Did anyone else see the really positive news about primary schools reopening on BBC this morning? at 9am

[bigbananafeet12]

They were asking advice from a lovely primary school teacher in Denmark on how the'd approached it. She was so positive and encouraging it gave me hope for our dc for the first time in ages. Worth a watch if you can.

[Drivingdownthe101]

Denmark have had 500 deaths. Our kids will not be going back to school in June, lol.
I can't believe people really think they will. grin

I really don’t get all the ‘lolling’ and grinning about something that is really fucking distressing and worrying for some people.

[LittleFoxKit]

Oops germany has had 7713 deaths, so still under half of the UK.

The UK is still seeing 3400 new cases per day?
In comparison to Germanys 400 and Denmarks 80, and both of them are testing MUCH more thoroughly then the UK,
As the UK is testing 29k per million
Germany 33k per million
And denmark 57k per million

[Delatron]

Just because population sizes are different doesn’t mean we can’t watch and try and take things and learnings from other countries. Agree with @TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross we can’t just keep children off school for a year.

Yes some things might not work here but can we stop shutting every possible solution down. It might be possible to install more sinks. Hell we built about 5 new hospitals in about a week so I’m sure we can get a few more winks in schools. We have to discuss this and try and work out what might work here.

The social bubble idea is a great one. Kids stay in their own little bubble.

[MrsWhites]

I agree that it’s nice to see that return to school has been managed well in other countries and it provides a certain level of reassurance but I wouldn’t call it good news - it’s good news for them but how they have managed their return with their additional facilities isn’t necessarily going to translate to good news here.

Lots of countries have managed to keep their death tolls relatively low but we haven’t been able to replicate the same here!

[nellodee]

It does look really lovely. I'd be all for a return like that, with that amount of distancing, when our cases are at the same stage theirs are.

[Artesia]

I saw it, and thought the contrast between the teacher from Denmark and the English head teacher was stark. I couldn’t believe the head teacher had gone on BBC news to be interviewed on the issues around school reopenings without having read the government guidance on it. She listened to the Danish experience and said there were some good ideas. Most of those ideas were in the bloody guidance. Also, she apparently went straight out to parents on Sunday night after Boris’s speech and asked what they thought, before the more detailed proposals had even been issued. She seemed utterly clueless, under prepared and lacking in any critical thought.

[Oakmaiden]

On Googling "Denmark school class sizes" this comes up in the first set of results:

While class sizes must not exceed 28, the average is 19 children; the pupil-teacher ratio is 10:4.

That is a VERY different situation than in most of Britain, before you even start to look at the physical buildings...

[LittleFoxKit]

little risk children are from the virus.

Not this again.. yes children are very low risk of complications from CV, however due to them not displaying systems while being able to have a high viral load, they are also very good spreaders of the virus to adults and others who may be at risk. And unlike adults, without testing children it's very difficult to actually ascertain whether they have actively got CV so it's very easy for them to continue going to school and to continue to spread it amongst themselves and then with their parents/families/carers/teachers etc

[Notonthestairs]

Are you a teacher Op?

I'd like my kids to go to school. But I have concerns and don't necessarily think Denmark makes an entirely worthwhile comparison.

Their lockdown was earlier - 13th March (I thought 11th but was corrected)

Danish classes are smaller (average 20/21).

Their R number was lower - and rose after schools reopened. I'd like to know what they are today if anyone has that but if info??

[daisymay133]

People are being negative

There are ways round this and I speak as a teacher myself- though in a different setting (more difficult one actually in terms of maintaining social distances).

It says upto 15- doesn’t have to be 15 kids. It will be difficult for limited space settings but some provision will be manageable
Of course sinks can be put in if schools want to - pretty easy to put dozen sinks in

Or failing that hand gel pumps at entrance to each class

Classes can be modified but it’ll be much harder of course. Many subjects can be adapted to outside even

Packed lunch at desk
No play areas but maybe shorter day? There’s ways around it but I will admit that the benefit of the provision they’ll get just may not be worth it and schools may just end up as a between school and babysitter and that is unfair.

[Daffodil101]

drivingdownthe101

Me either. It’s as though the site has been taken over by pubescent children.

[IsletsOfLangerhans]

I heard it too and it sounded lovely - lots of outdoor lessons and forest trips were mentioned. So it sounds like they have immediate access to lots of outdoor space? And the other thing that caught my attention was the children were 6 and over. So it could work for older years and if the school has large outdoor areas? Not so sure about for reception and year 1s though..

