For those who want schools to go back..

[pfrench]

.. tell us how you think it should work. Primary or secondary.

In your ideal world.

How would social distancing be adhered to?
How about drop off and pick up?
How would classrooms operate?
How about lunchtimes and breaktimes?
What about after school childcare provision?
What about staff who are sheidling?
What about children who are sheilding?
What about staff who have family members who are sheilding?
Should only some children go back? Who should they be and why?

So many education and school experts on here, it will be interesting to read your safe solutions.

I was speaking to someone working in a hub school (for key workers' children) and they said the kids were not social distancing.

Imdabest1
I work in a base and i am in the hub with my kids and social distancing isn't really doable , certainly not for toileting, meals etc. Also the increased number of adults within a room in special schools is a concern. Many local special schools are full with no breakout spaces, plus any hands on with behaviour is a massive worry.

Safeguarding trumps all and yes we cannot have certain cleaning items. Heads actually know nothing, many are preparing for June 1 as that is the speculation. They will find out along with everyone else on Sunday, although it won’t happen. Wales is the biggest clue to that as our educational systems are closely linked and we will follow like we did with closures.

But which year groups are key?

Reception transitioning form play based eyfs to more formal year 1?

Year 2 going to year 3 and KS2?

Year 6 for transitioning to secondary?

Year 9, 10 and 12 for exams?

What about the vulnerable kids who don't quite have social care involvement but are knowingly falling through the cracks?

Oh and no, the children are not socially distancing who are in school now.

There is zero social distancing going on at her school at the moment

Go back as normal and anybody who doesn't feel safe with it needs to follow the full teaching schedule.

DP is a primary teacher and has no idea how you’d stop a classroom of 7 year olds from touching and poking each other even if class sizes were halved to 15. Also 2m spacing isn’t possible in tiny, outdated school classrooms.

For everyone in a hub or school with children, particularly with key-worker children and no social distancing - how many covid cases and outbreaks are you dealing with?

It simply isn't going to happen. Teachers won't be safe. Children won't be safe.

Health & Safety legislation means that for the vast majority of schools, their basic design means they won't legally be able to open until the risk is acceptable.

@redtickreturn in the however many weeks it's been partially open DDs school have lost no staff to isolation and only 2 students. It's eerie BUT I live in Dorset which has fared really well

There’s very little evidence that children pass COVID to other children or to adults. And there’s lots of evidence that children are largely asymptomatic and the minority who are not, do not suffer serious symptoms.

Given all that, on balance, thinking about how important schools are for children, they should reopen with minimum fuss ASAP, maybe with as much time as possible spent teaching/playing outside, where it’s very hard to catch the virus, but otherwise BAU.

The only really difficult issue they need to sort out is transport - how parents and teachers avoid infection on their way to and from school.

Iur hub kids are trying to social distance, they are hyper aware they must not touch each other but forget when playing at times. The kids I work with are at risk socially and emotionally. We have had no families within the hub with covid so no school hub cases regardless if social diatancing. We did have a suspected pupil teacher transmission just before lockdown though.

We can ask Sweden for advice. They never closed schools and have so far achieved a far lower death rate than us. Perhaps they can advise on how they manage things?

@BriefDisaster are you dumb? Teachers are not robots they have families children etc etc. Another bitter twisted jealous person who just doesn’t get it!

Sweden's high schools are closed.

@Sonineties
Children. Under 10.
In secondaries they are more akin to adults. To please do tell how this works? I can’t go to the shop but I can be around 1000 young adults. Ok then.z
Lots of people questioning why this is being treated as dismissive in schools yet on the other hand social distancing must remain EVERYWHERE else. Teachers are at ‘ no risk’ yet every other adult is? Teenagers are fine in school but the own government ad has three teenagers and states how dangerous this is? What the actual fuck is wrong with people apart from this pathetic spite towards teachers.

There is also the point that as a society, Sweden has adopted a voluntary, personal form of social distancing that in many ways looks very similar to the UK's mandated one. They also have population densities far lower than ours - what works there, even if it works for that environment, would not necessarily work for us (different national character, different social norms and different attitude to authority)m, in the same was as the extremely authoritarian approach of e.g. barricading people into their houses practised in China would not work for us.

The evidence on whether lots of children get or spread Covid19 is split. The latest research coming out of Germany shows that they do transmit the disease quite significantly.

The evidence on whether lots of children get or spread Covid19 is split.

Unsurprisingly, because the ability to gather data in any meaningful way about transmission between children and on to adults in 'normal' (30+ person) classrooms has been significantly affected by the percentage of children workdside who are either in lockdown or not attending school in its standard format.

Davincitoad you could just put on a surgical mask. The government needs to make them available for teachers imo but they should be sufficient to protect teachers.

In the secondary I work in, when I've been on rota there have been about 15 students, and 2 adults in one large room (about the size that I've seen in other countries schools) and about 12 students and 1 adult in another smaller room (more usual UK sized classroom).
We try for social distancing but when a student goes to the loo they pass closely to the others. They also forget when going in and out of rooms, and forget at breaktime. And these are teenagers.
I think we've had 2 staff and 4 students isolating since lockdown but I don't know if any were tested

Sorry, i should have said 'via' normal classrooms.

the risk, it has always nssemed to me, is not to the children in the classrooms, nor is confined to the adults in school, but to the whole community of adults connected with the families attending the school. Children being together in school means that effectively every member of every family is connected via a 'virus transmission route'. So asymptomatic dad A infects asymptomatic child B, who infects slightly symptomatic child C in school, who goes home to vulnerable parent / grandparent D, who is symptomatic and dies.

And don't forget we are looking after keyworker children who take it home and then the adults can spread it into other healthcare or care settings.

We have had staff isolating and a case of Covid caught before lockdown though.