Pubs V Schools

[Witchcraftandhokum]

I absolutely understand the importance of keeping schools open, but...

I live in an area which is likely to go into Tier 3 tomorrow, I personally know 7 people who have tested positive for Covid. One of which is most likely to have caught it in the care home she works in and 6 of which are most likely cases transmitted in school. I don't know anyone who thinks they may have caught it from a pub or restaurant. AIBU to think that the hospitality sector is being abandoned by the government?

I don’t know why it’s a contest. They’re 2 completely different things.
What I can’t get my head around. I’m in a tier 3 area (Liverpool) The Pubs Gyms Bingos are closing but Restaurants can stay open. I don’t understand. Does the Covid not go to Restaurants. .

Restaurants probably have the same magical protection that schools have.
Closing some things and not others is a bit like sticking a load of sandbags down at the front of your house to protect from flooding, but neglecting to protect the back door.

The kids that have it at school are taking it in from catching it outside of school looking at the local schools who have had it because none have had clusters it’s always family X have all come down and because child X has it the bubbles closes for two weeks. No others test positive. It’s always been one child per bubble who’s family or a close friend outside of school have tested positive.

Basically people not being careful outside of work/school.

The reason for lack of positives in schools is the woeful t&t system. If a child presents with symptoms the bubble only has to self-isolate IF a positive result comes back. It's nigh on impossible to get a test in this area. So potentially a week or two before the bubble know. Enough for the virus to spread among staff (having to cross bubbles due to lack of staff) and students, who often don't observe SD. How many don't present with symptoms but pass it on, making it "community transmission".

It's amazing how people have fallen for this is pubs v school distraction. All this government does is divide and sit back and watch the squabble happy that the attention is driven away from their own incompetence.

Now that pubs have opened they shouldn't have to close again - that would be devastating for them now furlough has ended. What they shouldn't have done was open them in summer to squeeze as much money from the public into the economy ignoring that that and other lockdown relaxations would inevitably lead to community spread just in time for schools to return. But that is done and the staff have come off furlough and the pubs have bought stock etc and closing them now will achieve nothing except destroying businesses.

Also not all pubs are created equal. There's a difference between a massive weatherspoons in a city with high transmission and a small village pub that is the only place elderly men get a bit of company and generally have less than ten customers who drink between 3 and 8pm.

Totally agree @Witchcraftandhokum

Was in the pub sat afternoon, distanced tables, staff wearing masks, waiter service, everyone seated calmly - not like the average classroom with 30 kids crammed in!

Not felt unsafe in any pubs, bus on the other hand was full of youngsters who had "asthma right" when the driver asked for a mask to be put on - 20 of them, thankfully all went upstairs. Police boarded a few stops on to talk to them, came downstairs and addressed the driver which I could hear and said nothing they could do as no legal reason to carry a drs note but none had inhalers! Youngsters are the catalysts for spreading, not all, mine are cautious but their father is a virologist!

I want schools to close, well at least primary schools anyway. Not because I want everyone to suffer but because atm we've got a kind of halfway education and it benefits no-one to me.

My DDs in year 2. Not allowed her coat on the playground because it means passing the Year 1 Classrooms to go to the cloakroom, similarly for Years 3-6 as they share a cloakroom. They can't use the hall because it means passing other bubbles. No trips, no external visitors, no parents evenings (not even phonecalls) I can't even get in to speak to the SENCO about DDs SN. PE outside in the rain no matter what due to no hall, queuing up on the playground at pickup time come rain or shine. My daughter complains because they're not allowed to go to the toilet whenever they want now, and she has to stay in her seat at school. She finds school so off putting.

I just think it's not really right. But if schools close so should hospitality.

@UtterlyDone that's just your DD though. All children are different, my DS is loving being back at school and it definitely benefits him being there. School closing would be disastrous for us.

@UtterlyDone

I want schools to close, well at least primary schools anyway. Not because I want everyone to suffer but because atm we've got a kind of halfway education and it benefits no-one to me.

