Schools guidance released

[Orangeblossom78]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53253722

No dropping of subjects at GCSE then. Posting for info

• just for the avoidance of doubt, I wasn't asking because "it seems sensible", I was asking because my HT had the plans in place and had set up links with the WI Hall etc and then was told at very short notice they specifically could not and must use existing resources only.

Because young kids are not used to adults walking around in masks

They will have to take them of to eat and drink. Or if they feel sick. Wearing masks tells 4-5-6 year olds that something isn't right. .
I read on here once a kids mum used to wear a mask when she was sick and it scared her for life. They are not used to walking around with masks on. They are hot and horrible things.

I don't compare us to other countries. I personally don't like what kids have had to do in other countries either. Apart from the war kids have not had to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders for a long time. Coronavirus is affecting our kids in many ways. It will be changing their thought pattern. Especially infant aged kids. They go to school to play and learn to read, paint and draw. It's like their childhoods are being taken from them. They will experience young childhood so differently to the rest of us. Yet we all think it's going to be ok and they won't notice any of it.

I would suggest firstly we have at the bare minimum a comparable situation to say other countries in Europe such as a working track and trace system to ensure community transmission is traceable before sending schools back. I’d then suggest we afford children and staff in schools the same level of social distancing or preventative measures that are in place in other parts of society, not put them in a 240 person bubble and cross our fingers!! What part of being in a once in 100 year event can people not understand. Things will be very different for quite some time yet. That will either result from rushing to get back to “normal” and suffering the consequences down the road or preferably altering our behaviour however “inconvenient” that may be.

@monkeytennis97

As a fat late forties teacher I agree

Right there with you! We don't seem to matter, however. Whilst teaching is increasingly a young person's job, there are still a significant number of us over 40, over 50 and over 60. I know of several older colleagues who have bowed out. I have considered it myself - I could just about afford to due to an inheritance a few years ago which I saved for 'what if...'. I keep thinking maybe now is 'what if...' I might not matter to this Government or all the parents of mumsnet, but I sure as hell matter to my children and my family.

It's not just inconvenience though is it?! Come on.

I'm a teacher. I teach Reception. I'm concerned about september as I will have 30 small children, just starting school and I won't be able to provide the fun, exciting and welcoming start to school that I normally would. I wish they would just say to go back as normal - I want to be able to sit and read stories on beanbags in the reading corner and to challenge the children to work together to build the best sandcastle. I don't want the children to be scared or anxious coming into school.

Of course I am concerned and anxious myself. I have a vulnerable husband and a young daughter. I want to protect them. However I don't see how removing soft toys, stopping children sharing a book and limiting movement around the classroom is going to help if we are all on top of each other in our class bubble anyway.

In primary we should have class bubbles but within those it should be normal practise. Temperature checks on entry into school could be useful? One of those non contact thermometers every morning and a record kept to watch for a rise?

www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200306-sitrep-46-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=96b04adf_4#:~:text=For%20COVID%2D19%2C,infections%2C%20requiring%20ventilation.

I think people misunderstand what "mild" means.

[i]For COVID-19, data to date suggest that 80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection,
requiring oxygen and 5% are critical infections, requiring ventilation. These fractions of severe and critical infection
would be higher than what is observed for influenza infection.[/i]

"Mild" is literally "not requiring oxygen". I know the mumsnet ethos is "if you're not actually hospitalised you should be able to power through" but having been a carer for some seriously ill people you can be fairly incredibly sick and not at all suitable to care for small children single-handedly without being hospitalised.

Unless the schools plan comes with a plan to provide outreach and somehow check and check regularly on the kids of parents who are isolating kids are going to die from this. Not of covid and god willing not mine (in part BECAUSE I'm already thinking and worrying about this), but of "parents are too ill to adequately supervise small children". And you can bet it's the parents who will be blamed afterwards as well.

