Back to School, self isolation and pods

[Thewoodstar]

So, just had a letter from school outlining what they have planned for September. School have been fabulous and I can’t see that they can do anymore. The teachers have been brilliant and I thank them all.

However I am concerned about sending DC back. They will be in pods of their class. But sharing bathrooms with other year groups. Hand washing is unsupervised. And just the smell from the boys bathroom is at the end of the day Gives me zero confidence in any hand hygiene.

However my primary concern is the families of other children in the pod. I am confident school will do whatever they can to keep everyone safe. And life isn’t without risk. I get that.
But having spent the last 12 weeks watching older children or siblings from my child’s school, hanging about at the beach, in parks etc. No social distancing whatsoever. Massive big groups. The adults freely having parties and bbqs etc has made me worry. I know it’s all subjective and I have been using my parents for childcare as I had to have several hospital appointments, And I have now started meeting others. So I’m by no means overly anxious or the corona police . But I guess I am just worried that we are at the mercy of all these families who don’t have anyone vulnerable and don’t care about the rest of us. And even without the risk to health, if we have to keep self isolating because our children have been at school in a pod with someone who is symptomatic, are the parents of the said child going to financially compensate all the self employed people who won’t be able to work or get paid? I guess once schools in back, if people decide to ignore the social distancing advice etc, they are making decisions not the whole class and not just themselves. Which seems wrong.

Am I missing something?

I am surprised at the shared bathrooms, both the schools i know have given separate bathrooms to the different bubbles. I would question that.

Do you know how many toilets there are in your child's school? We have 4 cubicles in the girl's toilets, shared between the girls in 8 classes of 30 children (around half are girls). We have 3 cublicles in boys toilets for the same classes. In the new term, 7 bubbles of children will be sharing those toilets.

@Bluewavescrashing

This could apply to schools, health, police, social care, local councils, justice...

Yes but there isn't the same risk of transmission in any of these other settings. Obviously they are all important issues but I can't think of any other places where so many individuals gather in close proximity for many hours every day.

Yes, I get you, I'm just moaning because everything is shiiiiittt

Yup, schools haven't been built with hygiene in mind. Far too many children from different classes sharing toilets. That's how norovirus sweeps through schools like wildfire. I give it 4 weeks from September return until we are all locked down again-or if not just seeing 100s of daily deaths.

It's totally shit 😕

@ohthegoats

I am surprised at the shared bathrooms, both the schools i know have given separate bathrooms to the different bubbles. I would question that.

Do you know how many toilets there are in your child's school? We have 4 cubicles in the girl's toilets, shared between the girls in 8 classes of 30 children (around half are girls). We have 3 cublicles in boys toilets for the same classes. In the new term, 7 bubbles of children will be sharing those toilets.

We were told separate toilets for separate been bubbles.

I teach in a secondary with a sixth form. There are 3 toilet blocks with 6 toilets each and 3 sinks to serve nearly 1500 students.

@motherrunner

I teach in a secondary with a sixth form. There are 3 toilet blocks with 6 toilets each and 3 sinks to serve nearly 1500 students.

We have more than that for our small primary!

We have 3 girls blocks with 12 toilets and the same for boys for 1500. We can't give each bubble a set of toilets.

Sharing toilets at our school too and apparently that's absolutely fine.

@Drivingdownthe101 I teach in a Victorian building. Until a few years ago is was a 4 form entry, now it is a 6 form entry.

I just thought there is a another toilet block in the ‘new’ part of the school, so another 4 toilets.

There are still however only 5 female toilets to serve the staff. One more if you count the disabled.

am surprised at the shared bathrooms, both the schools i know have given separate bathrooms to the different bubbles. I would question that

Many schools I’ve taught in simply don’t have enough toilets to keep them separate

Schools that have enough toilets will assign one per bubble, presumably. And those that don't simply can't.

We don’t have anywhere near enough toilets to give separate toilets to separate bubbles, it’s just not feasible. Only way to do that would be to put portaloos somewhere - but we already don’t have enough classrooms so can’t see where they would go tbh.

@TheFallenMadonna

Schools that have enough toilets will assign one per bubble, presumably. And those that don't simply can't.

