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!

[quote PurpleOkapi]@SamVimesFavouriteDragon

We shouldn't have accepted the jobs? We did that years ago. What would you say if we all quit now because the risk is too high?
Surely it would be worse if teachers quit in their masses (as you seem to be suggesting) than classes close for two weeks once they are riddled with COVID, as Jenster suggested

Your hire date isn't the issue. You can quit whenever you want, and you've chosen not to, presumably because you want to continue getting paid. You aren't "all" going to quit, because with vaccines being readily available, the risk is negligible to 98% of you. But even if you did ... we're talking about primary students. You accomplish nothing by trying to teach them remotely, so yeah, you might as well all just quit if that's what's going to happen. At least the taxes that are paying for you to not do your job could be repurposed to do something that might be useful and beneficial to the children you're supposed to be teaching.[/quote]
Jeez you really hate teachers don’t you. I rarely see it quite so blatantly on here. Shut up complaining because it can’t be that bad because you’re still doing the job? What a shit argument.

Btw I’m not a teacher.

To the person who said we don't send classes home for meningitis. Clearly you have never experienced a public health response to a case of meningitis. Contact tracing and prophylaxis. Just because its not experienced regularly because it's not spreading at pandemic levels does not mean such measures don't exist as they do for a variety of other notifiable diseases

A recent study of Covid deaths in England alone, just up to the end of February 2021, cited by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), found that “six (24%) of the 25 [children and young people under 18] who died of SARS-CoV-2 appeared to have no underlying health conditions.”

In total, that makes 7,050 admissions of children under 18 with Covid or PIMS-TS, 3,181 of which involved children without underlying health conditions.

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

@Badunkadunk

No the class shouldn’t be closed; the kids have lost an eye-watering amount of education and have suffered enough. Expecting kids to continue to shield adults when most are vaccinated is unconscionable. It’s good that it’s rife amongst the kids; they are at next to no risk and this will help to build community immunity. With vaccination rates as high as they are amongst the over 50s I’m not sure what else people are looking for. Do they want to go on like this forever? Are we going to start testing and isolating for the flu as well?

Wonder how much risk your kids are at in a school without the correct staffing ratios because the staff are off with covid? Seems to be hitting people in our area harder at the moment as well with some staff needing longer than just the initial 10 days off work due to how unwell they are

There is a new variant in the UK. This is because our vaccination rates are not high enough and our cases are very high.
You don't reach herd immunity by lots of people catching it. You just create variants that may end up evading the vaccines.
We could have learned from Israel, we didn't of course.

Today a child was hurt because a 1:1 was off with Covid. As a result of dealing with the incident, the whole class had no teaching for much of the afternoon, as senior staff are also off, so it had to be handled by the class teacher.

Ask your child ‘were you taught normal lessons by all of your usual teachers today, and were all the usual adults in the room?’

My guess is that many children will answer ‘no’, and this will have been the case for a while and be getting worse.

@cantkeepawayforever

Ask your child ‘were you taught normal lessons by all of your usual teachers today, and were all the usual adults in the room?’

My guess is that many children will answer ‘no’, and this will have been the case for a while and be getting worse.

Absolutely this. It's happening in my school.

DS's school now has 25% off with CV and has brought back masks at all times

[quote Sherrystrull]@cantkeepawayforever

I agree with you and think it's what people forget. Poorly staff means substandard education. The government have provided no extra money to help schools cover increased absences. Classes are being joined up, 1:1 support removed and life insurance schools continues to be challenging and disrupted. Many people don't want to hear it though.[/quote]
Those of us with kids in school know. I think those arguing against don't have kids in state schools, because those who do know it's a total shitshow and the disruption to education is huge.

In some ways it's worse than lockdown learning which was at least predictable.

[quote julieca]A recent study of Covid deaths in England alone, just up to the end of February 2021, cited by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), found that “six (24%) of the 25 [children and young people under 18] who died of SARS-CoV-2 appeared to have no underlying health conditions.”

In total, that makes 7,050 admissions of children under 18 with Covid or PIMS-TS, 3,181 of which involved children without underlying health conditions.

fullfact.org/health/mail-understates-covid-children-risk/[/quote]
Yes and this was up to February 2021, when there were still measures in school to prevent transmission of covid including bubbles, contact tracing and isolation, plus of course lockdown (kids must be wondering why they bothered now they're being allowed to all get it). All of which now abandoned.

We of course won't know for a while what the comparable figures are since the total abandonment of children to covid, but we know it'll be far, far worse.

Many scientists and doctors have been pointing out that child admission to hospital for covid is going up. It's not ok.