No longer teaching, but am a governor at a secondary school and parent of a Y11 DD. I felt sick reading the guidance. Look at the early high death rate among security staff and bus drivers. Teachers will be faced with far higher viral loads than those occupations when there are asymptomatic pupils in school and the corridor crush will be perfect for spreading between teenagers.

I honestly think this is about grabbing the opportunity to break education as we know it, so that something really radical can come in. Something that makes money and generates data, the need for which can be blamed on snowflake teachers and bolshy unions.

I personally don't like what kids have had to do in other countries either. Apart from the war kids have not had to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders for a long time. Coronavirus is affecting our kids in many ways. It will be changing their thought pattern. Especially infant aged kids. They go to school to play and learn to read, paint and draw. It's like their childhoods are being taken from them. They will experience young childhood so differently to the rest of us

So just so I'm clear, because you don't think children should wear masks, my children should risk losing their mother? Would you say that to a nurse? Or someone working in a supermarket? Or would you afford them some space and PPE to try and lessen the risk?

@Tyrionsbitch

Agree and it's so refreshing as a mum to a reception aged child to read that. My DD has missed out on half her first year at school. I want going back to be positive and fun. Not daunting and not the same place anymore.

But the guidance is less stringent in schools as a workplace than it is for other work places. Why should school staff have to take greater risks?

Greater than whom? Let's take supermarket workers, as an example. Yes, the guidance says that they should stay 1m apart from the other people in the supermarkets at all times. But we all can see with our own eyes when we enter a supermarket that it isn't always possible. When they are at the till they are behind a screen. But when they are stacking shelves they are not. They have a lot more touch points than a teacher would have. They have contact with very many more people than a teacher will have. Yes, they may be able to stay 1m apart from most people more of a time than a teacher will, but if you balance that out with the increased number of people that they come into contact with, and their increased touch points, is their risk less?

Or what about people who work in a hospital. We know from regular testing there that people are getting infected at high rates despite PPE.

You might argue that they signed up to work in an environment where they have a high chance of getting ill. But I have spent the last few months seeing schools, and children, being described as 'hotbeds of infection', so, with the greatest respect, perhaps a school wasn't the best place to work in even prior to Covid for those that are more clinically vulnerable to infection.

I honestly think some people have lost all perspective during lockdown. There has been a huge amount of scaremongering so it's understandable. But to consider working in a school a high risk job. It's really really not...

I think anyone considering quitting should give it a few weeks as I'm almost sure you'll feel differently when you get used to things again.

my children should risk losing their mother?

What is the actual risk of that?

They risk losing you every time you get in a car.

@DomDoesWotHeWants

Time for the unions to tell them where to go.

Except the minute the unions try to defend the rights of schools by pointing out how ridiculous these plans are, the media and everyone else will start a teacher-bashing pile on telling them it's their civic duty to get on with it.

For those saying the risk to teachers is the same as working in a shop it isn’t. Classrooms are notoriously poorly ventilated and teachers are stuck for an extended period of time with the same possibly infected kids. That doesn’t happen in shops the interaction is more fleeting.

Greater than whom?

I would imagine most of those workers you’ve mentioned will not have to be in close proximity in a small room with large numbers of people squashed in it for between 1-6 hours at a time. For secondary school teachers, this could be hundreds of different people for extended periods every week.

@Lostmyshityear9

No I say don't open schools full time to all kids until they don't need masks etc. they make breathing hard for some people. They are horrible. They don't work properly anyway! Also no I don't think it's fair to send young children into a complex setting when it's asking too much of them at the age they are that. Expecting infant aged kids to embrace and understand this plan is unreasonable. They are barely out of nappies. School shouldn't be a masked up, social distanced, germ risk place where they can't have a hot meal because of a virus that they were sent home in march to avoid.

What do you tell them? The virus isn't gone afterall but you are going back now. You will wear masks and musnt hold hands with friends or share toys. You can't take your school bag anymore either that you choose sorry!

