Would you send your dc back to school in September if there was no social distancing?

[wakeupitsabeautifulmorning]

I worry about how much longer dc are going to be expected to learn at home considering a lot of them aren't. However, if they're going to have to socially distance I can't really see a way forward.
YABU = No I wouldn't send them without social distancing
YANBU = Yes I would

Yep no problem with that Cookiecrisps. Those sorts of encounters are particularly low risk

I'm a teacher and a parent. I have chosen not to send them back now although our area haven't gone back yet.
I will however send them back in September to start new school years.
The way classrooms have been set up to accept rec, y1 and y6 has used maximum space and multiple classrooms. There is no way my school can accept back the other year groups this term under the current way in which we have been told to work. I only presume guidelines will change to allow September to be back to normal classroom wise but with the continued emphasis on handwashing etc. Social distancing will not work if we are expected to accept all children back and try to continue to teach them normally.
The current set up is pretty depressing to be honest and as I said before, even in large schools with space to utilise, this will not work with schools at full class capacity.

@Cookiecrisps no problem at all with that. I'm pretty sure there are a fair amount of adults who would be comfortable without distancing.

My point is social distancing is in place for a reason. At the gov briefing the other day Jenny Harries said that playgrounds won’t be opening anytime soon as there is a risk that groups will gather without social distancing therefore it is important at the stage of the pandemic.

It would be far easier not to have social distancing in schools. I think if it’s handled properly it can be done without causing undue distress to children. Our reception children are taught to twirl on the spot with arms outstretched before playing to check they’ve got social distancing and the older children pretend they’ve got an alarm that beeps when someone gets too close. No one at my school is expecting children to do it rigidly and get it right all the time but they are supported in trying to do it and the KS2 children I’ve spoken to this week understand the reasons why.

Whatever your point, you asked a question and I answered

@ivinghoeBeacon You answered the question I was just clarifying my point.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if social distancing was completely removed at this stage. The government won’t do this yet as there is still community transmission but I do think they will just say it’s not needed in schools soon to get all the children back full time.

I do think they will just say it’s not needed in schools soon to get all the children back full time.

Hope so

@sudokubook but will this decision be based on scientific data? I suppose we will have a clearer picture in the coming weeks with data from schools.

At the moment 1 in 1000 people are estimated to have the virus. Assuming a lot of them are not in the community at large anyway, and that it will drop further, it hardly seems proportionate to me to insist on social distancing when they likelihood will be that no one in an average school actually has it. If there was a 1 in 1000 chance of rain I wouldn’t take an umbrella.

@SudokuBook

At the moment 1 in 1000 people are estimated to have the virus. Assuming a lot of them are not in the community at large anyway, and that it will drop further, it hardly seems proportionate to me to insist on social distancing when they likelihood will be that no one in an average school actually has it. If there was a 1 in 1000 chance of rain I wouldn’t take an umbrella.

I work in a secondary school of almost 2000. So that's an average of 2 kids. If we're back to normal each kid will sit within 2m of 3 other students each lesson. Add form and that's 36 infected kids after one day. That's ignoring the insanely packed corridors/loos/water fountains/poorly ventilated classrooms.

Can you not see the potential for an exponential rise in numbers here?

Ha at the idea that all the current guidance for schools is based on scientific evidence!

The science about children and Covid said that children are often asymptomatic so we won’t necessarily know if they have it and they will not be isolating so could be in school. Not enough is known about transmission from children to adults or other children yet. This is the data we need in the coming weeks.

But how come no one was arsed about social distancing in schools in March before they closed when the virus was much more prevalent and kids and teachers weren’t dropping dead all over the place? No one has provided an answer to this.

Scottish schools aren’t going back until August. If it’s only 1 in 1000 now it should be much less by then.

How long do people need to treat others and be treated as if they themselves are lepers for a virus over 99.9% of people don’t have? It just seems absurd.!

You can't answer that question in June. It's liking asking in March what the situation would be in June. And for those of you who would prefer no social distancing - what about the adults in schools? Sacrificial lambs?

@IvinghoeBeacon the guidance is clearly not based on science as the current guidance to schools and year groups returning was not even modelled by SAGE. SAGE recommended rota systems in schools to have the smallest impact on R but that is explicitly not recommended in the schools guidance.

Have any other countries abandoned social distancing yet and if so what has been the impact? The transmission rates are significantly lower in a lot of other countries than the UK.

@IvinghoeBeacon

Yep no problem with that Cookiecrisps. Those sorts of encounters are particularly low risk

You decided that based on your meta-analysis of all of the available research, I presume?

My husband seems ok with being a “sacrificial lamb”

No, my father’s qweryuiop - I have a newborn so am a little busy, but he is a retired professor of medicine

Yes.

@SudokuBook no one was enforcing social distancing in supermarkets or many other work places before schools shut either then we had the lockdown. This was before testing was in place as well so we don’t know how many people could have contracted it from schools.

Coronavirus can still make people very ill without killing them. This could cause huge issues staffing schools if someone is ill weeks later. Not unheard of in otherwise previously healthy adults.

@IvinghoeBeacon

No, my father’s qweryuiop - I have a newborn so am a little busy, but he is a retired professor of medicine

I still don't believe that it is wise to accept one interpretation of the science when it disagrees with other interpretations.

I am partly with you that we can't be restricting every area of life forever, but comments from you and (to be fair, more) @PhilCornwall1 irritated me. I don't care if people feel comfortable not practising physical distancing. I care whether it is safe. I hope it is, but until we have a evidence, it would be better if we maintain some distancing where it doesn't have a huge impact on our lives (I don't count schools in this - distancing in schools will have a huge impact. Haven't got an answer, just a hope that the spread of the virus will decrease by September or we will have evidence with high likelihood that schools are low risk without distancing).

Good heavens I don’t expect you to agree with me - just explaining why I am comfortable with my child playing on playground equipment without social distancing. I don’t expect anyone to take my opinion (or my father’s opinion) as a random poster on the internet in any way seriously. And I didn’t actually say anything about the adults - just the children not social distancing which was what the original question asked. I think there are elements of social distancing that ought to be maintained in fact. But not relating to children which is what this thread is about

I think attitude towards the need for social distancing very much depends on whether you have someone vulnerable or exceptionally vulnerable.

It is something which we all can do to protect everyone - not just from death but also from weeks of debilitating disease and rehabilitation (the rehab stories are just beginning to be carried by main media - it's what happens in a serious case in someone less likely to die)

So is it 'I'm all right Jack' (abandon distancing) or 'let's watch out for everyone' (make it work well, so schools and other places can do what they should for all of society, not just the healthiest)

I suspect actually we are in agreement qweryuiop but I’m afraid I am spiky about spiky comments