To feel in despair for the kids

[JudesBiggestFan]

My son was one of 400 children sent home from two bubbles in his high school today to isolate for 14 days. He's in Year 7 and it was his fourth day in his new school.
He'd been catching the bus, made a new friend, had settled in so much better than I hoped after the past few chaotic disrupted months. And now he's home again.
Not only that, he is now going to miss his cricket presentation and first two football matches of the season, not be able to see friends and family, all for the pleasure of three days of schooling.
And I can see this happening over and over and over again. Luckily childcare isnt an issue as I work from home, but I'm just so sad for kids missing out. Six months off and it seems we're back where we started with no end in sight

@motherrunner agree. My school has said if children have to isolate work will be sent home. This is fine if it’s a whole class out due to a positive case - I can set up a lesson on teams and send worksheets or whatever. But if it’s random cases and the rest of the class are in school being taught, I have no chance of sending anything meaningful home. I think the head envisages turning on a webcam and just broadcasting the lesson over Teams. I can’t see that working.

YABU if you were one of the people who responded to me with something like

^"Shall we just keep the schools shut FOREVER then?!"
^
when I said this would happen and we needed a better plan.

Smaller classes, smaller bubbles, blended learning, part time school, a better tech set up for isolating children who are not ill...a plan that takes account of the realities we live with rather than denying them or paying lip service.

The alternatives are not and never were

Close the schools
Vs
Do nothing and the let virus get whoever it can.

The government need to come up with a workable long term plan. It's as true now as it was every time I and plenty of others have said it since March.

The sooner we all sing from that hymn sheet, the sooner they'll have to do it, and the better for our children.

The whole bubbles concept ignores multiple realities

• kids with siblings in other schools
• public transport
• parents working in large offices
• kids playing out together after 3pm

When the year cohort in a place like Peter Symonds is 2,000
reality meets idealism

I’m aware of the demographics
However oVer half of deaths have been in over 80s. Caught in hospital or care hone settings not through general population
Treatments are better, death rates in those categories through better treatments and non ventilation means survival rates even in high risk categories are improving
care homes and hospitals are the 2 areas to focus attention on
Not closing all of society who for the vast majority is a mild illness

@ListeningQuietly

The whole bubbles concept ignores multiple realities

• kids with siblings in other schools
• public transport
• parents working in large offices
• kids playing out together after 3pm

When the year cohort in a place like Peter Symonds is 2,000
reality meets idealism

Reality Meets Ideology.

It's awful I agree. Not much you can do about it other than to ensure you wear your face coverings where required, and remember in 2024 how badly this was handled.

Herecomesthesun I'm just glad I'm in Scotland then as sounds like English schools are going to be constantly distributed and kids at home

@motherrunner but my daughter isn't isolating - she's at school. I think her school could work out how to differentiate while in class

@Laiste it's so sad. I'm so upset for them

It is really shit.

I’m glad they’re back to start the term and I guess we’ll have to deal with closers as they come, and just get the kids in as much as possible.

I’d be gutted if my yr7 dd had her school closed this early on. I’m sure it will happen at some point, but we’ll just have to face it when it comes.

I'm in the Midlands, three schools near me already have huge numbers of kids off because of positive cases. I give it a month tops before my dc school is one too. I have no idea what other solution would work long term though.

Agree with the pp who said schools need to look at smaller bubbles in secondary schools

Schools did look at it. But the only way to do it for year 9 and up is part time in school, part time at home. For example, in my current year 12 class of 16 pupil there are 10 different timetables due to their option combinations, so the only bubble option is the whole year group unless you split them in half (ie half the year group in each week, alternating). Government said no to that plan. Many, many teachers on here (and elsewhere) pointed out that “all kids in full time” would make it far more likely that year groups or whole schools would be sent home at short notice and lead to an altogether hugely disrupted term.

@Oaktree55 I think we're all very frustrated for one reason or another so I can understand that, of course I can and you're entitled to feel furious. I can appreciate the frustration about not being childcare (although quality childcare is of course vital) and about being treated as such by some parents (my mother is a retired senior teacher, so was my MIL, I have nothing but respect for the profession) but we can't ignore the fact that schools, with wraparound provision are what enable parents - and often mothers - to go out to work, provide for their families, pay the taxes that fund our public services (albeit insufficiently) set an example to their kids that we work for a living etc. What we all really need to do is have proper respect for each other's roles in keeping this society show on the road in some shape or form.

My son has just started a new school and is in year 10 and his school is only allowing year 10 in to school for 2 days a week and 3 days the following week and year 11 3 days in week 1 and 2 days in week. Both year groups will get 2 hours of online learning in the mornings they are not at school and be set work to go on with (easy work) after lunch. They are in a Form Group bubble (not set). We have been told if anyone in his form group has a high temp or test positive the whole form group will have to self isolate for 14 days and siblings and parents too.