[LittleFoxKit]

One class in a school within the UK may require 3 classrooms and teachers under the social distancing school measures. So assuming a primary runs nursery till year 6, that's 9 classes with 9 teachers if you only consider yr, 1 and 6 and not nursery.

Then you look at the old school buildings that are common in the UK which may have 8/9 classrooms, potentially only that number of teachers if you have one per year, and then exclude any teachers who are shielding or have shielding family members and you already dont have enough teachers to teach just the yr, 1 and 6. And that's without adding the nursery in which are also supposed to be going back.

[AnnSmiley]

One thing we can do to help is to try and focus on the positives for our children. So not stress to them how weird it might be, or talk about how they won't see certain friends, but talk about the positives - that they will see some friends, that they will see their teachers again, that they will be able to get out of the house a bit.

If people aren't comfortable sending their kids back that's absolutely fine, and it's already been said they won't be fined. But there are loads of positives in this for children who do go back.

[LittleFoxKit]

You say negative but simply being realistic.

Unfortunately by throwing caution to the wind, everything goes to shit. That's been clearly evidenced by our governments wonderfully proactive management of Covid so far.. oh wait...

[LittleFoxKit]

Still waiting on people to work out how to source the additional classrooms and teachers schools in the UK will need to be able to keep to 15 per class...

[Delatron]

So usual class size is 30? Some of those will be kept at home. So down to 25. Half in the morning and half in the afternoon? Alternative days?

[HathorX]

Lovely to see a positive example. Children are very adaptable and to a great extent take their cues off adults around them. There are ways of helping kids with their mental health, and of course some kids will find this difficult to handle. But my DD's mental health is suffering being off school stuck with me all day too! I think with the right positive tone struck, then going back to school would feel like a huge positive step.

[oneteen]

We are just so negative in the UK..
Parisian schools went back today too... Where there is a will there is a way... We have been in isolation for 7 weeks it will be a rare occurance where a child turns up to school with coronavirus.. I would have thought a much higher risk whilst the schools have been caring for keyworker children of nurses and careworkers.. But yes it's a case of taking safety measures and protecting vulnerable staff.

[Drivingdownthe101]

So usual class size is 30? Some of those will be kept at home. So down to 25. Half in the morning and half in the afternoon? Alternative days?

Apparently 87% of people said they wouldn’t send their children back so surely that makes the class size thing easy? That’s only around 4 kids who will go back per class!

[bigbananafeet12]

Seriously there’s loads of positives we can take from this and I used to work in early years so I know how challenging working with small children is. As schools are definitely now going to be reopening on June 1st I just think it’s worth taking a look at some of these things.

[Terriblehairdontcare]

Just another voice to add I wish people would stop being negative and shutting every idea down.

If we can build nightingale hospitals then we can install extra sinks in schools, maybe even cabins, rearrange classrooms.

School might needs to be part time for a while.

[underneaththeash]

This article is interesting www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01354-0
But what's the alternative - we keep students at home for ever, 1 of mine (unfortunately the secondary level ones) are receiving sub-standard teaching and one is getting none at all. They are due to do exams soon.

This virus is going to be with us for a very long time and I think the public have to accept that life is going to be
(a) more risky than it was before.
(b) those who are more vulnerable are going to need to stay in more.

[Natsku]

I think DD's school will manage it well, they are going to do lots of outdoor lessons as they have the space (right next to a forest so plenty of space for the whole school to spread out), there's sinks in the corridors and the classrooms for handwashing, and class sizes are small (DD's class is considered large at 23). But what works here in rural Finland just can't work in town and city schools in England, they don't have the space.

[FourPlasticRings]

Of course sinks can be put in if schools want to - pretty easy to put dozen sinks in

My primary school has over 500 kids in it. What good is a dozen sinks going to do? If we can get hand gel, that would be a start, but I have no sinks at all in my classroom and was begging the health and safety person to get my class some hand gel before lockdown- no can do, can't get it.

As for outdoor classrooms, there is no grass at all, we have one playground slightly bigger than a basketball pitch and one a great deal smaller than the aforementioned pitch. We already stagger breaktimes and lunchtimes so that the kids don't end up crammed in like battery farmed hens. There won't be any outdoor learning.