Time for the unions to tell them where to go
would you care to expand on this or should the unions tell teachers to "not engage" again?

[quote monkeytennis97]@Lostmyshityear9

As a fat late forties teacher I agree[/quote]
You think that education for all should carry on being this shit show because you are fat? Have you thought about addressing your health issues before expecting the whole country to give up on educating millions of pupils? and even so fat and late forties is still a very very low risk.

@Letseatgrandma

Greater than whom?

I would imagine most of those workers you’ve mentioned will not have to be in close proximity in a small room with large numbers of people squashed in it for between 1-6 hours at a time. For secondary school teachers, this could be hundreds of different people for extended periods every week.

No, but as I said, risk has to take into account all factors. Teachers may have more close proximity contact, but supermarket workers will have contact with more people, and they will be touching things that more people will have touched. I'm not an epidemiologist, but I'm merely trying to point out that it's not necessarily a given that teachers are at greater risk than a lot of other professions just because of their close proximity to their students, which is one risk factor, but not the whole picture.

Let's take supermarket workers, as an example. Yes, the guidance says that they should stay 1m apart from the other people in the supermarkets at all times. But we all can see with our own eyes when we enter a supermarket that it isn't always possible. When they are at the till they are behind a screen. But when they are stacking shelves they are not. They have a lot more touch points than a teacher would have. They have contact with very many more people than a teacher will have. Yes, they may be able to stay 1m apart from most people more of a time than a teacher will, but if you balance that out with the increased number of people that they come into contact with, and their increased touch points, is their risk less?

Sigh. Maybe just read up a bit on how this virus spreads? The issue is not how many people you come into contact with - or we would have seen massive rises in the stats following VE day or the beach trips of late. The issue is how a virus moves through an enclosed space with a blow it all about heating system and poor/no ventilation vs. time spent in that space. The science of it is saying 50 minutes in a room with someone who has the virus is enough to infect others. This is why public transport is an issue with proximity and closed spaces - hence bus drivers having a high death rate, hence taxi drivers having a high death rate.

And then there's 1000 plus students charging through narrow corridors, deliberately coughing on people, not washing their hands no matter how many times you tell them to. In primary, students have less concept of personal space and some will need personal care. Staff have to manage, for example, injections for type 1 diabetics. Handwashing is, at best, patchy.

At least supermarket workers are afforded some protection - many are wearing masks, their clients are wearing masks, most people are trying to keep the distance, they have the perspex protection at tills. Their contact with someone with the virus is likely to be seconds/minutes, not 6 hours. More importantly, adults as a whole understand personal space way better than 6 year olds.

I don't know who is most at risk statistically, but I would rather be in a supermarket right now than in a school based on everything I have read.

Didn't three guidance say teachers aren't at any greater risk than any other profession?

Our before and after school care is already open. Not sure how they are getting away with that...

And with the staggered start times we are allowing those with siblings to all drop off at the same ish time so they are not hanging around. It is a pain as that means children are arriving in a 40min window and also leaving in a 40min window but it makes sense to keep parents moving.

The surveillance data for this week is out, and schools and workplaces have the highest number of outbreaks this week, underlining what is now known about how the virus spreads better indoors with constant contact with a group.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports

You think that education for all should carry on being this shit show because you are fat? Have you thought about addressing your health issues before expecting the whole country to give up on educating millions of pupils?

ODFOD. I want to be in school but I want to be in school on an equal safety basis to any other job working with people that is out there. At the moment, based on this guidance, that is clearly not the case. But please, take the time to insult those of us who are less than perfect and try and make us feel bad about ourselves rather than actually address the issue in hand: if the guidance is followed, it will be very hard to avoid unnecessary deaths amongst school staff and even more incidences of serious cases of covid impacting on school communities as a whole. That's not just school staff but the parents and grandparents and other family and friends of people with children in school. Most of us, then.