To think this class should be closed?

[Jenster03]

I'm a part time primary teacher and in the space of two weeks, 14 children have tested positive out of 30 in my class.
We've had 2 or 3 return in that time, but more and more are testing positive. Now my teaching assistant has it.
AIBU to think we should be sending the class home and remote learning? How would you feel if you were a parent of a child in my class?
Oh, and I'm pretty anxious about my level of exposure too!

We've had the same issue. we had email saying there were a couple of confirmed cases (cpr tests, the lateral flows weren't even counted) and then my child went in 2 days later and only 18 out of 30 in, when we found out it was rife we pulled child out Wednesday, hoping to avoid 10 isolation and catching it ourselves (s/e in client homes), told it was unauthorised and child probably had already! 🤨 retuned Monday 13 children in. Child / we Seem to have avoided 🤞I wanted remote learning for a week.

I'm a teacher in Spain. We wear masks inside, ventilate the classrooms and practice good standards of hygiene. I can't remember the last time I had a student with Covid. DD has never been in a class where they had to isolate, in fact no classes on either her primary school or her high school have had to. I don't know why U.K. schools are so resistant to doing this. People wanted their freedom day, to not have to wear masks in enclosed spaces etc, and the numbers have predictably gone up, while they are dropping considerably in other European countries.

Good god mumsnet is brutal & toxic. Jumping on OP for being a teacher with concern, suggesting she should think of another occupation. Suggesting that teachers want lockdowns again. It’s a post asking for validation of a concern about rising infection rates. Of course that concern is valid! It doesn’t mean she should get a different job or is pro lockdown. The last thing teachers would want is to be back to March 2020 teaching pupils online as well as those in class as keyworker children! No one wants that. Small adjustments can be made now we know so much more 18 months on. Whole school assemblies have been halted once again. My sons school reintroduced masks indoors, moved from twice weekly to daily testing. The head asked for contacts of positive cases to remain home. Today plan B for winter is being discussed - not full lockdown but a return to masks and perhaps WFH again. A natural firebreak of half term is upon us. THAT is living with it. Completely ignoring it because we’re bored of it won’t work. Small, collective measures can reduce higher numbers which are starting to impact on (smaller than previous yet still seeing increase) hospitalisation & death figures. Booster vaccines need to be pushed as immunity has waned from those that had doses from Dec / jan time. We also need to encourage those that haven’t yet had any jabs to consider doing so. Whatever your opinion there’s no need to be so brutal and jump on OP for raising a concern. We all have our own fishbowl view on covid.

I don't know why U.K. schools are so resistant to doing this.

Let's be clear - I know no SCHOOLS that are resistant.

Unfortunately our GOVERNMENT is resistant, and due to the way that they react to schools trying to act in a way that takes greater account of the H&S of their students (e.g. threatening to take schools who wished to move early to online learning before Christmas to court), it is not easy for individual heads to put additional mitigations in place. This is particularly the case for masks and ventilation - there is no money for improving ventilation or additional heating to counteract the cold of classrooms with windows open (many schools in England already have to run at or close to deficit due to inadequate funding), and the the government's public messaging means that people are refusing to wear masks.

@YerMaWantsYa

In some circumstances they'll identify only the close contacts rather than the whole class to take the PCR.

The whole class are usually close contacts though given they all sit on the carpet together, then sit at tables with different people, then sit at lunch with different people. It is the whole class in most cases.

You're not being unreasonable to think they should close - I feel the same - but it is out of the schools hands. We had a similar situation and advised families we were moving to remote learning (it was over a weekend) and when we finally got in touch with the local council on the Monday, they told us we were wrong and to bring them all back. Ridiculous to me.

@Sisad

Hi all first can you tell me what the vote means aibu etc . Now the covid thing , class shoul be shut immedately & fumigated, shock to you but well known that the Yanks developed covid with the Chinese as a limited spread W.M.D for use I suppose against Russia in case of war, well it escaped either from China or via American tourist or whatever , so the costs of the devastation should be borne by both . PUTIN knows what happened now he's "hounding " America , killer nation .

Here's the first thing you asked for: www.mumsnet.com/i/acronyms

No idea what the rest of your post was on about.

Schools have to take advice from public health England and local authority, who will advise when to close. Its not the schools decision.

@CherryBlossomWinter

Of course you should send the class home. Your instincts are totally right. They all need to self isolate for up to two weeks and do remote learning in that time.

Public Health are absolutely crazy not to advise you to do this. Read about the Irish school that have gone onto remote learning for two weeks, as they also have not had adequate advice.

I’m a medical professional. Vaccinations are a big part of the control of the pandemic, but they won’t work on their own. Children do get ill, do transmit to others (leading to breakthrough serious cases), do get long covid, do sometimes get seriously ill.

It is not a good strategy by any means to just ‘herd immunity’ children in schools. Reducing cases is extremely important still

• by mitigations within school (mostly ventilation, HEPA filters, masks) greatly reduce transmission.
• by sending close contacts of a positive case home (= the whole class) for testing for at least a week.

The best strategy is as soon as a child tests positive, for the whole class to switch to online learning for 5 days, and then daily antigen tests for another week. That is the very least to be done, and is quite an effective way of reducing transmission.

And what do you suggest I do with my 9 yr old DS who can't learn at home and his school who won't provide live lessons. He refuses to learn off worksheets. Thrives in school.

Every time he's a close contact he should come sit on his Nintendo for 5 days??

