To think I should have been told!

[mummabear1967]

... and the other parents too.

Basically, DD came home from school today and informed that two pupils in her class were sent home today due to having coughs.

Does that not mean the whole class should be isolating now, in other words DD and my household should be isolating?

I’m frigging furious that the school have failed to inform us!

Nope no one has had a positive test and this move is preemptive (very likely to be non COVID related).

Once a positive get comes in just your DD isolates

The guidance is very clear. Households isolate for symptoms; school bubbles only isolate following positive tests.

All the ‘fury’ at schools for doing exactly what they should. Though it’s also good to see people respond as they have on here, good sense and judgment. A very welcome counter balance of people you never actual get to ‘hear’ in school

@WokesFromHome are you seriously questioning the fact that kids get colds without fevers?! Do you have children? Do you know how the cold virus works?

FWIW - one of my DDs had a cold for about a week - streaming nose,constant sneezing, slight sore throat and then an intermittent cough. (NOT a dry cough, and not persistent before anyone starts saying she should have been self isolating and tested.)

She was tired and needed a few early nights, but she was perfectly fine to be in school. We checked her temp every morning and evening to be on the safe side, and it was never above 37.1

This is completely and utterly normal.

Just to add - I work in a school and as PPs have said; if we sent home whole bubbles because a child coughed, the entire school of 1400 pupils would have been off from the first week of term. We have pupils off in almost every single form class at the minute (yesterday we only had 7 full classes out of 52 in the school) - plenty of people self isolating until they get tests too, so folk definitely aren’t being lax - but not one of them has come back positive yet despite the numbers of absent pupils. It will happen - we know it will - and when it does - THEN we will send home close contacts/bubbles.

@WokesFromHome

I can't believe the amount of DC going into school sick. There are a few in my DC's class with terrible colds who have passed it onto others including my own, who I kept off as soon as he started coming down with it. Are you telling me that primary school DC can spend a week in school blocked up and coughing without a temperature above 37.8 degrees? I don't think so. These parents are irresponsible and my school have also done nothing about it.

When I asked the teacher, I got the impression they were more concerned about infringing an 8 year olds rights rather than stopping a whole class getting a nasty cold. Now the teacher is off sick. I do hope he has been able to get a test.

You don't get a fever with a cold 🙄 There's no need to keep a child off for a cold unless they're really not feeling well

And OP there's no need to be furious. The school are following procedure and you don't need to be told unless there's a positive test result. Calm down

Jesus.

@WokesFromHome

I can't believe the amount of DC going into school sick. There are a few in my DC's class with terrible colds who have passed it onto others including my own, who I kept off as soon as he started coming down with it. Are you telling me that primary school DC can spend a week in school blocked up and coughing without a temperature above 37.8 degrees? I don't think so. These parents are irresponsible and my school have also done nothing about it.

When I asked the teacher, I got the impression they were more concerned about infringing an 8 year olds rights rather than stopping a whole class getting a nasty cold. Now the teacher is off sick. I do hope he has been able to get a test.

God if every parent kept their child home for a cold every year no one would ever be able to hold down a job. Plus it is normal for kids to catch things, colds, bugs, all normal things to get sick with every autumn/winter. Plus they are getting it worse this year because they have all been locked up indoors and not mixing. Kids have to build an immune system just like the rest of us.

All parents complain about colds every year, it's part of the package of having kids in childcare or school. Just this year it's under a microscope because apparently you can no longer get sick of anything but bloody Covid.

YABU; you will be told if/when child tests positive.

It does get confusing keeping up with the guidance and laws so it is understandable you feel this way. Last time I checked only something like 5% of tests (or maybe less) were coming back positive so there are a lot of people with symptoms who don't have Covid which I imagine is why they do things this way around.

I’m sure your DCs school will have sent you an email with plans and procedures. They have to be proportionate- if they sent whole bubbles home every time someone sniffed it would be chaos. YABVU

Most of my dd’s year group have colds, mainly sore throats and runny noses, sore are coughing, many are still at school because it’s a cold and not covid. People can’t stay at home just because they have a bit of a cold or half the school would be at home.

If kids have been sent home then there’s no need for a bubble to be sent home until one of them gets a positive test.

"All the ‘fury’ at schools for doing exactly what they should. Though it’s also good to see people respond as they have on here, good sense and judgment."

I think it's because there's been so much contradiction and confusion. Not much point exploding at the Government, so the school gets the brunt of the frustration.

I've been asked why isolating children can't simply get a test and return to school with a negative result, as they would if they had symptoms. I don't actually know why that is, but I'm guessing that the virus wouldn't reliably show up on a test while incubating?

