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.

@SansaSnark I agree. So the question now becomes, rather than "How can we get our children back to school as quickly as possible?", "How can we determine the extent of transmission in schools?"

I would think that the cheapest and easiest solution to this is "Wait a month and see what happens in the rest of Europe"

Given that many places have both better testing and lower case numbers than we do, do we not think that these other countries are better placed to find this data with less risk?

So far, Denmark have stated that returning some primary school children raised R by 0.3. Sweden believe there is little effect. Germany and France are just returning their students over the next week or so. Since we are a couple of weeks behind, why don't we wait and see?

If there is no rise in transmission, then we do not have to worry about rotas, etc for students and can focus exclusively on preventing adults from mixing.

If there is a rise, but only for students above a certain age, then we can look at focusing on home learning for this age group.

If there is a rise, but it is moderate, we can look at part time schooling and distancing measures.

If there is a large rise, then we need to realise that schools will not be able to open enough to provide either much education or much childcare, and we should look at school provision as providing a role in mental health and safeguarding work primarily and focus on this aspect.

Until we know more about transmission rates, deciding how we want schools to look is pointless.

I appreciate diagnosis doesn't always bring funding, it is about proving the level of need @Fedup21. It's a shame that this lockdown will have pushed an awful lot of pupils further back along the path and the consequences will be felt by individuals, classes and families.

I want them to go back.
I’m vulnerable and my daughter is yet I work in a care home no option to close it until the foreseeable so we have all just had to crack on. No we can’t social distance in reality and no there was never an offer of accommodation I have to go to work and potentially bring it home.
Many staff have had it.
I think I’ve had it.
We can’t protect everyone indefinitely and I want my DD’s back at school.
Regarding PPE we have only worn the full gear in the care home when caring for confirmed or symptomatic residents so I can’t see why teachers need full PPE maybe a face mask.
Sorry but the risk baton needs to get passed to the next profession I’m fed up of everyone hysterically sat at home imagining that death will drop from the sky for them the minute they resume their job.
Sorry if that sounds harsh I don’t wish illness on anyone but some of us can’t evade the risk.

@nellodee I totally agree.

However, if the evidence comes from e.g. Germany that it doesn't raise the R, but they are practicing social distancing in schools, then this doesn't pave the way for a full return, in my opinion.

Denmark have seen the 0.3 rise with social distancing measures in place, I believe.

It's also worth considering the normal differences between these school systems and the UK one- e.g. many European countries have a later starting age, with children walking to school alone from an early age. How does that translate to a UK primary school with adults wanting to walk their 4yo inside the classroom?

@ilovebagpuss But what if we send everyone back to schools, lots of teachers get ill, and the school has to close again? Surely that's the worst case scenario?

I am happy to accept a bit of risk for myself as someone young and healthy. I am not necessarily happy to accept that risk on behalf of a 16yo with asthma or diabetes, though.

I spent several weeks of primary being taught half days in a church hall when our school was closed for reasons I can’t now remember. We should think about using big empty halls, sports, conference centres etc and rotating small groups pupils who attend parttime and don’t overlap. emergency schooling like in a war or refugee camp not normal school. Only those old enough to sit at a desk. A few hours at a time. Spread around local community venues with staff + volunteers. We can teach some kids in some areas some of the time.

If there's a positive case who has been in school @SansaSnark I guess it would be the same process as at DH's work.

Person confirms positive test result to their manager. Anyone who has been in the same room as that person in the previous 7 days gets sent home to isolate, including pupils. If after 7 days they haven't developed symptoms, they can return to work/school. If they live with other people, the other people have to isolate for 14 days. If within that time they develop symptoms, staff member/pupil has to isolate again but for 14 days (as secondary contraction)

We have had lots of staff off sick but we have no option to close the care home. I imagine if my daughters teacher goes off sick her whole class would have to be off again until teacher tests negative or recovers. There may be the option to get short notice supply in or a TA to give out worksheets but no different to what they are doing now at home!
We have to learn to live with it.
I guess the risk question is individual I didn’t want to risk my asthmatic daughter but I need a job and we need to pay bills so I was forced to make that decision. No option to WFH or furlough it would be bye bye job.

But wasnt it rife in schools for probably nearly a full half term before lockdown and the figures on the numbers under 19 and teachers who were seriously ill is low.

Surely it should be about how to manage transmission as much out of school. Making sure that its doesnt spread to those who are at risk of complications for Coronavirus (and for the most part this is the over 55s). How to manage that.

So the big areas are around shielding and pick up and drop offs. And i think maybe less parental involvement in the latter for quite a while

I didn't see the briefing yesterday, is the reasons for no masks needed due to the fact it's believed they don't really protect the person wearing them, but the people they're near? They think children are low risk? Although that doesn't help with protecting the other staff!

If it is childcare people are after, then one option would be to take primary aged children to local secondaries and use secondary teachers as well to spread them out around the building. Obviously the education of the secondary aged children at home would take a hit from this.

