Primary dc ARE currently allowed to be in bubbles of 15

[sunshineanddaffodils]

It’s all over the news now, all other primaries in my area are doing it, my local primary is not a rickety old building with narrow corridors and one toilet.
However there’s no room for year 6 as classrooms are full of bubbles of 8 reception and year 1s. I keep hearing on the news about current bubbles of 15 in schools and worrying our school are going to decide they can have 15 if bubbles are increased to 30 in September

I guess your school are social distancing even bubbles then?
That makes it safer, but means fewer kids can be accommodated.

The advice is somewhat contradictory. Yes, maximum 15. But it’s a bit vague about whether social distancing within a bubble has to happen. In order to get 2m between all kids, you can’t get 15 in a room (unless classrooms are the size of most school halls). So some schools have spaced desks out to give 2m between - this is when you end up with Only 8 in a bubble.

From memory there were 43 updates between the announcement schools will return and actually returning - no wonder schools have all interpreted it slightly differently.

In my school, our R & 1 bubbles are 10 because our classrooms are small. Kids are not 2m apart (more like 1) but they need to be 2m from US (teachers) which means at least a third of my classroom is taped off for me to stand in. Maybe that?
Ks2 classrooms much bigger and have up to 15.

our school is doing bubbles of 6 but not even using other class rooms. my y1 dd is in once a week! 🤯

Class bubbles of up to 7 in our school though only 5 in my sons class have decided to return. It’s only up to 15 if the class room is big enough but most aren’t. The smaller the bubbles the safer.

As I understand it, you don't have to socially distance within bubbles. It's like a household.

Bubbles of 15 no real social distancing in your bubbles you don't share pens pencils etc but you don't mix with anyone outside your bubble either

Bubbles of 8 in my school and yes we all still have to socially distance within this. However we have not opened up to Nursery or Reception. (All classrooms are being used) except the nursery room.

Our school started with separate Reception and Year 1 bubbles of 9 or 10 children with the expectation that more parents would want to send their children in when they could see how things were going. This has proved to be the case and pretty much all the bubbles are at the limit of 15. With the key worker and vulnerable children who have been in school throughout, there is no room to bring year 6 children in yet.

The other school in our village is only putting 8 in a bubble as the Head says there has to be 2 m between desks.

At DD school the bubble sizes are 8 apart from the 12 in the school hall. If distancing measures are reduced to 1 metre then we can fit in 11 safely. No where near the 30 normally but the rooms are awkward shapes.

@Itstheprinciple that’s my understanding to. The whole reason for bubbles is because children don’t socially distance.

If you keep children 2 m apart then you don’t need to bubble them (like workplaces).

I should add if “if you could keep them 2 m apart”, but the guidance recognises children won’t do this - hence bubbles.

Our school did such a fine job at frightening all the parents and explaining how awful school would be that, with KS1 bubbles of 6 and KS2 bubbles of 10 all full time - they've been able to open F2, Y1, Y6 and also Y5 - with the (real) possibility of Y2-4 in the coming weeks.

That's all down to the horrible tone of letters home

the governors should be ashamed at not holding the Head to account on the tone used

But all the better for me, with an F2 and Y5 child, both full time from next week. It's been absolutely fine for the children, despite all the scaremongering.

But agree on the bubble sizes. Schools have been told not to socially distance the children, but they are by small bubbles. They need to start increasing the bubbles ready for Sept.

The guidance is no more than 15 in a group. Not that you should take 15.

You do need to socially distance within the bubbles. There is an understanding sometimes young children forget but you follow the 2 meter rule where ever possible. The 2m also applies to the staff room.

School is led by the risk assessment. We planned on groups of 10 but some have not returned and hence it is more like 8.

We have no idea what will happen yet in September.

DS is in a bubble of 6 and only in 2 days. However 6 other children from his class are in on 2 other days. At first I thought they were just being extra cautious to protect staff BUT same teacher/TA for both bubbles - makes zero sense since the adults are the ones being protected by lower numbers (children will be fine regardless), but the adults concerned aren't even benefitting as they are effectively in a bubble with 12 children anyway! Madness. My only conclusion is that HT is either doing it to look good to parents (mistakenly) or just isn't very bright.

