So the school guidance is out...

[Norecallpup]

Sorry if this has already been done. I could cry, I really could. Absolutely nothing. Just wash your hands, wipe down surfaces and encourage kids to cough into tissues! I don’t know why I’m shocked. Our government are a bunch of twats!

The R rate is below 1. That means if a child in your class had it, they would likely pass it on to 1 or fewer children. Absurd to suggest the R rate is suddenly 15.

No, think about it. The R of society as a WHOLE is below 1 because most people are locked down and not in contact with the virus. The R within a class bubble will be quite high, just as nits, a cold, or chicken pox is. It explicity says within the original document Boris presented to Parliament that some places will have to be locked down harder so that schools can open in this way, because the individual bubbles all have their own R rating.

qweryuiop

That's how I understand it too.

Basically, and for me being a dumb person, if kids are in a room with 15 others for 3 hours a day, Mon-Friday. If 1 child is infectious and there isn't stringent distancing, there's nothing stopping them passing it to one other child per day. By the end of a fortnight, all the kids could have it and the teacher and the TA...
So that passes to Teachers household, TAs households so on and so on.

If it were me in charge of a school with older pupils, I would do half the class in full time for a week then off for a week. Less need for daily deep cleans, practically everyone infected during the week on will get ill during the week off (which with weekends is actually 9 days), plus any viruses on hard surfaces will die over the weekend even if your cleaning isn't 100 percent. I would strongly consider 4 days full time and Friday for deep clean.

We have to go back sometime, and this seems less likely to lead to crossover infections than swapping days or morning/afternoon.

@TinySleepThief
I do understand that everyone is super focused on Covid risk right now (which to be clear in under 5's is tiny- very much not canon fodder). But if we could all just pause and calmly reflect, we do manage risk daily. We accept and manage risk for our children too. Every day before Covid children were at risk from infectious diseases (Meningitis, mumps etc), at risk from traffic accidents, at risk from childhood cancer, accidents in the home etc. We do things to mitigate risk (seat belts, vaccinations) but I think you'll find that many of the things that we do mitigate risk don't actually lower them as much as you might want. Seat belts and car seats protect kids, but there are still plenty of fatal care accidents involving children. I am guessing this hasn't stopped you driving your children.
It is all comparative isn't it. Is the risk of sending five years olds into school any more than any number of activities that we have all been happily letting our fice year olds do up until now (judo, horse riding, being in cars?). I am not going to do a detailed search of the office for national statistics to see if mortality rates for any number of things you've happily accepted previously are more than mortality rates from Covid for under fives... Since I know the risk is really low... But if you are feeling really anxious it might be a way of trying to understand this in a bigger picture/context kind of way?

The R rate does not mean one person passed it to one person and then stops being infectious. In areas where a lot people spend a lot of time in close proximity with not much ventilation it will spread faster. The reason the R value came down was because people stopped hanging out with large groups, then moving on to other large groups. This is all an average. The government are basically playing with averages here. They know the spread in young people will increase, they are just hoping that doesn't then translate to the population as a whole.

All the people wanging on about denmark and germany - we are not comparable to them interms of either number of cases or govt response. We are much more like Italy or Spain in terms of infection levels. Neither of those countries are talking about having all children back in primary school by the end of June

hettie - it's not about the risk to the children, it's about the risk from the children.

@CompassNorth I completely agree with you, however according to some posters on this thread you are being ridiculous if you work in a school and wish to wear a mask
I'm really scared. Not allowed to wear a mask at work www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3906494-i-m-really-scared-not-allowed-to-wear-a-mask-at-work

The government can't stop you wearing a face covering in your place of work if you wish. There was a test case involving a Muslim woman teacher last year. They have to treat everyone equally surley.

surely

Well, for example, hettie, helmets were introduced, and then altered , in cricket to mitigate risk (and this started by enforcing them for young children), children are no longer allowed to head balls in football training and children must wear head guards for rugby and are not allowed to tackle in rugby now below a certain age . So, yes, absolutely, things are avoided altogether to keep people, especially children safe from tiny possibilities of harm.

hettie

Car fatalities.
With all tue limits and measures taken.
Belts, licensed drivers, airbags, Mots, speed limits etc.
The total yearly deaths is around 1800
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-year-ending-june-2018

Covid has killed upwards of 55000 in a matter of weeks.

We all do our best to keep out kids safe, or should do.
So imagine, for a second, a room with 14 people in. One of them has a loaded gun. Would you choose to send your child in there?

But let me guess.. 'Guns aren't a virus'
Nope, you're right. A single gun only has a finite amount of bullets and may only injure you. A virus can spread infinitely and multiply as it goes.
1 gun becomes 2, 2 become 4, 4 become 8.
Now every one in the class has a gun.
Kids are protected by youth, that's fine, is the teacher? Is the teachers household?
Your kid doesn't live with anyone at risk, does every kid in the class? Does the TA?

