To think school parents won’t get themselves or their kids tested

[Sistery]

...and will probably send in kids who should be isolating?

I did a Covid test last week (negative). It wasn’t terrible but was a faff and uncomfortable.

I just think that if so many people won’t even wear a bit of fabric over their face to protect others then they definitely won’t miss work or stick a swab in their nose/throat. Especially bearing in mind that they’ll have to do it every single time anyone in their family has a cough or temperature or can’t smell anything (all winter... ) They just won’t. People send sick kids to school a lot anyway - it’s how sick bugs and viruses fly round so easily so they’re already inclined to do this, and given the government is pushing hard at the narrative that Covid is some magical virus that children conveniently don’t spread, parents will be even more likely to send them. Especially if it’s someone else in the household that’s got symptoms

We just don’t seem to live in a country with a strong sense of social responsibility but equally we don’t enforce any so no temperature checks or mandatory PPE or anything at school.

YABU = People will isolate for 10 days if they get any Covid symptoms and their household will isolate for 14, until a throat and nasal swab shows a negative result, and they’ll repeat this every time anyone in the household gets any symptoms all winter.
YANBU: No they won’t.

Public health England will notify the school of a positive result.

Yes everyone who has a child never wears a mask and of course no parent would ever get a CV test.

Woman and men become selfish fuckwits once they reproduce.

Of course you should generalise about a massive demographic in one fail swoop.

Btw this selfish fuckwit is being sarcastic.

I most definately will might finally get some time off work.

I really feel for teachers they're going to be the ones taking all the flack when children have to go home/aren't allowed in when school resumes as well as having 30 odd children most of whom haven't been to school for 6 months and everyone getting used to the new normal.

Yes everyone who has a child never wears a mask and of course no parent would ever get a CV test.

The problem with a contagious disease is that it’s a problem if only the minority behave like this.

@NoMoreReluctantCustodians Yes of course it spreads in schools. Why wouldn’t it?

The obvious cough/temp exclusions are fine but we know most kids don’t get those.

And yes the other issue is about when to test coughs if you often have a cough for other reasons. My sister has a condition that causes a cough very often. When can she assume it’s the usual cough and when does she need to test?

After commenting earlier in the thread, I saw that Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham have actually launched a campaign on this today called 'time out to help out'. Asking for full sick pay so that people can afford to isolate when necessary. If anyone would like to sign it, this is the link www.timeouttohelpout.com/

@ilikeitwhenshegoesbabababababa

I will be asking parents to show me evidence of negative tests before they come back, and have been doing all through since March.

Yes, that's what my son's HT did and why I was so confused about the insistence that schools cannot ask.

It’s not insistence, it’s what the guidance says you shouldn’t do from September.

What people have been doing before isn’t relevant as the guidance wasn’t out then.

Parents cannot be compelled to share medical information.

They can however opt to do so (providing evidence of negative test) if they wish.

Schools can say '10 days off unless you have had negative test, and can provide evidence'

It's one of those things that is technically voluntary but, unless you can stay home 10 days every time, you'll nit really have a choice about

@Boom45 you get the result within 48 hours, usually 24, and I almost always have a cough (also asthma) so you really just have to judge if it's worse or new after a break.

@BKCRMP nothing but as the child probably got it from the parent...

@Appuskidu

From the schools guidance:-

Posters, it is clear that schools cannot ask for results of a negative test. Why do posters keep suggesting this?

@853ax

No doubt once teacher are looking for homework there will be some students who start coughing and are then sent home for 2 weeks

I had one kid do that when there was a test the next lesson. No temperature (I checked more than once) and they forgot to cough when they couldn't see me. Unfortunately for them, they had also been seen informing their friends at breaktime that they were going home.

They were escorted back to the lesson by the Head twenty minutes later to take the test over lunchtime - with a detention for taking the piss as an extra prize.

Yes, obviously people who can't afford to be on SSP and/or potentially lose their job will have a strong incentive not to take tests, or not take them properly. We can all feel however we want about that, but it's a fact. If there are costs to isolation, either these are paid by someone along the line or the isolation doesn't happen. It's one or the other.