I could understand if the classrooms were small, but it's a new building with much more space than older schools.

Schools have been told not to socially distance the children, but they are by small bubbles.

No they weren’t. Social distancing should be happening within bubbles where possible, recognising that very young children might forget.

@cabbageking where does the guidance say 2m in primary school bubbles? Genuinely interested, because only one primary school round here is insisting 2 m in bubble. All others schools are saying here they are keeping desks as far as possible. Lots of outdoor play.

I can understand 2 m in staff room that’s standard for any workplace.

But if you can keep kids 2 m apart then why do you need to bubble them?

[quote GreenCoxing]@cabbageking where does the guidance say 2m in primary school bubbles? Genuinely interested, because only one primary school round here is insisting 2 m in bubble. All others schools are saying here they are keeping desks as far as possible. Lots of outdoor play.

I can understand 2 m in staff room that’s standard for any workplace.

But if you can keep kids 2 m apart then why do you need to bubble them?[/quote]
You still need to bubble them because 2m reduces risk, it doesn’t remove it. Plus you need to know who they might have been in contact with in case they develop Covid - which could have been caught elsewhere - so you know who should isolate.

From the guidance

"Where settings can keep children and young people in those small groups 2 metres away from each other, they should do so. While in general groups should be kept apart, brief, transitory contact, such as passing in a corridor, is low risk."

And

"For primary schools, classes should normally be split in half, with no more than 15 pupils per small group and one teacher (and, if needed, a teaching assistant). If there are any shortages of teachers, then teaching assistants can be allocated to lead a group, working under the direction of a teacher. Vulnerable children and children of critical workers in other year groups should also be split into small groups of no more than 15. Desks should be spaced as far apart as possible."

@cardibach I understand reducing contact, but in primary schools why would you not know which children they had been with if they’d been sitting in a room with (presumably their class mates) 2 m apart?

If the guidance in primary school is that children must be 2 m from next child - why have “bubbles of up to 15”? (Which would require rooms of 500 m2). The number is irrelevant it would totally be dictated by room size.

I’m also not sure if the guidance is so clear why most schools round here are bubbling children (no more then 15) and keeping desks as far apart as able. Only one school is saying 2m in bubbles and so only allowing 8 children in a classroom (this is causing problems for next year as they are only allowing 1/3 reception children to start).

@TorysSuckRevokeArticle50 thanks for that. So majority of primary schools round here are following the final sentence - “as far apart as possible”.

This is from the gov

We know that, unlike older children and adults, early years and primary age children cannot be expected to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we are taking this into account. Schools should therefore work through the hierarchy of controls to reduce the risk of transmission - crucially minimising contact and mixing by keeping children and staff in small consistent groups and keeping groups away from each other.

In my children's school they are not told to stay 2 meters apart.
But are reminded to try and not touch each other.
They have adapted pretty well, they were chasing each other in a circle before going into class last week and they kept there distance these are 4/5 year olds.

School leadership and teachers have to follow the guidance to the best of their ability, they also care deeply for the children they are responsible for.

Imagine they opted for 15 kids in each class with no social distancing to enable them to bring back more children than they would be able to by following the guidance to the letter. They then have an outbreak, how do they justify to the parents of the children or themselves, that they didn't follow the guidance and potentially could have prevented the outbreak if they had followed the guidance.

It's about risk assessment, they need to assign a risk score to each risk. If the score is to high, they think of mitigation they can put in, then restore to see if the risk is now at an acceptable level.

The other thing the schools are very aware of is that the concept of bubbles is flawed by family relationships.

If you have children 1, 2 & 3 in Reception

Child 1 has a brother in Yr 1
Child 2 has a sister in yr 6
Child 3 has no siblings

Child 1 starts coughing, now her brothers bubble is compromised. In her brothers bubble is a child with a sister in a different yr 1 bubble and so on and so on.