@Badunkadunk why would that help? Testing means cases get spotted and people can isolate
If we hadn't picked up my ds on LFT as he had no real symptoms , he would of gone to college , played contact sports for 2 different teams, gone to work ( customer facing) and gone to my parents in the 10 days he was potentially infectious for
Thats a lot of people he could of passed it on to without that test picking up

@YerMaWantsYa its supposed to be if your a contact a pcr is recommended
My son has covid now we contacted college straight away and I went direct to his friends mums to tell them and they have taken their children for pcr ( thankfully all negative so far) I am not sure if college told anyone I think they did advise his class there had been a case and if you read guidelines it advises a pcr but how many have had one who knows ?
My friend had similar her son had done a sport and she advised team they needed a pcr as per track and trace but many just said we do LFT etc so we don't need to .
I have heard of several instances like that where people think the LFT is enough
Lft test did pick up my sons followed by pcr but when he took LFT 2 days later, it was negative yet he still had covid
People seem to be not going for PCR sometimes when they should around here
I have heard some schools advise of a case and others not bothering

[quote worriedatthemoment]@YerMaWantsYa its supposed to be if your a contact a pcr is recommended
My son has covid now we contacted college straight away and I went direct to his friends mums to tell them and they have taken their children for pcr ( thankfully all negative so far) I am not sure if college told anyone I think they did advise his class there had been a case and if you read guidelines it advises a pcr but how many have had one who knows ?
My friend had similar her son had done a sport and she advised team they needed a pcr as per track and trace but many just said we do LFT etc so we don't need to .
I have heard of several instances like that where people think the LFT is enough
Lft test did pick up my sons followed by pcr but when he took LFT 2 days later, it was negative yet he still had covid
People seem to be not going for PCR sometimes when they should around here
I have heard some schools advise of a case and others not bothering [/quote]
Yes .. I guess it depends on every schools definition of close contact but in DD class, a negative PCR result had to be emailed to the school before they were permitted back.

Those saying that their kids would be off constantly are missing the point that this short term isolation plus testing helps a lot towards preventing the spread within the classroom and therefore it shouldn't [and in our school hasn't] resulted in repeated absences.

Truly shocking comments from the 'get on with it' commenters on here. Yes we want to move towards more normality but putting blinkers on and repeating lies about it being just a cold really doesn't magic the truth away...

I didn't actually know a close contact needed a PCR test.

@julieca

I didn't actually know a close contact needed a PCR test.

Our school told us that it's no longer necessary for close contacts to be tested unless symptomatic.

@cantkeepawayforever

Ask your child ‘were you taught normal lessons by all of your usual teachers today, and were all the usual adults in the room?’

My guess is that many children will answer ‘no’, and this will have been the case for a while and be getting worse.

Absolutely.

I have been off this week, not Covid but a virus that has made me feel awful. Monday my first period wasn’t covered at all. The pupils sat alone! This week admin staff have been covering lessons as so many staff are off. Yesterday classes were combined. Next year GCSE and A-levels for my subject will go ahead as normal (bar dropping of one text).

PorthbeanCove I read an article about 30,000 workers from a particular supermarket here forced to isolate at various times due to 'exposures' at work, and not a single one of those 30,000 tested positive during their 14 day quarantine. So yes, it is a bit annoying when shelves are bare because of insane quarantine rules (Australia).

@Parker231 off because they are actually ill or because they’ve simply tested positive? People catch viruses from each other all the time we just don’t test for them relentlessly and ask people with no or mild symptoms to isolate. I can only think of 2 teachers being off with covid in the last month in our school. Why are positive tests results so high in this country? Because we test so much; we’re testing more than 4 times the rate of Germany for example. Positive test results =/= cases, the vulnerable have been vaccinated (and those who cannot be should shield). Can’t go on like this, shutting down society, the economy, education (online learning is no substitute and does not address the mental health impacts on children); the NHS and government can’t continue to assume ‘suspending our lives’ is an available mitigant in the tool box to make up for their failures (what the heck have they been doing for the last 18 months to address capacity?). The only way out of this is if people stop mass testing. I’ve never been tested and neither have my kids; if any of us have ever had covid we’ll never know. We’re all vaccinated; this is as good as it gets unless people want to live in this nightmarish loop this forever?

I’m a teacher in a secondary school and cases have been high since about the 2nd week of term. So many staff have been off intermittently (it is so random who has/hasn’t got it) so that has had a massive impact on cover. I am nakared from sorting out cover/supply issues in my department as we’ve had 2-3 teachers out a week. We’ve been managing but other schools in the area have had to send year groups home to do remote learning for a few days-week because they just don’t have the staff.

We’re not all lazy bastards who hate our job - it is just very difficult to control who gets it and who is going to be off and how we deal with such a shortage of staff. It’s very difficult at the moment and advice to just look for a different career is unhelpful and, frankly, insulting. I love my job and I’m excellent at it. Just because it’s incredibly stressful right now, it doesn’t mean I should be told to find a different career. Help us out, do LF tests and keep your kids off if they’re unwell. A bit of understanding and support would be really appreciated.

@Badunkadunk - they are off work ill with Covid with one TA now in hospital.

I would not want DS's class sent home under those circumstances, no. He had Covid in August so is unlikely to catch it again so soon, I'm a single parent and need to go out to work to pay my bills (can't WFH) so I'd have to struggle to find childcare.

@Hoppyhops

Totally agree! I had to show a year 10 kid how to do a LFT before and it was the first one they have ever done… we are in a school where PH has advised daily testing for all.!!!

@Hoppyhops

Sorry this was yesterday! So by now he should have done about 100!!

I’ve never been tested and neither have my kids

On behalf of the teachers who continue to put themselves at risk daily, thanks for your support.