The child with the cough should stay at home (with their family) until they’ve either isolated for 14 days or had a negative test result. If the result is positive then the class would be sent home to isolate. It is really hard work for schools to tell everyone involved over every single cough. The best they can do is to warn parents, but until there is a positive result there is not a lot that can be done and it would just panic all the parents.

It's very simple if you read the guidelines. DD11 sent home Friday with temp and cough. No further action from school with other pupils. Our household had to isolate including DS13 who couldn't go to school. Got test Saturday, negative result back yesterday so all back at school today and we can get back on with life with minimal disruption all round.

At this rate, we may as well shut all the schools and have them all do online learning.
It's a cough. If it was a covid cough I'm sure they would tell you.

You know what, as the mother of a child with complex lung issues in mainstream school, I really do hope this riotous indignation on all coughs and colds continues because for years I've had to fight the LEA about his attendance issues down to children coming in coughing and sneezing all over the place

@mummabear1967

Your school should have their Covid behaviour policy and strategy on their website?

Have you read it?

Most schools also sent out advice at the start of term with a sort of flow chart telling you what to do in the event of potential symptoms.

Have you read that?

No school has reopened without thinking things through. They know full well that coughs and colds will be rife. They have risk assessments in place and are under scrutiny from HSE who can visit schools and check for compliance.

Schools are taking this very seriously indeed.

Every cough isn't COVID, and in a big school you can't contact every parent each time a child coughs....we have lots of coughing in our school but most are very obviously linked to a child's cold and not a 'COVID cough'.

Nope. If they were sent home for a cough they most likely won't notify the school unless they get positive tests.

I read somewhere that bubbles do not get sent home until a positive test because we all know that normal coughs and colds are spreading too!!

Kids cough. Doesn't mean they have covid. If the school shut every time a child coughed they may as well shut down for the winter now!

Notify the parents I mean

YABU and completely ridiculous.

We might as well shut the schools back down again completely if a whole class has to go home because one of them coughed. The overreacting from some schools (well done to yours for not) is why we have no tests left.

There are four scenarios in which you need to self isolate:

• you have symptoms or have tested positive
• somebody in your house hold has symptoms or has been tested positive
• somebody in your social support bubble has symptoms or has tested positive
• you have been told to self isolate by track and trace.

Schools should have safe procedures in place meaning that track and trace should not issue instructions to self isolate because of attending the same school as somebody that coughed.

They’ll only have to isolate if the test is positive. There’s no point in disrupting everything just in case - if the bubble system is working they won’t be spreading it further. The kids would all be self-isolating in a perpetual loop if it was done for every sneeze or tickle.

There are five kids in DS's secondary school class with a cough at the moment. Including DS. Four of them (including DS) was off for the first half of last week with sore throat, which cleared after a day, no fever (DS was a constant 36.5 all the way through the weekend and three days he had off. No dry cough. Totally 'bunged up' which went by the middle of the week. He's now got the chesty cough you get with catarrh and it's literally a 'smoking 60 a day' clearing of the throat, then nothing for minutes.

I kept him off for the first three days as he felt unwell and I wouldn't want to go to work if I felt poorly. By the third day off of school (fifth day of the cold) he was running about the house as usual, the sore throat had gone four days before, no fever, bunged up feeling was fading. So he went back to school. He didn't have a test because he didn't have Covid symptoms. Neither did his classmates and the school didn't ask for one.

The Covid cough is a hacking, dry and continuous cough. So DS's school haven't sent anyone home. One of the teachers started with it over a week ago. She rang the actual testing centre as 111 told her no need for a test. The testing centre said as she'd managed to speak to them for almost 10 minutes without coughing once, she didn't have a Covid cough so back to work. Which she did.

As others have said the rule is COVID cough (not a cold one), 37.8 or above temperature or a change in taste or smell - stay home, get a test if you can and everyone around you carries on as usual. If you're negative, you're back at school or work with no issues for anyone else. If you're positive, those in close proximity in school or all those living with you, isolate for 14 days to see if they get symptoms. If they don't they don't need a test. If they do, they get a test and everyone follows isolation rules if they're positive.

Otherwise we'll all be in and out of work or school all through the winter!

DD1 just went back to school after isolating and the girl on the queue behind us had a terrible cough! And then she went into DD's class

Schools said they "monitored" her all day I'm pregnant and isolating as much as possible and a flu going through the house would really affect our family business. Looks like rules apply to some and not others......

Oops, I wrote that last bit incorrectly.

If you get Covid symptoms, all those living with you or in your support bubble isolate with you until you get a test result. If it's positive or you can't get a test everyone isolates for 14 days.

But with schools the student stays home for 14 days or until they are tested. If it's positive some of their classmates or their bubble - depending on how the school moves their students around - will isolate and wait to see if they develop symptoms. No-one else at school needs to isolate until there's a positive test result (or they develop symptoms themselves of course).