Primary school seems obsessed with covid

[Lightswitch123]

My children's primary seem obsessed with covid.

We had a few cases in school before half term (??20 positive tests in the whole of the school?)

Now we are back, because 2 parents emailed the head over half term to say their child had a also had a positive result, the school have cancelled all in person events, after school clubs, parents not allowed in playground, reintroduced bubbles, staggering drop offs, minimising lunch and play times, kids not allowed to use class pens or pencils, no water provided etc

We get at least 1 parentmail a day "updating" us on the situation.

This is in spite of no one actually being unwell- just positive lateral flow / pcr results off the back of being named contacts. And we've all been off for ages for half term as well.

It all seems so bloody punative and OTT.

I'm beginning to think I'd rather the kids went elsewhere or just stayed at home away from this crazy.

Aibu?

YABU - School response sounds reasonable

YANBU - School is OTT

Also any advice as to how to tackle this with the school? It's doing my head in.

It is crazy because not all schools are like this. So op's children are subject to a lesser experience than my children for example where the school is doing everything it can (within the rules as they stand) to get back to normal. I'm in an area where cases are high and lots of children have been rightly off too.

@charliesbookmarker

Dont do the free clubs then its simple as that.

So deprive other children of an experience they enjoy? No thanks! I willingly give up my time because the children, who are there by choice, enjoy it. I am less inclined to be so enthusiastic about having to find additional "jobs" or activities (totally unrelated to the club activity) to occupy a child who is there for babysitting purposes and who is not mildly interested in the club. Attitudes such as your's are, sadly, why so much goodwill is being lost in the teaching profession.

@charliesbookmarker couldn't have said it better myself. Don't agree to do things you will be angry at people for relying on.

101 kids in the UK have died so far (may be up to 103 now)
10,000 have been hospitalised
53,000 are suffering from long Covid, and that number is rising by the day. ~14% of kids infected will suffer from long Covid. For some they may be tired for a month or 2, for others they may never walk the length of themselves again. Is that what you want? Because that is what is happening.

Also the claim that 75% of kids have had it - so what? Having had it does not mean you cannot catch it a 2nd or 3rd time. Kids are having repeated infections and the damage is cumulative.

Just because you're bored with Covid now (news flash - we all are) does not mean it has gone away and we can forget about it. It does mean taking sensible precautions to continue to reduce spread so that we can love with it rather than allow it to run uncontrolled.
As for complaining that we were promised the vaccine would fix everything and it would be all over - nobody lied to you, vaccination has done a huge job in reducing severity of infection and death rate in the vaccinated population - which kids are not. It's simply not that simple to fix or it would have been done by now. Theres a reason that the people who understand this stuff are responsible for making decisions and not you OP and the like for whom the pandemic has exceeded their attention span.
Bitching that you can't do stuff then not doing the things necessary to enable that to happen obviously doesn't help. Those that complain the most about restrictions seem to be those doing the most to ensure that we continue to need these restrictions.

As for comparisons with the flu - have the facts surrounding that one still not sink in over the last 18 months? Really?
For a start we vaccinate kids from age 2 (and younger if they are medically vulnerable). This is not only to protect them but also to stop them spreading it to parents and vulnerable grandparents. As yet we cannot vaccinate kids under 12 but hopefully the ongoing trials will show favourable safety and efficacy in this age group so that we can.

~14% of kids infected will suffer from long Covid.

Source for this? I thought recent studies put it much lower.

Also, many studies show that immunity after infection lasts 9+ months in the majority and ONS data show low rates of reinfection and even lower rates of more severe reinfection so where is the evidence that children will get it a second and third time and that damage is cumulative?

[quote Nevermindthesquirrels]@charliesbookmarker couldn't have said it better myself. Don't agree to do things you will be angry at people for relying on.[/quote]
So when setting up what you prefer to call an activity club such as netball, you think it is reasonable for a parent to take up a place (that could have gone to another child desperate to attend but on a waiting list) simply because they want free child care regardless of the fact that their child hates netball? I do get the difficulties that so many parents face with regards to childcare and the financial burden this inflicts on families, but to effectively abuse the goodwill of teachers trying to do their best to improve things for children during what has been a horrible couple of academic years, seems very unfair. This mindset of, " My needs are greater and more important than anyone else's, " is rather sad as is the lack of understanding about why teaching staff are frustrated when they appear to be taken for granted. I agreed to run activity clubs and I am not angry about children attending who want to, nor am I angry about the parents relying on it (although I do think that they need to have back up in place). I did not agree to run a babysitting service so, yes, I do feel put out if parents dump their children on me to look after while I am also trying to run an activity club. Fortunately, the vast majority of parents are absolutely lovely and would never dream of doing this but sadly, there will always be the entitled few who see it as their right.

I agree with you Stela. I think it’s unfair for parents to send their children to after school clubs when they don’t actually want to be there but the parents just want the free childcare.

@Stela40 of course not. This is entirely the parents fault and a different problem to what I was addressing. They are subjecting their child to unnecessary stress and annoyance. It's rude and unreasonable to the teacher organising. This situation isn't what I had in my though and it would annoy me also. I mean that if a school is running a club, the parent is unlikely to know whether the teacher is being paid and the fact is, they will be relying on their child being there for the duration and for them, it'll most likely be childcare.
Even if a parent is paying though, it's unreasonable to force a child to attend just because it suits you. You look for an alternative. But annoying parents are a different breed to the general opinion on here that school isn't childcare. Club or not, a parent is relying on it as has likely tried their best to work around it's timings.

@bumbleymummy
@Nevermindthesquirrels
Thank you. My faith in decent human nature has been restored.