Yep, and this is where all the ‘if possible’ in the guidance means huge amounts of variation between schools not a great deal of protection for anyone.

Ooh, can’t wait!

My DDs school have a toilet block in the juniors and one in the infant's (with boys and girls toilets). So toilets shared between 8 classes and 6 classes. Don't think there is enough for one cubicle per class... Maybe per year group.

On the plus side, every classroom can be accessed from the outside, so they don't need to worry about the corridors.

With schools, I think you either have to except that transmission can happen, or not send your children. They can't keep every bubble completely seperate out of school. Out of school clubs will be back in September too, so mixing between schools will happen. It's also important to remember that numbers are low, and track and trace will help keep them low. There were 28 cases in the whole of my County last week.

I work across to bubbles so 60 children. Then I have 4 children. 2 at primary so another 60. Plus 2 secondary school with year group bubbles of 345 for one and 300 for the other. That's a very big bubble for our household.

We have 120 children with 6 toilets. 3 girl, 3 boy.

Deregister and keep your kids at home if you have a fucking problem with it. Let those of us who don't actually let our kids have an education and a future.

Oh no wait cos that would mean yours are missing out - so you want the rest of the world to miss out because you can't get your anxiety levels in control. Yeah - not happening.

Bubbles are not to 'protect people' they are purely to assist track and trace. I'm confused as to what people think the government should do? Children need to be in schools. The protection measures are supposed to be adults in school distancing from each other and older children distancing from adults, hand washing, catch it kill it bin it and increased cleaning. Groups can't be kept apart as school building simply do not have the space.

If I never hear about bubbles popping it will be too soon

Our school is crammed full and has over 200 in each bubble!! That's 200 families freely mixing in effect. No room for social distancing at all, the classrooms are tiny and normally they sit almost touching each other.

I despair. I'm not sure how the government can justify opening schools that are this crammed. Just how?

It's appalling along with the missed care homes in the beginning. Schools will provide the next wave at this rate.

Why can't the government give guidelines saying only if covid safe assessment is carried out as workplaces have to do.

What's the difference between a group of 200 18 year olds working in a factory with full covid assessment and protection ,

And 200 16-18 year olds crammed into classrooms with no masks, no social distancing and full risk.

Surely an 18 year old in education spreads the virus the same as another who is working?

This age group is most able to access online learning, why are efforts not being put in to fine tune this platform?

It makes me scared. I don't think the government know what they are doing.

Bubbles hopefully limit the spread, plus make track and trace easier. There is still a risk though, there’s no way around that. You have to weigh up the risk of covid (based on levels in your area, how well your school and family can follow the guidelines, how many other people you’re exposed to etc) against the risk of your children falling behind, being bored, not learning to socialise etc.

I'm now just going with bubbles = bollocks

Absolute presentational nonsense.

@DominaShantotto not all children have been left to their own devices at home. Mine certainly haven't and in fact my youngest daughter has done way better academically during lockdown. The health of our children, their teachers and the wider community is a big deal, wouldn't you say.

@PickledWilly

Bubbles are not to 'protect people' they are purely to assist track and trace. I'm confused as to what people think the government should do? Children need to be in schools. The protection measures are supposed to be adults in school distancing from each other and older children distancing from adults, hand washing, catch it kill it bin it and increased cleaning. Groups can't be kept apart as school building simply do not have the space.

If I never hear about bubbles popping it will be too soon

So you accept there's no protection from transmission in schools and still arguing we should send them in?

What I think the government should do is something other than send them all in to spread the flipping virus around again!

If nothing else, parents in England should not be fined, as will be the case, so we can let the brave parents try it out first. And teachers should have better protection.

if we have to keep self isolating because our children have been at school in a pod with someone who is symptomatic

You are assuming that the parents are honest about a child being symptomatic. So many send their children in when they have been sick, I can't imagine that having a 'bit of a cough' or 'feeling slightly warm but fine after some calpol' will be any different. The bosses will be back to their old intolerant ways demanding people drag themselves in, except now grandparents will be even less likely to take in a sick child so they will be sent into school and told to get on with it. Teachers will be expected to police this but they have enough on their plates already.