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

We have the same thing here with DM. She doesn't really understand what she's being told, what this battery of tests are for and we can't get to talk to anyone. It's as if she's being kept in prison. She just wants to go home. We are pretty eloquent, feisty folk who are used to being able to navigate tricky situations but this is baffling us all. Can hospitals keep elderly people in against their will? In theory no, in practice, unless they have relations to speak for them, the answer looks like Yes.

It feels like we have the worst of all worlds here...a half hearted, too late lockdown that didn't eradicate the virus yet has caused an economic crash. The second we've all gone back out again the virus was still right there, waiting.

This.

Sorry - that was supposed to be in response to an earlier poster about their DF in hospital being isolated.

millymollymoomoo
I’m suggesting we follow Sweden

All of the Swedish model or just the bits that have shown by the media in their propaganda?

So sorry. This is all an hysterical over reaction

I’m on pins. My dds are in primary and at pick up yesterday a mum was coming out early with her child and mentioned she’d been called to take her dd home as she had a temp and was just making us ‘aware’

We’re in an area with high cases and already restricted lock down.

The fact that hospital admissions and deaths are at the lowest it’s ever been makes this beyond frustrating for me

"I’m suggesting we follow Sweden"

So rely almost entirely on guidelines and then rely on people to sticking to them?

Would never work here!

@AlexaShutUp

If the alternative to keeping potentially contagious kids at home is for those in vulnerable groups to isolate, that would be a least worst scenario for me

Many vulnerable people are also key people in the workplace across the country, including holding essential, key worker positions. I am classed as vulnerable on two accounts but I am a specialist subject teacher and my school will struggle to replace me (when they found me, I was the last in a very long line of supply teachers that hadn't cut it - I am paid slightly more to keep me than I would have been had I started there and progressed up the scale). Moreover, I can't just isolate myself or my family because I have children who need to be in school, like so many others. And as a single parent, no one is going to pay my bills if I don't work. What you are suggesting is untenable - both from a professional point of view where my experience and skills are essential to getting young people through a rough exam year and from the point of view of managing the situation financially for us as a family.

I am only 50 years old. I can't just be put out to pasture. It is utterly ridiculous that someone with my skills and experience should be written off in this way. It is also ridiculous that my children should suddenly have a massive drop in the standard of their living because I can't work. I guess it suits you to ignore the very real fact that as a society, we have a duty to protect each other, reign ourselves in, try our upmost to protect the vulnerable with social distancing, masks, and hand washing.

No one seems to have an answer , everyone has different opinions , but of course none of this is the fault of a pandemic .

A fast accurate in the spot check is needed . And until the vaccine arrives I can’t see that anyone else on here has cone up with a sensible answer to the problem .

It is rubbish. But not sure what the alternative is as we need schools to get back to opening but need to lock down infection rates.
I suppose the problem with senior schools is that the bubbles need to be so big (as a lot per year group).
It is rubbish yes. Really sad That it’s only three days in and shame he will miss his presentation.

I’m waiting for when mine are sent home which I’m sure will happen at some point in the next few months!

I've said elsewhere that over four thousand primary school children are missing from school in my area of high deprivation. No official indication that they are being home schooled. No-one official knows where they are. That is a major social crisis in its own right.

Well actually there is another way, it is just in this country we are resistant to even the most basic infection control measures that are being taken as routine in other countries in the world, even as others have pointed out, Sweden. Masks, not allowing pupils in school if their temperature is above 37, social distancing, hand washing routines built into the school day. Effective online learning for older pupils who are fine to be home alone. I just passed a local school, the school gates were packed with gossiping parents completely ignoring the social distancing markings. Not a mask in sight. Children coming down the road and high street make no effort to give anyone else social distance, no awareness of even the basics, and then congregating outside in parks in the evenings for underage drinking (what parents think that is fine and safe in non pandemic times - I am sure the specialist paramedic blood wagons that have to attend these gatherings locally to sort out the after effects could tell you differently.)

Teacher friends are feeling very vulnerable because their school community is not being educated in even these basic norms of infection control. I have friends in other countries who regard them as absolute no brainers. But then they also have testing within an hour, effective contact tracing, and compulsory quarantine that is supervised. And only a handful of daily cases that could seed an outbreak. Our government may not be up to that but even those basics would reduce transmission and the possibility of outbreaks..... Having sat out a previous pandemic they stopped any bugs taking hold in the school community, none of the usual colds and flu.

