Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand why people are taking children out of school for the last week?

156 replies

TellerTuesday · 15/07/2021 22:08

To be clear, I don't mean people who have travel plans for the the first week of the holiday. I totally understand why people agave decided it's not worth the risk of having to isolate and not being able to go away etc.

But I really don't understand why people are keeping DCs out of school for the last week so that they 'don't have to isolate for the first week of the holidays'

There are 6 children in DD's class who have now finished for the year despite them not breaking up until next Friday. 1 is travelling the first weekend so I do see logic with that one hut the other 5 don't have anything planned.

In that situation are people not just isolating for a week to avoid the risk of POSSIBLY having to isolate the week after?

OP posts:
Original poster
TellerTuesday · 15/07/2021 22:08

*people have

OP posts:
Simbacatisback · 15/07/2021 22:10

It isn’t they have to isolate / it is that they can’t go on holiday if child tests positive

Kitkatchunkyplease · 15/07/2021 22:12

Surely they're not isolating now though. They're just staying off school.

flumposie · 15/07/2021 22:12

Neither do I. As a teacher there's a reason I booked my holiday for the second week of my holiday. Not like I can stop going in or pull my daughter from her school. I write this as someone who had 2 pupils test positive this week but no need for me to isolate, again!

Twilow · 15/07/2021 22:12

Because they'd be stuck in the house?

Thisnamewasnttaken123 · 15/07/2021 22:13

I can understand why some people would want to do it, there are alot of children having to isolate at the moment as covid spreads through the schools.
I have most of my children at home now where they are having to isolate or their school has closed due to so many cases.

DoYouRememberTheInnMiranda · 15/07/2021 22:13

You don't have to isolate for the week this way though - you can still go to playgrounds, meet a couple of people etc, not the nightmare that is no leaving your gardenless flat for 10 days.

Howshouldibehave · 15/07/2021 22:13

@Kitkatchunkyplease

Surely they're not isolating now though. They're just staying off school.
They should be self isolating if they’ve been sent home from school and told to self isolate, yes.
maddy68 · 15/07/2021 22:14

I'm a teacher. We do fuck all in the last week. Take them away and have fun and memories

Carameljack · 15/07/2021 22:14

Yes I agree OP although I do t know anyone who is doing it that isn’t going away. Otherwise like you say they’re just swapping this week in isolation for next. We are doing it because we have plans the week after they are meant to break up.

shouldistop · 15/07/2021 22:14

They're not isolating though, they're just staying off school. They can still see other people.

Howshouldibehave · 15/07/2021 22:15

Sorry, @Kitkatchunkyplease I think I misunderstood what you said!! My fault.

RosmertasMead · 15/07/2021 22:17

Because the Parent needs to rely on specific childcare in that week and would be fucked if child had to isolate at home? Because they’ve prepaid for days out? Because they have family visiting or someone to stay in the first week?

FlyingPandas · 15/07/2021 22:17

I find this odd too OP....I've just been desperate for my kids to make it through to the end of term without isolating. For me the most important thing is for them to be at school, learning, seeing their friends, enjoying end of term activities. That's what's really important, surely? Once you get to the holidays it really doesn't matter. Taking kids out of school early and forcing them to miss all the end of year stuff seems cruel to me. Unless you're going away on a dream holiday, in which case I do understand the reluctance to risk isolation, but most people aren't going away this year anyway...

KatherineOfGaunt · 15/07/2021 22:19

We have a whole year group (primary) at home now, off for the rest of term. I suppose it's lucky it happened at this point because isolation ends the last day of term, so no keeping them off, no worries about missing out when the rest of the class are in having fun and finishing in time for any holidays to go ahead.

If I wasn't a teacher I'd keep mine off, I think.

TippledPink · 15/07/2021 22:20

It isn't something I have done, however my Dd14 has had to isolate since yesterday due to positive cases in her year. She now misses out on a trip to see her cousins, a trip that she instigated and now can't go on. It's pretty crap, so I can see why people are doing it.

StripyHorse · 15/07/2021 22:21

I don't blame them at all. Especially with rates in schools as they are.

Even if people aren't going away, isolating would mean..

  • no one else can look after them.
  • no visits from family or friends
  • no daytrips for the first week or so.

It could be that someone has limited time off and wants to avoid being stuck in their house for annual leave.

Given how little work gets done in the last week - I don't blame them at all.

toastantea · 15/07/2021 22:21

I wish I had done it. DS got the text to isolate in the last day of primary school. Over a week stuck at home. We did have plans to go away which we had to cancel but even if we hadn't i can still understand not wanting to be stuck at home.

PumpkinPie2016 · 15/07/2021 22:26

As a teacher, I can have sympathy with those doing this. Many have paid for holidays and understandably don't want to risk not being able to go.

It's going through schools at a pace. We have about 220 isolating at our secondary Shock

The only issue I have is that I am still teaching content to Y10 and Y12 who have exams next year. Those Y10s not in don't seem to be logging in to live lessons or doing the set work so they will be missing key information. I've posted home summary notes for them but they will have had no teacher input.

@maddy68 do you really not do anything in the last week? I'll be teaching right up to Wed when we finishConfused maybe it's different in primary or non exam years though.

Theunamedcat · 15/07/2021 22:27

Our bubbles broke massively last week the school had to trace it all to find out of was from the school turns out all but one was community transmission parents are now keeping children off because school isn't safe they are still frequently mixing outside the school though Confused

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 15/07/2021 22:27

I do understand it. I think the schools should have closed a week early across the board once we realised the rates would go up so much. Better than isolating for the kids and it would keep the spread down.

Isolating young children is just awful. If you haven’t got a lot of space and not much or no garden then it’s quite cruel really.

Unsoliciteddeckpic · 15/07/2021 22:30

I understand it. Ds has just finished 10 days isolation. And cases are rising in his school, every day.

I really don't fancy having to keep him in another 10 days in the holidays. If he is sent home again at the end of next week, we will have to keep him in. We aren't going away. But the first week of the holidays is the only week off work I have in the summer holidays.

I don't want it to be spent sat in the house. I want to actually be able to do things. Or worse, he actually gets it and I spend all the week with him ill. He had covid last year and was quite sick.

ittakes2 · 15/07/2021 22:34

If my son wasn't already isolating for coming into contact with a positive case I would consider taking him out. Because so many of his friends have tested positive Covid is rife at the moment in his school and I don't see any point in exposing him deliberately to it.

Youdiditanyway · 15/07/2021 22:34

They don’t learn anything at all during the final week. They play games, do a lot of drawing/painting, watch films, bake etc so all the things they could easily do at home.

I completely understand the logic, they don’t want to spend the first 10 days of the school holidays isolating at home. Who would? I’m turning the notifications off on the class dojo app once they break up so I won’t know if they are told to. I’m not staying at home for 10 days.

HelenHywater · 15/07/2021 22:38

I don't know anyone who's doing this - but I'm currently in my second 10 day isolation period in a month as the second of my 4 children at home has now got covid. My kids are meant to go back the day before term ends. I'm not sure I can face yet another isolation tbh and they certainly can't. So that's why I'd take my children out of school.

Swipe left for the next trending thread