I'd probably just keep mine off tbh, the test is so unpleasant. Wouldn't be a problem for my household workwise.

I can’t keep mine off every time someone in our house has a symptom. With 3 different schools (and usually my office) in the mix, it’s pretty much a weekly thing.

@Sistery

I can’t keep mine off every time someone in our house has a symptom. With 3 different schools (and usually my office) in the mix, it’s pretty much a weekly thing.

Blimey no, nor could I. In our case it's just one school and only occasionally workplace-ing.

@Sistery

I can’t keep mine off every time someone in our house has a symptom. With 3 different schools (and usually my office) in the mix, it’s pretty much a weekly thing.

What symptoms do you mean? And do you send them in when they have them usually?

I would have naively said that people aren't that stupid / conniving / short sighted, OP - but let's face it, this pandemic has brought out the best and very, very worst in people.

'Muzzling' instead of 'mask wearing', FFS. I also read a study yesterday that said that 47% of Brits wouldn't take a vaccine if it became available. Apparently they can't understand that it's our only way out of this clusterfuck. 🤯

@Sistery

I can’t keep mine off every time someone in our house has a symptom. With 3 different schools (and usually my office) in the mix, it’s pretty much a weekly thing.

Will you be apologising to the member of staff who then gets ill from having to look after your child all day? Or your child for them having to sit in a room by themselves all day because you 'can't come' (we don't tell them that their parents are refusing to come and get them, because they feel like they don't care in those circumstances)?

The instructions are pretty clear that a child with symptoms has to be isolated (preferably a closed door office on their own unless they are vulnerable/distressed/too young, sole access to a toilet that nobody else can use) until collected.

What symptoms do you mean? And do you send them in when they have them usually?

You’re meant to keep them home @MarshaBradyo if they have a temperature, cough, shortness of breath or loss of taste/smell - either for 10 days or until a negative test. Everyone else in the household needs to stay home for 14 days or until they have a negative test.

I wouldn’t usually send them in with a temperature (but obviously would if say it was me that had the temperature!) but the other things can all be symptoms of the common cold which yes I would send them in with (otherwise they’d never be in school!)

@MitziK My post was responding to the person above me saying they’d just keep their kids off as the test is unpleasant. I was explaining that I couldn’t just keep my kids off whenever one of us started a cold or they’d never be in. I personally would get them tested but I doubt that’s what a lot of people will do, as in many families it’ll be an issue a couple of times a month especially in winter.

As for the closed-door office isolation, that only works on the kids that are visibly ill. We know kids don’t often get that sick with this, that lots of the symptoms aren’t visible things anyway and that there is NO way to see if a child has an ill sibling or parent.

I worked in a primary school office, and during the winter, we regularly had dozens of bottles of calpol for pupils "getting over" bugs who still had fevers and 3-5 children a DAY who had vomiting and diarrhea within 48 hrs but whose parents needed to be at work. In March, we had a child come in with a new cough and fever, and we isolated him and called mum. She said it was due to him swimming that morning and refused to pick him up. He sat in our isolation room all day, poor thing.

[quote Sistery]@MitziK My post was responding to the person above me saying they’d just keep their kids off as the test is unpleasant. I was explaining that I couldn’t just keep my kids off whenever one of us started a cold or they’d never be in. I personally would get them tested but I doubt that’s what a lot of people will do, as in many families it’ll be an issue a couple of times a month especially in winter.[/quote]
I see.

It's given me an idea, however, for the planning meeting this week.

Senior member of staff on the gate - turns around anybody who is coughing before they've entered the premises. Saves making the phone call and having to get the parents back within ten minutes or keeping them isolated until they do return.

Senior member of staff on the gate - turns around anybody who is coughing before they've entered the premises. Saves making the phone call and having to get the parents back within ten minutes or keeping them isolated until they do return

Good idea

Overall I think there’s a tendency to say we won’t comply, but at each stage people have been better than thought to be on here.