I think it is a case of there being three possible priorities (childcare, education and safety) and you only get to pick two.

This is what I think should happen when it’s the right time. I don’t know if now or after half term is the right time. I’ll leave that to epidemiologists.

How would social distancing be adhered to?
It wouldn’t but for the safety of children and staff they would only mix with 10 other children at a time.
So in a class of 30, 10 would do Monday, 10 would do Wed and 10 would do Friday. Home learning the rest of the time and cleaning on the ‘off’ days.
How about drop off and pick up?
Staggered by year group (so again same max parents at a time).
How would classrooms operate?
Accept that social distancing isn’t fully possible for young children and limit numbers rather than types of contact. See above.
How about lunchtimes and breaktimes?
What about after school childcare provision?
Available only for children in the group allowed in school and delivered in classroom rather than all together. So 10 children bubble maintained. Staffing costs (extra) passed on to parents sadly.
What about staff who are sheidling?
They continue to stay at home
What about children who are sheilding?
They continue to stay at home and run home learning
What about staff who have family members who are sheilding?
They stay at home and run home learning
Should only some children go back? Who should they be and why?
Years 6,10 and 12 first for educational and social reasons. Then rest of primary, then rest of secondary.

Schools who don’t have enough staff due to shielding can’t open or can only open to certain year groups. Shielding takes priority.

Welsh Govt has just announced that schools will not reopen on June 1st. (Not that they were fully closed).

Also I’m sorry but you can’t send everyone home because one teacher has tested positive. Can you imagine if that was the case in the other industries working currently? I work in a care home 3 staff have tested positive have all their colleagues been sent home to isolate! No way as there would be no staff to look after residents. If they then have symptoms then of course they go home.

I can’t see how schools can provide childcare for people who normally are at work for the foreseeable future. Hopefully many employers will enable home working for a prolonged period, but ultimately most families will end up with a parent out of work. In many cases we will need to support those families financially as a state.
There is just no way schools can be a source of childcare and be safe.

From this point onwards, our worst case scenario could be looking at anything from potentially 10,000 deaths of over 80 years olds, to 500,000 deaths of people mostly aged 50 and upwards.. Our response should be vastly different depending on which of these scenarios we were facing.

Right now, we just don't know. We really don't.

I don't think we would get up to the 500,000, because I do think we would lock down again before that happened, but the point is, it might end up costing the economy far more to have to lockdown and get numbers low right back from the heights again, rather than pressing on from where we are now.

Anyone else irrationally irritated by the number of times the "sheilding/shielding" spelling error has been copied and pasted?

@Lucyleathery FFS

Also I’m sorry but you can’t send everyone home because one teacher has tested positive. Can you imagine if that was the case in the other industries working currently? I work in a care home 3 staff have tested positive have all their colleagues been sent home to isolate! No way as there would be no staff to look after residents. If they then have symptoms then of course they go home.

This.
If a member of staff or child becomes symptomatic and gets a positive test everyone else watches for symptoms and requests a test if needs be. It's not like it was before the lockdown where everyone had to hide away for 2 weeks now there are workplace testing. That overrides closing everything down.

In my hospital, if there is a positive case who may have come in contact with others on the ward or in the office, everyone gets swabbed and finds out in less that 24 hours. Despite this, there's been no breakouts.

How many people is that that need swabbing? At my school, it would be 2000.

Fedup 21 you think year 1 teachers drill in kids mouths?

@Lucyleathery why not just get everyone signing your petition to deregister their kids? You’ll all likely want to keep them safe at home until there’s a vaccination because there sure as hell won’t be one in September. We’ll just be at the start of flu season by then so even more reason for them to keep their precious snowflakes at home. Seriously if you can encourage enough people to do it it will solve all the social distancing problems for us who give a shit about our kids education.

Some options based on schools I know:

Transition years first 6,11,13

Spread out as much as possible.

Going to be impossible to minimise interactions in y10 etc as so many combinations of options.

I do think staggered arrival and leaving may help. God knows what happens with buses though, especially in faith schools drawing from across a city?

Maybe they will open to only families that need to work first, as each part of the economy is opened up.

Person confirms positive test result to their manager. Anyone who has been in the same room as that person in the previous 7 days gets sent home to isolate, including pupils. If after 7 days they haven't developed symptoms, they can return to work/school. If they live with other people, the other people have to isolate for 14 days. If within that time they develop symptoms, staff member/pupil has to isolate again but for 14 days (as secondary contraction)

That makes sense from an infection control PoV, but from a running a school PoV is really very tricky, at least in secondary schools. You could easily end up with e.g. the whole science department off if a technician tested positive.

Many students will see up to 7 teachers a day- that quickly spirals into a lot of teachers being off, self isolating.

If you are having lots of students off for 7 days at a time, that will be very disruptive to their education.

Obviously if they can quickly get a test and return to work it is different.