I think you'll find that many of the things that we do mitigate risk don't actually lower them as much as you might want.

Perhaps it might not be a significant reduction in some cases, but preventative actions do lower the risk.

You can lower the risk of Covid spreading, by not putting 15 young children in a situation which would make it easier to spread.

Yes there is a risk from children. Because you can't remove it, but it for most healthy under 60's the risk is low.
The risk to children is even lower. Tackling in rugby for young children can be avoided (for ever if necessary). I don't think school can be avoided forever (or even for a year/18 months assuming we get a vaccination by then). Or at least I don't think it would be good to avoid school for that long as you massively increase risks of all sorts of other crappy outcomes for children that will occur by stuck in their homes for over a year....

I think @hettie is talking sense risk to children is low

every single day on average 1687 people die in this country, 450 from cancer etc etc

on average 5000 people under 20 die each year more than half before 1st birthday so just over 2200 between 1-20 this is about 5.6 per day, the the 2 major causes are from car accidents or self harm, the number of deaths of people under 20 from covid are nowhere near 1 per day near mind 6 per day, no-one thinks taking a child in a car is a foolish irresponsible parenting decision even though the risk of a car accident killing your child is vastly greater than the risk of covid to your child

@MonkeyToesOfDoom
Come on...a gunshot wound to a child is highly likely to be life altering or fatal. Catching Covid (for a child) simply isn't, not even close... It is a metaphor that smacks of fear mongering.
Vulnerable or shielded teachers or TA' s are not being asked in currently, I imagine that will stand.

@MonkeyToesOfDoom
Of course you wouldn't want your child in that scenario. However, it's an utterly bonkers analogy which has nothing to do with coronavirus.

Catching Covid (for a child) simply isn't, not even close

But what about the people they give it too?
Or does the Covid not jump from kids to kids to adults?

The vulnerable who are not shielded are very very unlikely to be afforded much protection at all (or their families) based on the new guidance.

I'm vulnerable and so is my son, we are not shielding. I assume I'll be expected back at work as soon as it's open as I can't work from home. My son will also have to go back then as a child of a key worker. Should we catch it we will be in the " well they had previous health issues" category that no one seems to really give a fuck about

hettie - the issue is that actually the risk of harm to 4 and 5 year old children of missing a year of school is infinitesimally school. In most of europe they wouldn't even be at school. Those children in neglectful houshold are still living at home for the 18 hours a day they are not in school. So as teacher or TA you are asking me to take a risk that is small but arguably not necessary at all. Children's education has been interrupted to a lesser or greater extent by events previously ie WW2 and ten years down the line you wouldn't be able to work out who missed a year of school and who didn't. Children miss long periods of schooling for all sorts of reasons and the sky doesn't fall in

an utterly bonkers analogy

maybe your right. Covid in three months has killed more in this country than died of gun shot in the US in the whole of 2017.
In 2017, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 39,773 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S.

Seems Covid is far and away more dangerous than guns.

@lemonsandlimes123 I was only talking about under fives to illustrate the risk a specific poster felt about her four year old. I don't know why under reception yr 1 are being prioritiesed other than enabling workers maybe... I am talking about the fact that we do need to accept the risk of opening schools (likely in September) even though we cannot neutralise all risk because the risks are small and don't outway the need for education/social emotional functioning. Essential for older children.
Lots of countries don't have formal education till later you're quite correct, but they do have lots of settings for social and emotional learning. Young children will struggle with this without peers. And you are seeing about the effects of interrupting this. There are plenty of studies looking at cohorts who've experience war/disruption/lack of provision. Dunno about educational attainment but there is evidence of the social and emotional impacts, levels of poor mental health, substance misuse in later life etc...

*an utterly bonkers analogy

maybe your right. Covid in three months has killed more in this country than died of gun shot in the US in the whole of 2017.
In 2017, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 39,773 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S.

Seems Covid is far and away more dangerous than guns.*

Surely the huge flaw in the logic here is obvious?
You compared going to school in June to being in a classroom where one child had a gun (and implied that the one person would be firing the gun until it was out of ammo). You are scaremongering (or believe it yourself).

I'm not denying that Covid has killed more than some other causes of death (meanwhile approx 15,000 people die each moneth in the UK from heart disease, while we're on irrelevant stats). But the chance of death from Covid is not comparable to the chance of death from a gunshot.

You compared going to school in June to being in a classroom where one child had a gun

Yep and it turns out I should have compared it with a child going into a class where someone may have something far more lethal...