I am so worried about him missing more time in GCSE years. During lockdown he had no online learning at all, was set very little work, and not one piece was marked, which is why we moved him.

If kids miss much more school I honestly think they will all need to repeat the whole year if they have any hope of doing well in exams.

Your son has done well to make a new friend. My son came home on first day and said he had made a friend. My son is cricket mad and also has a presentation evening in October and I know how upset he would be if he could not go to that. Hopefully if your son wins a trophy someone will drop it around for him.

[quote absolutelyknackeredcow]@motherrunner but my daughter isn't isolating - she's at school. I think her school could work out how to differentiate while in class[/quote]
@absolutelyknackeredcow I was replying to a poster who said her child hadn’t been provided home learning whilst isolating.

You should raise individual concerns with your child’s school. I’m not sure why there’s no differentiation. My children are receiving differentiates work. I do know on a personal level I can’t offer the personalised learning I could normally as I have to always maintain a 2m distance from my pupils and stay in the box at the front of the room. I can’t help pupils on an individual level and that saddens me.

I am sorry that this has happened for him. It is tough. But sadly it is the rule.

One reason for it is to stop too many staff getting infected - have half the staff in quarantine and the whole school would have to close down.

It's a bugger, but it is what it is.

Eek 400 kids!

Do you know how many positive cases were involved?. I didn’t think one could trigger a whole bubble going off, I thought with one case they established close contacts and would only send wider groups home if there was evidence of community spreading in the school. That seems to be how it is in Scotland

If kids are sent home they will roam the streets
or sit at home getting even further behind
its all insane

"bubbles" are all hot air, not reality

Get them to meet in the pub .i know some young people who were about to do a uni online quiz in their own flats , then realised they could just meet , with their lap tops....in their local !

Agree with the pp who said schools need to look at smaller bubbles in secondary schools
For sixth form they only take 3-4 subjects. Each pupil's bubble could be those 3-4 classes (about 20 max each) and their tutor group (30) and they are only allowed to mix at break time with those pupils. That cuts a bubble in half immediately. Of course, the pupils would have to be trusted to stick to that and assemblies on-line or information passed on during tutor time/registration.
Of course the whole bubble principle is deeply flawed, with out-of-school sport, siblings, parents' workplaces etc. An acceptance that a slightly lower bar is needed for effective education might be required, even though that is less than perfect. And along with that an acceptance that socialising and mixing outside of school needs to be restricted for sake of education.

We did say this would happen.

I don't know how anyone could read the government plan and not know this would happen.

Since there doesn't seem to be any plan to bubble buses and kids from all years will have been all shouting their heads off in a steamed up bus with the infected kids this will just continue, won't it.

Parents did not get a say in whether school was full or part time
At all
The government decided no part time school way back in June or whatever when purportedly YR and Y6 could go back.
To me p/t clearly seemed like the only viable option, certainly for senior school.

I knew it would be a nightmare. But to have the reality hit is just deflating. The bubbles are just so massive at my son's high school that simple odds tell you this will happen over and over through the winter months at least. Fortunately they seem very on it with the online learning, but being at home with his parents 24/7 is now what an 11 year old wants or needs. I'm not really angry or even anything other than just depressed and worried about the future now.

@Hereinthesticks

Agree with the pp who said schools need to look at smaller bubbles in secondary schools For sixth form they only take 3-4 subjects. Each pupil's bubble could be those 3-4 classes (about 20 max each) and their tutor group (30) and they are only allowed to mix at break time with those pupils. That cuts a bubble in half immediately. Of course, the pupils would have to be trusted to stick to that and assemblies on-line or information passed on during tutor time/registration. Of course the whole bubble principle is deeply flawed, with out-of-school sport, siblings, parents' workplaces etc. An acceptance that a slightly lower bar is needed for effective education might be required, even though that is less than perfect. And along with that an acceptance that socialising and mixing outside of school needs to be restricted for sake of education.

That assumes that all the pupils pick the same sets of subject. DH’s school looked at this and realised that the entire sixth form overlaps (someone doing maths, art and Latin and someone else doing maths, geography and chemistry and so on ad infinitum).

I'm bloody livid that I have to keep my kids off while you lot who supported the governments plan reap what you sow and learn the hard way.

There's a whole world of examples to learn from. We didn't need to fail at it ourselves to know the government plan was a useless nonsense. (Are we arrogant or just slow on the uptake?!)

The trouble is, all the good examples rely on there being an effective test and trace system and a low level of virus generally.

And that is not government policy in England.