When will our children get HEPA filters in their classrooms? I am so tired of my children constantly being ill and missing school!

[Annemcc32]

I can't believe we are still waiting for HEPA filters in classrooms, they were talking about this in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and STILL they have done nothing! What exactly are they waiting for at this point? There's tons of evidence that they work to remove viruses from the air.
My kids have had Covid 4 times so far and were both very ill. How can they defend doing nothing to prevent staff and children? They have a duty of care to provide a safe environment.
The MOST annoying thing is that clean air IS provided in the Houses of Parliament, many private schools and even the DfE!!
Other countries have already done this now and it reduces transmission of airborne viruses to offer a layer of protection and reduce illness/absence.
I noticed that one council has committed to it just recently (Herefordshire I think). Why is this not being sorted out ASAP before the kids go back in September?
Why are we so bad at protecting our kids?
Not to mention that IF bird flu takes off (no pun intended) this would help. Where did public health go? The UKHSA seem to have taken a sabbatical for the last four years.

Because I’ve been a teacher a long time and I’m not seeing any more sickness than normal, and frankly we need basic supplies of books and paper far more

Completely agree OP
Nothing is more important than our kids health!
There's also a big knock on effect to working parents, who often cannot afford to take time off to look after sick kids or because they are sick themselves with whatever the kids have brought home from school.
And we should be looking out for the teachers too - as you say, they're one of the highest professions impacted by long covid - and they wonder why there's a recruitment crisis?
Also it would save schools money in the long run as they wouldn't need to buy in supply staff as often if teachers were sick less too.
Lib Dems assessed the cost of HEPAS for classrooms as £140million in 2021 which seems like a drop in the ocean when you look at what's been spent on other things.
This daycare study in Finland showed impact on children's health and interestingly also assessed how the reduced sickness impacted parents missing work less too.
It just makes sense from so many angles.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950362024000043

You lost me at ‘join the online covid groups’

I know what they do @Annemcc32 i work in pharma…they do seem somewhat pointless in classrooms in my opinion though. The pharmaceutical industry has clean rooms with HEPA filters and many other procedures in place in which we try to reduce contamination and sometimes that fails. My point being a HEPA filter in a classroom with up to 30 children and a teacher and possibly a TA is going to create a lot of articulates and particular in the filter although brilliant, is not going to guarantee that people in the room won’t catch a virus etc. it may reduce it yes, but in my opinion considering children aren’t great at washing their hands, considering they are wearing clothing that they have walked in from outside with etc etc, You are literally just going to be filtering a classroom of larger particulates mostly.
I think you will be better off insisting the children who are sick don’t school etc.

I also imagine the implementation of these hyper filters into classrooms of various sizes will be ridiculously expensive. Those HP filters need to be placed in the centre of room with no big furniture underneath them so as they are working in optimum conditions. Not very many classrooms that I know of can afford to give a space in the centre of the room.
but then again, that’s all just my opinion and take on the situation

This is a good idea. My sister worked on the immune systems of one of her dc as he was often ill. Lots of vegetables and some particular spices as far as I can remember.

And we should be looking out for the teachers too - as you say, they're one of the highest professions impacted by long covid - and they wonder why there's a recruitment crisis?

It's not the thought of long covid!

Have to say I agree with @WindsurfingDreams on this.

It is NOT just covid.

You will get people ranging from saying they cannot afford child to be off if unwell, and will send regardless, to those who are battered by everything and remove them.

Sick bugs, so few follow the guidance. So few.
Chest infections, same. Parents saying oh they have had one day antibiotics they are fine. As the child is shaking beside them pale and coughing everywhere.

Filters won't stop this. Last term the same child was sent home three times in a week, put on bus every morning. The bus driver is not going to police sickness. The parents don't care. It's impossible and the attendance crap makes it worse. Yeah your kid got an attendance award, while making the rest sick. Super 👌

First I'd want pretty convincing evidence that it benefits our kids in the long term to get sick less often as children. We know now that overly clean homes aren't a good thing and that children's immune systems need to be used in order to develop healthily, I'm not sure that HEPA filters in school would be helpful either.

I'd prefer for sickness policies to be relaxed so that children could stay at home and rest when sick and get fully better between doses.

(Before considering the financial argument and where the money could be best spent in schools - I agree, not on filters.)

Are they getting sick at a record rate? Or is this just the inevitable brief upswing after a lockdown.

Being too clean /germ free is not good for immune systems either. Just look at all the research linking allergies with overly clean environments

(And I say that as someone who is immunosuppressed)

Illness rates and high absence figures are in the news all the time. Framed as an attendance crisis caused by bad parents of course.

My goodness ! something else to be paid for out of the education budget !!!

Teacher retention and recruitment has fuck all to do with long covid

The ‘attendance crisis’ is driven by illness. There is no attendance crisis. The kids are ill more. A lot more. Then parents are blamed for it.

I am guessing that teachers can jump up and down and rant and rave until they are blue in the face, but it isn't going to magically make the money appear.

Illness rates and high absence figures are in the news all the time. Framed as an attendance crisis caused by bad parents of course.

The only children in my own class who have very poor attendance and one who has a long term eye problem and has frequent hospital appointments for that and two that do not come because their parents don't bring them.

None because of persistent sickness bugs.

I suspect the "attendance crisis" is driven by draconian attendance monitoring and unrealistic expectations. No such talk here in NI where things are more relaxed.

The ‘attendance crisis’ is driven by illness. There is no attendance crisis. The kids are ill more. A lot more. Then parents are blamed for it.

And you have the evidence that shows that all these illnesses could be prevented by having HEPA filters in the classroom?

There are lots of reasons for low attendance and blaming it all on lack of filters is nonsense - why don’t you fundraise for some op ?

The ‘attendance crisis’ is driven by illness. There is no attendance crisis. The kids are ill more. A lot more. Then parents are blamed for it.

Not in my experience. Parents are always ringing in saying 'they don't want to come. I can't get them here' and so on.

I've got a child in my class who has never been to school when it's raining in the morning.

that's what i was going to say, set up a fundraiser and get them for you kids school

Far more effective (and cheaper) to encourage regular handwashing and open the windows.

We've survived for centuries without HEPA filters.

My two don't really get ill.

I'd add NHS services to that list.
We shouldn't have to provide counselling, speech and language, screen for developmental delays (my local NHS service say education is best placed to assess this but no support).

Managed for hundreds of years without them not sure they make a huge difference. Since my DC have been in school one has 100% attendance since reception (literally never gets ill) and the other about 99%, sick kids around them constantly over the years, think it is more down to your own health than others and can't mandate that others with poorer immune systems dont come into school. Plus they are generally sniffles and colds/heyfever not anything life threatening.

I hadn't heard anything about this but I am totally for it. Last winter I caught a viral chest infection which developed into pneumonia and six weeks later caught another one. I wfh and whenever I go out I am very careful not to touch my face and always wash my hands thoroughly when I get back. But all this is in vain when I have regular contact with my grandchildren who pick up everything going. It's difficult to keep up with wiping what they touch and insisting they wash their hands, I try but they cough without covering their mouths. I would love it if they could be prevented from catching viruses in the first place, or at least lessen the chances.