Are you going to send your kids back in when they reopen?

[Keepdistance]

Wondering if people will send them back.
As they think only 4-10% of population might have had it. And this peak was only 4w of school.
Im not shielding but isolating as much as possible because im
asthmatic.

I hope they say attendance isnt mandatory so people who need to/want to or are still WFH can keep them home if needed.

I reckon they won’t introduce until every teacher / Ta can have the antibody test and only those who have “passed” can return

We live with mine. :-(

That’s a really tough situation, and I completely get that your decision making will be a lot more complicated than for someone like me - can walk to and from school and keep them away from older people and those more likely to be vulnerable as much as possible.

For those who are vulnerable, have a vulnerable child or live with older people it’s a really different risk assessment.

Refraction that's why I do believe that every family will have choices to make.

It is relatively uncommon to live with parents in the UK. Should the schools stay shut because some do?

I have been criticised on this post for saying I will send kids to school even though I work from home.

I am not as productive at the moment as I normally am when the children are not at home. I cannot homeschool as much as my children need as I am working.

Its not fair to my kids and its not fair to my employer but I have essentially been called a bad parent because I think my DC will be better at school.

Perhaps I am being selfish, but I don't see how I am being more selfish that those who want schools to stay shut.

We are all suffering.

Howling? Why do your children howl?

Sure no one can make this decision until we know that the state of play is at the time that schools open?
If they open next week, no I won’t send them back, based on the current situation.
But they won’t open next week. They will open at point at which the government has deemed it safe to reopen. Whether people agree with that assessment is a matter for them to decide, but it means that the situation then will be different to the situation now. I will make my decision based on the information available at the time.

@JassyRadlett Where is there any evidence at all that children are less likely to pass on corona? I have seen no evidence or even suggestion of that anywhere.
Vaccinating super spreaders is part of research into modelling pandemics. Read it in some research somewhere, can't remember where. Don't know if it would work with corona.But was based on the fact that there are super spreaders and that does seem to be the case with corona. These people if they become infected, then go on to infect a lot of other people. Like that bar man in the Italian ski resort or someone in Brighton who was mentioned in the press as an early super spreader. Pandemic modeling has looked at how you identify these people, and of there are limited batches of new vaccines, vaccinating these first. It can make a dramatic difference.

WHO all along have been proven right. They understand science and provide evidence to back up what they are saying. Meanwhile in the UK we get nonsense unscientific stuff like herd immunity. That is why I trust WHO and not UK bodies and our government. And no, British people do not have different bodies. The virus affects us in the same way as people in other countries.

@Fruitsaladjelly The government said only 10% of the population have had it.

Yes. My children are really missing their friends and they need the routine of school. Tho I'm not missing the morning rush of getting ready.

Random I’m not working atm and I can see how hard it would be if dh and I were both wfh. He pretty much has to hide from the toddler to do calls all day.

It is impacted by personal situations I concede. A teen who loves school and I probably won’t be able to keep home if they open, but has had one dangerous breathing issue in past. Idk. So hard.

Mine will go back - the risk to them (actually themselves rather than as spreaders) is low and is far outweighed by the gain in social and academic skills. They might bring it home or spread it, but that would be the Government's decision to weigh up that risk. If they think its not risky from that point of view I would send them back.

It is very common in some communities to live with your parents or to have your parents very involved in your daily life. There are also a sizeable minority of children who are cared for by grandparents. And plenty of children have parents who themselves are in the vulnerable group.
However difficult not going to school is, having a parent die is much more difficult for a child.

I wonder how many school children do share a house with over 70s and the vulnerable groups?

If they do open the schools this side of the summer holiday they may do a soft open where it will be similar to the last week before they closed. There will still be restrictions so staff who are shielded will not be working and any child or staff member in a household showing symptoms will also be off for 14 days so schools without enough staff will not open or be partially open to certain year groups. (Also anyone who doesn't want to send their child in could claim they have a persistent cough)

I will decide at the time, but I will most likely send them in. There is no point speculating at the moment as we don't know when or what the situation will be like.

@bmbonanza It is obviously up to you. But I am bit aghast at how you totally trust whatever the government says and will just blindly do it.

@refraction The vulnerable group includes anyone with high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, etc. A lot of children will have a parent who is in the vulnerable group. These are all very common conditions.

I'll make a judgement when we get there, but I'd like to say yes DS2 will be going back to school. He's yr 6 and it would be great for him to get to finish school properly and get the secondary school transition he really needs ( he has SEN so is meant to be having extra transition)

Yes definitely. It's a small risk with a big reward.

allout I'm sorry but your hero worship of the WHO is removing your ability to think critically.

I am in a position to keep him at home then ( work very few hours) so I can only imagine how difficult it is to WFH and do an element of home schooling!

high blood pressure is not considered a vulnerable group.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be but its not on the govt list

If I didn't have to, I wouldn't, but if schools back I will be expected to return to work.

I will risk assess at the time and make a decision. If a vaccine isn't in sight and testing isn't widespread I suspect not. We both work from home but we are perfectly capable of homeschooling them if that's what is best for them.

No.

Both are vulnerable and their safety comes first.

It'll depend what state the schools are in and how the data is looking when they go back. The week before the schools closed really affected the kids' mental health and sent them so anxious I ended up taking them out a few days earlier than the actual closure because they were suffering. They're still suffering now with the separation from their friends and the fact that everything's gone so strange for them - so if the numbers have fallen off and school is going back in a relatively "normal" school mode they'll go back but not if we're going back to the week before the schools closed mode.

It's balancing the risk to their physical health to the risk to their mental health. DD2 has been so affected by it she's developed a few physical symptoms and we're quite concerned about her to be honest so I'm still unsure which way we'll go on it all as of yet.

It's a cross the bridge when we come to it situation really.

Where is there any evidence at all that children are less likely to pass on corona? I have seen no evidence or even suggestion of that anywhere.

That is my point, as I’ve stated repeatedly. We do not know. We do not know what transmission rates are from asymptomatic people. We don’t know whether children simply don’t get it, or whether they are asymptomatic. If the latter we don’t know how contagious they are. So applying the ‘they all get tummy bugs’ to a disease about which we know so little is pointless.

There is an early study out of China (obviously), published in Nature Medicine, that looked at a population of more than 700 under-15s who had been in close contact/same household as someone who tested positive; only 10 tested positive.

But, as many scientists have pointed out this is very unusual to have a virus that is so much milder in children, and there is much we don’t know.

We do know that with other coronaviruses (less contagious thankfully but far more deadly) there is evidence that school closures did not play much of a role in preventing transmission, and that children again had milder symptoms.

@Random18 Why do you feel the need to throw around insults?
WHO are not a boy band. But I can understand proper scientific evidence based recommendations, and when there is no proper scientific evidence base for a recommendation. WHO consistently have properly evidence research evidence base to their recommendations, and are also upfront when they do not have the evidence yet to know something.
So they say things like the corona virus appears to have mutated but we do not know yet if the mutation results in a difference in mortality rate.
The UK government says things like, corona virus does not mutate. Then later corona virus has mutated and is now less virulent. They have no bloody idea. They are making it up as they go along. Just like they now seem to be making up that children are less likely to infect adults.
Show me the evidence. Otherwise I take everything the UK government says about this with a large pinch of salt.