We have to find a way to allow kids and young adults to go about Their business as normal

And what about the rest (majority) of the population ?

I don't understand why the government didn't ask secondary schools to do a mix of online and in school learning. Primary schools could have been made to have smaller bubbles of one class only.

My DD school has put so many provisions in place but, at the end of the day, the kids are in bubbles of nearly 200. In the morning and after school the pavements are packed with children and they are not able to socially distance. Then they're on the bus with children from several different schools.

It never stood a chance of working.

[quote smogsville]@AlexaShutUp it would be njce if we could discuss this without using aggressive language (screw over for example). I know people who are 70+ or who have health concerns, I have no desire to spoil their lives.

With fewer staff it might be necessary to have fewer options as has been suggested but this would still be preferable to wholesale disruption of the rhythm and routine of school, IMO. It would indeed require the sort of thinking and planning that is probably beyond the abilities of our govt and I'm certainly not pretending to have all the answers right here right now. But on a balance of factors I don't believe sending large groups of children home from school for two weeks at a time in order to protect people against a virus that is far from lethal for most of us in itself - but has widespread effects for education, mental health, employment, the economy etc is the right move. As you say we may just take opposite views on this and therefore agree to differ. [/quote]
Hear hear.

I’m suggesting we follow Sweden

Even Sweden doesn’t think we should follow Sweden (the Swedish PM having courageously and candidly stayed that the Swedish covid strategy was a mistake)

If the alternative to keeping potentially contagious kids at home is for those in vulnerable groups to isolate, that would be a least worst scenario for me

Er, you do know that the ‘vulnerable’n(as opposed to the previously shielding ‘extremely vulnerable’) comprise 7m people plus? Including key workers?

Or do only young lives matter?

Only young lives mattering? FFS...the young haven't mattered at any point in all this. They've continuously been treated as acceptable collateral damage in the battle against a virus which poses precisely zero risk to 99.99% of them. We've screwed them over at every turn for the past six months, before we even factor in the billions of pounds of debt we're going to dump on them. And globally its much worse - I read recently that the UN anticipates millions of children worldwide will go hungry, will never return to school, will be forced into child marriage, will miss out on necessary vaccinations...and on and on

Also I think if seven million people were vulnerable in any meaningful sense the death toll in the UK would...to put it bluntly....be much higher & much less heavily concentrated in the over-70s demography (seem to recall that care homes alone accounted for 42% of UK deaths, a paytern replicated across the western world)

I would have been more than happy with part time school. Smaller classes may have given us a chance of getting through this. Masks in secondary schools too.
I don't recall being asked.

I work in a school and whilst I appreciate how dissapointing it is for students to be sent home I'm sick of entitled and selfish parents who moan about kids being sent home. We have worked non-stop over lockdown and the summer holidays to ensure that we re-opened in the safest way we possibly can. If we have a confirmed case we would have to send the entire year group home and a number of staff. We have staff who have vulnerable children and family members at home who know they are putting themselves and their families at risk but coming in to work to and give our students the best education they can.

Both my parents are in their 70's, my grandmother is 100 and my uncle has cancer. I saw them only once in the last few weeks and while I'm working in a school environment will not be seeing them at all. It's a sacrifice I'm prepared to make because I feel that it is important for kids to be in school and all I'm hearing is parents whinge about us following the guidelines issued from PHE.

I read recently that the UN anticipates millions of children worldwide will go hungry, will never return to school, will be forced into child marriage, will miss out on necessary vaccinations...and on and on

Millions of children worldwide were going hungry, weren't in school, were forced into child marriage and were missing out on necessary vaccinations way before covid. Did you care so much about them then? What are you doing to support them? What changes are you going to make to your lifestyle that may, in turn, have an effect on theirs?

Also I think if seven million people were vulnerable in any meaningful sense the death toll in the UK would...to put it bluntly....be much higher.

And it will be if we forget that only 10% of the country have been infected so far. Care home deaths are high as hospitals discharged infected patients into care homes seeding lots of infection there. Other vulnerable people have been shielded so have not had the same exposure. I am not convinced you can say not many vulnerable people have died yet so they must be vulnerable after all...

Lockdown was not designed to, nor never would, eradicate the virus. Can’t believe anyone seriously thought that. It was merely designed to slow the spread and deaths
Of course as soon as we open up ( which we need to) infection rates will rise