Absolutely no chance that schools will back properly full time this year.

[Winnietheshit]

Can’t see it, not without a vaccine or a cure.

There’s no exit strategy for lockdown. Not a criticism of anyone in particular, but I think it’s unlikely that normal school will resume within 12 months.

Yes, it's very unlikely that school will be back this academic year. But it's scaremongering to say it's going to take a year.

We simply don't know what's going to happen. In Denmark primary school is starting back. In other countries lockdown is absolute. You have zero fucking idea, so why start such a thread?

It's possible, but unlikely, that schools (maybe primary to start with) will be back for a few weeks before the summer break, fairly likely September. Anything beyond that is wild guesswork and tbh, just bullshit.

Do you know anything about the current trials into the best available cures, or the studies into antibody testing? Or recruitment into vaccine trials?

I cant see us resuning normal schooling in sept as if nothing happened. It will be exposing all the vulnerable people at home to the virus via the kids and will time a second wave with usual winter flu.

Also the return of traffic and usual needs for hospital beds.

Im really sad about kida sports (not as much as I am about fear of dying.... but its one of the places my anxiety took me.) One child wanted to compete this year.

Fully agree with the above poster here, this thread is going to cause some unneeded worry for those already very anxious at the moment we shouldn't speculate.

Which Cobra meeting did you attend to get this information?

"There’s no exit strategy for lockdown"

Do you understand why? Or are you bleating on like Kier Starmer, demanding something that's simply not possible at this time. There are many scenarios for exiting lockdown. The sensible approach at the moment is to wait and see the how other countries who are further ahead in this pandemic are dealing with it releasing restrictions, and the resulting outcome. This data isn't really available yet, we just need to wait.

BTW, I'm not just shouting into the abyss here. I have some experience in this area.

A few weeks ago, most people hadn't even heard the word epidemiologist. This evening on Gogglebox I heard the phrase "armchair epidemiologist". Says it all.

We were told yesterday by our PM in Canada to expect to live under restrictions until we have a vaccine. WHO has also said yesterday that easing any restrictions before the vaccine will result in a 'deadly resurgence'.

I don't believe this thread is scaremongering, it's just a reality we all need to face.

And schools will be the last to open because of the rate of viral spread amongst children.

Your thread title sounded like you were very knowledgeable on the subject.
And the 1st sentence of your post sounded like you were giving your best guess or opinion. Which one is it OP?

It’s quite obvious from the continued building of nightingale hospitals, that the government plan to create a two tier NHS to cope with continued outbreaks, Hospitals need to get back to business.

I honestly think schools will go back in June, but lets give the experts time to work some things out, because your average mumsnet punter probably hasn’t been privy to the information shared with the government, who in my opinion just dont have all the knowledge they need just yet.

People are impatient to have certainty, that’s understandable, but we haven’t got any right now so we’re a bit unsettled. Just get your big girl pants on and sit tight.

I'd expect secondary to go back first because it's easier for social distancing.

"We were told yesterday by our PM in Canada to expect to live under restrictions until we have a vaccine. WHO has also said yesterday that easing any restrictions before the vaccine will result in a 'deadly resurgence'"

Yes, there will almost certainly be strict restrictions until there's either a fairly reliable treatment option, or a vaccine. This isn't the same as the schools being closed for a year. It's thought that closing schools has a fairly negligible effect on mortality rates (but again, the data simply isn't available or reliable enough to demonstrate this yet). Some countries are sending kids back to school now. In a few weeks if will become evident how much of an impact this has.

There are hundreds of thousands of epidemiologists, statisticians, communicable-disease experts, and other medics, experts etc, all working together to find a solution to this.

Most people aren't aware of the extraordinary effort that's happening across the research community. It's absolutely unprecedented, and will yield swift results.

I should think that the priority would be to get yr10 and yr12 students back into the classroom. They are the cohort most affected and have lost so much teaching time and not much scope to catch up.

They would hopefully be better at social distancing. You could run smaller classes without having the younger year groups returning.

Then the next group would be yr9 (going into yr10 in September) and yr11 (going into yr12 in September.

I don’t know how teaching ks1 and to some extent ks2 is going to be practical and trying to keep children from getting close to each other. Perhaps if they made ks1 and ks2 voluntary school attendance that might help. Some families might be able to cope educating at home whilst others will need to send their children to school.

I’m especially concerned about this, having just read in the Telegraph they thinking of getting kids back to school before end of school year. We already got an unauthorised absence letter from my children’s school because we pulled the kids out 4 days before schools closed. We did this because I’m in the shielded category and the Chief medical officer told the nation people like me needed to take special precautions and self-isolate immediately. If my kids had gone to school then I would have had to avoided interacting with them at all costs or risk death basically. Not possible when the eldest is only 7 and the youngest 4.

So if my kids have to go back to school when lockdown ends I will get fined.

I don’t know what the answer is, but they better bloody not fine people like me, or kick our kids out of school because we have pre-existing health conditions.

"I honestly think schools will go back in June, but lets give the experts time to work some things out, because your average mumsnet punter probably hasn’t been privy to the information shared with the government, who in my opinion just dont have all the knowledge they need just yet"

Yep. This

It'll be primary that goes back first, btw. There's a child aspect to consider

Sorry. Childcare aspect

Likely that years 10 & 12 will follow before other secondary (but since when are teenagers good at distancing from each other)

Wasn’t there a report that said closing schools hasn’t made a significant dent in transmission rates?

Between that and the leaked Home Office phone recording, it’s not at all unlikely that the government will decide to re-open schools far sooner than we might imagine.

Missed this one

". It will be exposing all the vulnerable people at home to the virus via the kids and will time a second wave with usual winter flu."

This is exactly why it may happen earlier. Once the initial peak has passed, restrictions will have to be gradually lifted to spread out cases. Hopefully in the near future reliable antibody tests will be available, but until then, gradual exposure in groups that aren't at risk, will be the only way to manage this. You can't just lock down and hope it goes away.

New Zealand is going to be very interesting in coming weeks/months, as is Sweden. They're opposite ends of the spectrum in how they've dealt with this (NZ total lockdown, including borders, Sweden isn't being too restrictive, but then culturaly are perhaps more distant).

This is the 947th thread today speculating about when schools will re-open.

It's almost as if nobody has the foggiest and we should probably just see how it pans out...

Heh, yes

Is there any point in speculating?

We can only go back when social distancing is no longer a thing, as this is impossible in schools. If we are just back to "wash your hands a lot" then crack on. Even if the children agreed to keep apart there isn't enough room to do this. Unless we had 50% in every other day perhaps

The report saying schools did not affect transmission was flawed.

Also, even if children aren't affected, schools are staffed by adults who bloody well will be. Not to mention all of those doing the school run.

'You can't just lock down and hope it goes away.'

Exactly. We are on emergency measures now while a plan is made, and while we see how bad it's going to be. But life has to start getting back to normal sooner rather than later. I do think social distancing measures will carry on for a year or two ie working from home will continue to be encouraged, maybe pubs will open again but close at 10pm, that kind of thing.

To be honest I think many of us will continue trying to stay 2m from strangers for the rest of our lives, subconsciously maybe. But this won't be quickly forgotten.

I think it can be useful, if you don't know what's going to happen. Nobody knows much yet, but in coming weeks certain groups of people will be a bit better informed and will be able to advise

@Scissorsnglue maybe morning and afternoon sessions. Half the school attends 8-12 and the other half from 1-5 or something.