school as they would in a usual school set up of normal mixing. Sibling chains will spread through the school but if sibling A is infected and sibling B exposed (not necessarily ill) the chance's of B's bubble being infected by proxy is still relatively weak.

Proximity and length of time matters, so the more that chains of interaction are broken down to reduce exposure and increase teackability, the better we do at balancing infection control and some semblence of a life.

Thanks BogRoll for explaining so much more clearly!

My 2 dds are in separate settings each in a bubble. If one of them gets infected that's 30 children and 4 staff who need to isolate, as well as potentially 60 parents. 2 or 3 of the children in my child's bubble have siblings in other settings down the road and in other bubbles. So that's then what.... 60-90 + children.... Then their parents across 3 or 4 settings all mixing through siblings. Plus I'm a key worker so I'm in contact daily with absolutely loads of adults and children. I'm sure many other parents are also in contact with patients etc.
Round here groups of parents are meeting with children ignoring the 2m rule.
I agree op bubbles, clusters etc are pointless.
Don't have a solution though.

my children's school won't let childminders pick up because of 'cross contamination'.

That seems ridiculously dictatorial, and indeed impractical. I assume there is nothing to stop the parent coming to pick the child up and taking them straight round to the childminder's?

@JudyCoolibar

my children's school won't let childminders pick up because of 'cross contamination'.

That seems ridiculously dictatorial, and indeed impractical. I assume there is nothing to stop the parent coming to pick the child up and taking them straight round to the childminder's?

It is impractical but it is the government guidance. Children are only allowed to attend one setting. School =1 setting Childminder =1 setting. We are not taking any nursery children who usually go to the private nursery next door to school for the afternoon. They can only go to the private nursery. 1 setting.

Nothing's perfect. You, your children, your wider family, your acquaintances etc. are never going to be 100% safe. I guess bubbles, clusters, whatever are just one way to lessen transmission, not stop it in its tracks. If you want to stop it in its tracks, you'd have to do something entirely different which would be completely unworkable and probably incompatible with life anyway.

Nobody has said that bubbles provide total safety. They are to minimise the number of contacts, not eliminate contact. Even kids with no siblings in their school will be going home and mixing with family members who have gone to supermarkets, to work etc and mixed with people, and then gone back into school.