My DDs in year 2. Not allowed her coat on the playground because it means passing the Year 1 Classrooms to go to the cloakroom, similarly for Years 3-6 as they share a cloakroom. They can't use the hall because it means passing other bubbles. No trips, no external visitors, no parents evenings (not even phonecalls) I can't even get in to speak to the SENCO about DDs SN. PE outside in the rain no matter what due to no hall, queuing up on the playground at pickup time come rain or shine. My daughter complains because they're not allowed to go to the toilet whenever they want now, and she has to stay in her seat at school. She finds school so off putting.

I just think it's not really right. But if schools close so should hospitality.

Would you homeschool?

Dc here are very happy back, and their friends are too.

@UtterlyDone That's just your child's experience. My child is in year 8, missed our on over a full term of his first year in high school already. He needs to be in school to firstly catch up on last term and to have enough experience in all his subjects beause he has to choose his options in the spring ready for next September. If schools close how on earth will he be in a position to know which subjects he wants to continuse on year 9. These kids don't have years to catch up they need to be kept in education NOW.

Personally I think the government just feels pressured to look like they're doing something. Theres really nothing we can practically do to stop it, what's the hope that we social distancing enough to make the virus extinct? It's just no feasible at this late stage, it would only have worked if the very first people carrying it were identified immediately and quarantined.
If most of us caught it then it would reduce the rate of transmission, just as if we had a vaccine and the vulnerable would be able to go out and about again.
We have loads of cases but few death, I dont see the problem, all these people with it have sore throats or no symptoms but were in contact with someone with a sore throat, it's not actually a big deal. The problem when we had high rates before was that those people were in hospital seriously ill and dying.

I get a bit annoyed by parents claiming children have years to catch up. Maybe if they are I lower primary school but not after that.
I have a daughter in Y8 and one in Y10. They don't have the luxury of years to catch up, especially my eldest. She needs to be in school now. She missed a term of Y9 which was bad enough but if she misses a term this year it could affect her results.
It's very telling that no teachers on here ever say it's okay because children have years to catch up, could that be because they know that a lot of children aren't going to magically catch up?

I think that pubs need to be shut before schools. Children have already missed quite a lot of their education. They aren't trying to eliminate the virus. They are just slowing it down so that the NHS can cope so that people don't die of Covid and other conditions because hospitals are too full to treat them. It's not great if pubs have to shut but they are less important than schools.

The government simply does not have the money to fund cleaning supplies and hand sanitiser for every school at the moment. It is up to teachers and school staff to do their bit.

Yes it absolutely does, it just chooses to prioritise other things over it, like billions to its mates in a shambles of a track and trace system, where is that world beating system.

twitter.com/singharj/status/1314179590412271617?s=09

But 30% of exposure has been linked to bars, pubs, cafés and restaurants .. so closing them should work?

I'm undecided on schools and nurseries. If they closed i would not be upset but as long as they stay open I'll send DCs there

And it’s not just about their missed education. Children’s mental health is being badly affected - my 7 year old in lockdown became withdrawn, unreasonably upset and angry over the smallest thing, he was so unhappy and missing school and social contact, it was horrible to witness. He is now so so happy to be back at school, as are all his classmates, and he has returned to his normal happy self. My 8 year old, on the other hand, was fine in lockdown but when he went back into the world he developed panic attacks and severe anxiety, having never displayed this before. He became afraid of anything and everything! We have got him help from a psychologist and school has been amazing helping him to overcome his many anxieties but he is has been changed so much by all this and I fear what another lock down would do to his mental health.

@Amber2384 my 7 year old was exactly the same as your 7 year old. He's an only child as well, to be separated from his peers for so long is horrible. He turned into a different child and refused to engage with any home learning.

Sorry but why do people talk about their children and what 'happens to them' so passively? They're not self raising and how do they just 'refuse' to do stuff at 7? People talk as if they just sat back and observed their children rather than parenting them.

