Just been told dd’s school is only opening for year six

[gingajewel]

Just having a rant! Just had communication from the school that only year six will be in on 1st June and it has really annoyed me! How can things ever go back to how they need to be when schools are ignoring government guidelines! And yes I’m prepared to be flamed but it has annoyed me that I now need to tell my place of work that I still can’t go back to work!

People can question it but you'll never get reassurance everythings safe again because it never was in the first place.

I don't think people want reassurance that it's completely safe but the government should issue risk assessment data and plans for making it as safe as it can possibly be.

Risk is so low in those age brackets, get people back to work and kids back to school.

Are you saying then that staff older than 39 don't go to work then? How about vulnerable staff with health conditions (not shielding)? What risk are they at? What risk is there of not dying but suffering long term or even life changing effects? Have they published data on that?

cycling,

It isn;'t the risk to children in school that you - or anytone thinking about return to school should be thinking about.

The point is that children will not, and cannot, socially distance in school. That means that all the families associated with a group of children - in normal times, the whole school, but under what the government is suggesting, the 'bubble' of 15, plus the families of any adults who come into contact with that group in school - are linked by a clear route of virus transmission.

Therefore, the risk to consider is not just the children, but every member of every household a school child lives in - their diabetic mum, their elderly gran, their dad undergoing cancer treatment.

It is only when community cases are down to a tiny number - as in Denmark - that such uncontrolled connection between a wide group of families is reasonable. At the moment - the large random testing trial carried out last week - 1 in 400 people are currently infected with the virus. Schools are an ideal transmission for that 1 in the 400 people easily associated with a single smallish primary to spread it to another, who might be vulnerable, without either ever setting foot in the school itself....

If risk is so low for children, why are they not allowed in supermarkets?
And if it's OK to not socially distance in schools, why must we in garden centres?
And if it's OK for teachers to mark books used by a range of children, how come shopkeepers won't accept cash?

They are allowed in supermarkets but most supermarkets have asked only one member of a family goes in if possible. They're not inherently banned because they're filthy disease spreaders.

We must socially distance everywhere we possibly can. Of course anyone who's ever been in a school knows it's not possible. But we limit the growth of the virus but continuing to do that everywhere we can.

It's up to shopkeepers whether they handle cash... Most will still take it. If teachers don't want to handle books then I'm sure they won't, although whether that's a real risk I honestly don't know.

@cyclingmad
Well latest is that pressure from unions, labour council areas defusing to open schools means they are going to abandon june 1st, so congrats peer pressure.
Where did you hear that? Can you link?

I work for a company with European offices and everyone in northern europe (france, switzerland, germany, nordic) is scheduled (at least tentatively) or already back to work as schools reopen. Except for the precious Brits. And Italy and Spain. Seemed to have worked fine

The death toll is low, especially London. Most are hospital/care home cases. i reckon they should reopen schools, focus on imported cases, go heavy on track and trace + testing. There is always the possibility of shutting schools again where outbreaks occur which should be expected in the minority.

I suspect that school are not.going back in Italy is partly due to schools usually breaking up for summer around 10th June so hardly worth the hassle.of going back for a couple of weeks.

Don't know about when Spain normally breaks up for summer but may well be a lot earlier than the UK and similar to Italy. The idea behind very long summer holidays in Italy is the extreme heat by middle of June until well into September that's not compatible with school.

@cyclingmad what about the teachers? My DS’s school is lucky they have an abundance of younger teachers but his old school the majority of teachers were closer to retirement than their 50th birthday. The risk is higher for those.

The guidance said Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 were to be looked at to return. They aren’t ignoring guidance at all, they’ve decided to not trial a system with children who are likely to need comforting and are likely to understand the new rules and what they need to do.

Right a couple of things, firstly, this is guidance not set in stone. Secondly, the school have to rigorously risk assess whether they can have children in the building in groups of no more than 15. It may be that they do not have suitable space for all children. Thirdly, they may not have sufficient staff to to cover teaching.

This is not personal, although it may seem like that to you. Next, Yr6 are going to be better at social distancing and much less needs to be removed from the classroom to keep them as safe as possible.

If you are really unhappy ask to see the risk assessment.

track and trace + testing

Sadly, track and trace are not yet in place, and won't be before schools go back.

The unions did suggest that having it in place nationally before opening the schools (and thus generating more track and tracing work) might have been a good plan ... but no....

I agree that opening schools when cases are low enough, and the infrastructure robust enough, for track and trace to work would be a BRILLIANT idea. Sadly, it didn't happen.