As someone has said, this is the reality now. We have to live like this. I'm really sorry I can't wave a magic wand and make all risk disappear. Sadly the vulnerable have always been vulnerable and will continue this way with it without covid. We can't start sending whole classes home again. Like is risky and hard for many.

hamptonedge
Our head made the decision today and went over what PHE had said - we didn't have the staff to stay open so we couldn't keep the kids safe.

The people saying we just have to "live" with the virus are the first to kick off when their bins don't get emptied because the refuse collectors are in isolation, or the supermarket shelves aren't fully stocked, or the police can't attend a report because they're working from home with Covid. It's not just about who DIES and plenty still are, but it's also a massive disruption to services.

@lughnasadh

There's no point in sending them home. When you consider siblings, childminders, after school clubs etc. they'll all be mixing with the rest of tbe school /community outside of teaching hours anyway.

They're better off getting it over with.

Pretty much everyone who can be/wants to be vaccinated has been.

Are you out of your mind?! People are dying from that bloody virus, even kids and what about if the teacher/OP has underlying health issues you selfish idiot?!!!!!! I can’t deal with people like you only a couple of weeks ago a quarter million kids were newly infected; if even one of them dies it’s one too many.

@ImUninsultable

There us no point.

Covid is not going away. This is life now. We just need to accept that we are now living in a world with a virus that is mostly fine with a vaccine but sometimes people will get very ill or die. It's not nice, but its how we lived for a couple thousand years before modern medicine. And it's just how we need to live now.

It isnt going away. People die every year from the flu and we dont shut down. With a vaccine now, it isnt like it was back at the start.

If you dont want to live with the risk then maybe consider a career change.

Your a dick

if your Co2 monitor is always red then surely that tells you to open some windows/the door to change the air in the room?

How do you know that 'viral load is high' - are you personally measuring the viral load of everyone who gets Covid or are you picking this information from the (scaremongering) media?

Do you get this concerned every winter when there's flu/norovirus around?

If there was 18 cases of norovirus in one class the class would be closed and has been closed for less than that in our school before. I would want the class closed

@KayKayWat

Whilst we do need to get on with it, most people in offices wouldn't be happy to have to work in close proximity to dozens of people with covid.

It wouldn't bother me in he slightest. Stats say my chances of dying from covid are pretty low. Given I have a grown up attitude to risk taking abs am able to cross the road by myself, I'll take that chance.

@julieca

I have to isolate now for 10 days. I am losing money for work as a result. I cant see my elderly parents, they will just have to manage as covid would kill them. Not that any people on this thread would care.

We are in the same boat. Luckily haven’t had it but self employed so the folk banging on about restarting the economy are basically forcing me to put money before my health and be unable to visit my elderly family member who lives in care due to dementia. They really need physical visits, a zoom call can’t cut it. It’s a toll on our mental health being separated from them, not just a toll on theirs. We sacrificed 14 months of visits to keep everyone safe and now what…no one gives a shit and why? Cos now they’re bored with covid

7,050 admissions of children under 18 with Covid or PIMS-TS, 3,181 of which involved children without underlying health conditions.
“six (24%) of the 25 [children and young people under 18] who died of SARS-CoV-2 appeared to have no underlying health conditions.”

fullfact.org/health/mail-understates-covid-children-risk/

@Angie1403 sorry to hear you are having the same issues as us.

@YerMaWantsYa

So what's the policy in England / Wales? Does nothing happen at all if a classmate tests positive? That, along with the lack of masks, seems utter madness.

Here in NI, the whole class automatically goes off and has to get a PCR. Once you get a negative result, your're allowed back to school. It's 1 or 2 days off not 10 so the inconvenience is minimised but takes steps to ensure safety of others...

If we did that at my dcs school they would have been off pretty much this entire term. Every day another child was testing positive, so a PCR every day it would have been each time waiting for the results. Some of which weren't coming back for 4 days!

I think it's at the point now where the individual can manage their own risk that they are willing to take. I personally don't my dcs to loose any more time off school so I don't agree with classes being closed. I have been careful in other ways, not sending dcs to school when waiting for a PCR etc. Others may want their child to be sent home if there are cases in the class- that's up to them. They should be allowed at their own choice.

I do think teachers should be more protected though as they don't have a choice like this.

Are the parents not asked to do lateral flows on their children?

@wellstopdoingitthen

I work in a primary school. Lots of children are being diagnosed. Some have tested positive with no symptoms but their parents have it (so whole household tested). We also have some children who have developed long covid & are now diagnosed with new conditions that are life changing. I am concerned because I have an immune suppressed husband. We are not allowed to wear masks & its impossible to practice social distancing in school.

My neighbour (36 no underlying health conditions) is now dying in intensive care. She'd had her first jab but caught covid before her 2nd.

The people who say 'we have to live with it' forget/don't care that many people don't live.

We don't forget that but unfortunately people die every day and we don't put things of hold for it. We don't stop using our cars because people die on the roads, we don't all stop drinking , smoking and doing drugs because people die. We don't send classes home for meningitis or flu every year. We isolate the person and identify contacts and have vaccinations. I don't get why COVID needs to be treated any different to other viruses like flu. 000 die of it every year and no one has said we should shut down schools because of it.

@Rekorderlig88

Are the parents not asked to do lateral flows on their children?

Yes, lateral flows are fine to do.

@MrsArchchancellorRidcully, is there a reason why your child "refuses to learn from worksheets?" I'm puzzled as to why you think Covid should be allowed to run riot through schools because you can't get your child to do any work at home.
And it's not that schools "refuse" to provide live lessons; many don't have the infrastructure to facilitate it. Every single piece of work I provided for my class during lockdown was at my own personal expense.