@TheHoneyBadger you have no idea what it was like in my house during lockdown. Children aren't robots, they are humans with emotions. I did "parent" my child thank you, but I can't control how he feels.

"The kids that have it at school are taking it in from catching it outside of school looking at the local schools who have had it because none have had clusters it’s always family X have all come down and because child X has it the bubbles closes for two weeks. No others test positive. It’s always been one child per bubble who’s family or a close friend outside of school have tested positive."

Honestly this is what happened in my school for the first few weeks, then we started getting other cases in the school kids who were sent home up until last week it felt like things had settled down there were fewer kids isolating with cold like coughs and fewer cases and then isolating only close contacts based on seating plans and friendship groups meant most kids were in.

I feel like this has ultimately not helped though as starting at the tail end of last week we have 20% of teachers off multiple staff testing positive each day and had to send year groups home again because of 5 or 6 cases in a year group. It's looks my like we may struggle to stay open until half term.

I worry there are loads of asymptomatic cases being missed and there needs to be more proactive testing. There have been 10 cases today alone which is a rate far higher than the general community. I am in a lockdown area so community rates are around 0.4% new infections in a week.

Right now it feels like all staff in the school will be infected by Xmas if not before. most will be fine but I really worry about vulnerable colleagues

And yet managing how they feel and challenging and changing their attitudes is a massive part of our jobs as parents and, for some of us, teachers.

@TheHoneyBadger stripping DCs of face to face learning and peer interaction for a long period of months has never been tried before - even as an experiment- as it's so obviously detrimental to them.

The majority of parents tried their absolute hardest during lockdown, but particularly with an only DC it's impossible to replicate their peers. DS is an only and a young teen and it was heartbreaking to see him start out enthusiastically having online sessions with his pals trying to figure out their school work and then descending into apathy.

I tried to keep him going by insisting he woke up at a reasonable time and walked the dog every day, and tried to help him sort out his school work into manageable chunks p,but blaming DPs for their DCs natural reaction to an unnatural situation is unfair.

The government simply does not have the money to fund cleaning supplies and hand sanitiser for every school at the moment. It is up to teachers and school staff to do their bit

Teachers are earning less now, in real terms, than they were 10 years ago. Even when pay rises are awarded, these are not being passed on to actual teaching staff because schools are simply unable to afford it. We are 'doing our bit' by being in school during a pandemic with absolutely no protection whatsoever and no concern given as to the illness and death that is going to happen as a result. We are educating your children despite knowing we are playing a massive game of Russian roulette with our health and that of our family members every minute we are in school. The least you can do, as a parent, is provide your child with hand sanitizer.

My son was very reluctant to the online learning. I literally had to decide which were the priority subjects and sit with him to do the work - I had no expectation of him being able to do it independently.

We took the dog for walks together and had long conversations. He interacted with friends via playstation. I let him sleep as much as he needed to - teenagers rarely get the opportunity to get to sleep as much as they need and many of our school's kids have shot up in lockdown.

I'm not saying it was easy (we nearly came to blows over maths some days) but it was what it was and we had to make the best of it and my parenting had to adapt and grow even stronger ovaries to force a 13yo lazy boy into doing school work.

I'm not necessarily talking to one poster here - I saw tons of posts from people saying their kids refused to do the work and seemingly for the parent that was a full stop rather than how do I get them to do?

I'm a single mum to an only child by the way.

Obviously it had effects and some children will have genuinely struggled but the way parents on here sometimes talk of it as if their children's mental health, work engagement or feelings are entirely outside of their control or influence is quite worrying and as I said incredibly passive.

There does seem to be an expectation from some that the minute their child turns 4 they are more the responsibility of the school than their parents.

@Enoughnowstop well said. Teachers are doing an amazing job at the moment. My son takes his own sanitizer, It's around 80p from asda, it's a sad state of affairs when parents expect the teachers to pay for it.