The exit plan and schools.

[NeverGuessWho]

I know this whole thread will be hearsay, but I’m just interested in hearing people’s opinions of where schools are likely to fit in to the exit plan?

A friend thinks they will be opened early on, as this will free up more people to work, and hence enable furloughed workers to return to work. This will crucially save money.

IMHO, schools will be one of the last restrictions to be lifted. Once schools are opened, there will effectively be multiple mass gatherings in every town and city, all at the same time. Surely this will result in a surge of cases of the virus.

Unless of course, they pursue the antibodies/certified passport route?

What do people think?

without PPE or at least a face mask

Agree but it would be impossible to teach in a mask.

The staff wont be able to isolate properly. Especially with primary age. The kids certainly can't and that's the majority of bodies in a school.

9 till 3 (breakfast and after school clubs longer still) little ones hurt themselves, get upset, want to hold your hand, they touch your face, they sit close, play close, need a cuddle, wipe their snotty noses and tears with their hands and rub it all over themselves, you, the other kids and all the furniture.

Lunch time - food sharing, clothes sharing, doing each others hair, playing nurses and fighting. Licking their hands licking the bloody table if my DD is anything to go by! Loads of kids eating in the same room while some roam around on their way to the loo, on the way to the teacher, touching their friend's faces, touching the food.

Through the school day they need help physically with every little thing you can imagine and some things you can't. They're only little.

Now imagine them all gathering up their reading books and art work and water bottles and pouring out at the end of each day like this in a lovely flood to their parents and carers. Some are going to be allowed on playdates, some go to child minders, some go to the shops ect ect. Spread spready spread.

Seriously - the return of school IS the end of social distancing for the masses.

I think a lot of people on here who say that work needs to be able to function again and that needs schools to happen are all parents of young kids. There are going to be an awful lot of people who are not parents, who are parents of adults or teens who can safely be left at home alone. They would be able to go back to work when places open again, leaving the money for furloughing people who can't work to last longer and to be directed more towards those who need it because they can't work. And then maybe it should include having no childcare as a reason.

You can't, however, say that places need to stay shut and people need to distance and yet allow schools to open. In one report, it estimated that school children could be responsible for 1/3 of transmissions in a community. There's no way to get children in and out of school without coming into contact with each other. And breaks etc would be impossible, because the younger the children, the less you can tell them to stay a certain distance away from their friends.

One of the first things to lift should be the advice about visiting your family members. That one surprised me when it was mentioned.

I have thought from.the off that schools wont open until September

@Laiste are you a teacher?

My ds secondary school did a recent email summarising about homework etc.
It then said. With an abrupt and unexpected end to the school year we are now preparing for the new school year and what work needs to be done.. Imo they know they won't be back before Sept.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the BBC have announced their biggest ever push on education programming which will last for 14 weeks.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/entertainment-arts-52149409

I live in the US. Our governor has just annonced that our schools are finished for the year in person and they are working on trying to ensure all pupils have access to online learning for the rest of the school year, which is mid June for us. He wasn't very committal to us reopening in September either.

Those who keep saying the schools won't go back until September... what about schools who start in August? What about schools like I mentioned before where the school year starts in June?

It’s certainly going to be interesting to see but I don’t think you can cancel all exams which could be relatively well distanced, in and out for exam all in separate desks anyway etc, then open schools back up. I think it will most likely be September. There is a big percentage of the workforce who don’t have primary age children so I don’t agree that businesses can’t open until schools are back on.

In Ireland they'll try to get the leaving cert done somehow but otherwise I can see schools & crèches being last to go back in Sept. But desperately hope by summer to see some level of new 'normality' other than that.

There are around 30 million workers in the uk and 4 million primary children apparently. I cant really work out how that impacts as some children have one or two siblings and some workers have sah spouses.

I think they might have to reopen the schools for a few weeks, maybe just July, precisely in order to bring up the number of cases. It's not going to be possible to maintain a full lockdown until the science is available - vaccines take too long, antibody tests so far aren't reliable so immunity certificates don't seem to be on the immediate horizon. The current lockdown is about delay - stop huge numbers from getting it all at the same time because that's what the NHS can't cope with. So we've got a certain level of people getting it now, we are keeping those numbers manageable with the current lockdown, then as the Covid wards start to clear (sadly, due to more deaths than recoveries) and the various NHS Nightingale hospitals are ready to go, we will have the capacity to get more cases through hospital. Ease restrictions on immediate families first maybe, so that people can interact with one or two other households. Boost morale. Then open schools, probably with some form of staggering, next. Allow people to feel like life is getting back to normal. The number of cases will go back up but at a level the NHS can cope with. If it goes too high, restrictions come back in.

There's no getting away from the fact that a lot of people are going to die from this. The restrictions aren't about stopping all those deaths, they're about spreading out the need for hospital treatment over the year.

I think it'll be 3 phases, small café's, hair/nail salons/shops etc first, pubs, nurseries, independent restaurants next, then schools and large shops, lastly large offices and shopping malls.

Had this conversation this morning with my H, even if the school opens this school year I am unlikely to send my children back. I personally don't think it's safe and refuse to take that risk right now. I'm a little confused as so many banged on about having the schools closed and just 3 weeks in the discussion has turned to 'when will they open'. 🤷‍♀️

@CheriLittlebottom

Do you propose schools that would usually be closed in July should open?

Anything sooner than autumn will lead to unnecessary deaths. The economy is over.

It is very difficult. Presumably at some point we cannot afford to pay teachers so they might all have to be paid off and claim universal credit if they do not have savings or a spouse with income, other than the few we need to mind key workers' children.

I don’t think schools will re open until September.

I do think at some point we have to accept we are going to move to a herd immunity concept. I guess the whole thing is about making sure the NHS can cope rather than eliminating the virus - so many people don’t seem to grasp this. Lots of my friends keep talking about “when it goes away”. Well it’s not going to go away.

I think in the future coronavirus will become another seasons flu type virus, reoccurring every year, just hopefully as time goes on we will be able to manage cases better and have a vaccine.

Xenia they're setting work and teaching remotely. Why wouldn't we be paying them!?

Happymum, have you been in a secondary school at exam time?😂

They are crammed in. There’s not enough space or invigilators. Loads of students have to be in separate rooms due to issues, and never enough invigilators to cover it. The gym, both halls and 6th form common room in my school are crammed to bursting at exam time.

In my school there would be 750 Y11/12/13 doing exams. You can’t social distance all those!

Jemima I'm not sure what would happen with schools that run to different term dates. Scotland are making their own rules re. lockdown so they would presumably set their own rules re. schools reopening. In England, private schools normally shut for summer at the end of the first week in July (ish). Theoretically the government could ask them to open through to the end of the star school term, about the 21st of July, but I don't think they could be compelled to do so. Mind you, given there seems to be a fair bit of ill feeling from parents being made to pay full fees during school closures they might decide to open for a few extra weeks as a gesture to their customers. Compared to the number of state schools though we aren't looking at a lot of schools.

I don't know how we could socially distance at our secondary school!

I would safely say 90% of our invigilators are in the high risk age group too. So it would be hard to staff the exams - depending on how general teaching staff are.

On when we can afford to teachers and when their pay stops there may just come a point when the state takes a view that remote learning as it does not enable the parents to work is not the normal teaching job and so the whole teaching workforce will need to be paid off I suppose as we cannot pay forever. If they are going to do that then it would save most money if it were done before the summer holidays starts.

I don't think there will be exams this school year regardless of when the schools go back.