Schools Reopening?

[ClimbDad]

A major, peer reviewed study into transmission in South Korea has established that tweens and teenagers spread the SARSCOV2 virus more than any other age group.

The study involved more than 65,000 people and used South Korea’s exceptionally effective contact tracing system to look at who brought the virus into households. Tweens and teenagers were the highest index case age group. Younger children transmitted at the same rate as 20-somethings.

This is a large scale, rigorous piece of research that proves children are effective at transmitting the virus. It was conducted in a country that implements strict social distancing and mask wearing among children. The authors say the rate of transmission would have been higher if children weren’t subjected to those measures.

Plans to reopen schools more or less as normal in September will place many lives at risk, and increase the likelihood schools will have to close again. The government needs to acknowledge schools will be highly efficient vectors of viral transmission and change its reopening plans.

Published Paper:
wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-1315_article

Article on the paper:

www.bloombergquint.com/business/covid-19-spread-fastest-by-teens-and-tweens-korea-study-finds

No royals involved. I mean we- the population of England who need to earn, pay tax, live in this country for our lives and future generations!

My local Boots has a maximum of 40 people in at any one time (and it's massive - much bigger than any single teaching block in my school, holding, say, 800 people when full) and the staff have screens, masks and face shields (and breaks to wash their hands!)

Year 10s have had five different subject lessons a day for two days a week at our school. Why would you have five hours of one lesson?

And with planned blended learning the teacher will have set them up ready for the home work and it will build on what has been done in person. It would be very different to what people have experienced with contactless learning.

It may not be ideal but there are no ideals at the minute.

Wishful thinking isn’t a mature or measured approach but that is all we’re getting thus far.

[quote openplankitchen]@FrippEnos it is the government's responsibility to put in measures to reduce community transmission. In schools this will include washing hands, bubbles etc.

It is an individual's responsibility to consider what options are available to them.

[/quote]
I asked you what options the teacher had, you have dodged the question.

@Bupkis

...it is the government's responsibility to put i measures to reduce community transmission. In schools this will include washing hands, bubbles etc.

It is an individual's responsibility to consider what options are available to them.

So, as far as i can see, a teacher, who has been shielded has the option of resigning and the has shielded child has the option of being de registered or being fined.

Obviously they also have the option of trusting that the govt has got it right, and the measures put place in schools are enough to protect them, despite their extremely vulnerable status.

"...trusting the government has got it right..."

The best way to combat a virus that is likely to be airborne is to get everyone to wear masks. This government had to be shamed into abandoning herd immunity, implementing lockdown, ordering PPE for medics, protecting care homes, implementing quarantines at airports, banning mass events - basically the government has dragged its feet over every single public health measure shown to work in other countries. I would not trust it to be right about schools.

@Danglingmod good for you but in my local shopping centre there was no checks at all as to who was going in and out. Boots was fairly crowded with a big queue at the till. Looked like a normal pre COVID shopping day to me. Staff behind tills but many not and some directing people to the self service tills or helping customers etc.

Year 10s have had five different subject lessons a day for two days a week at our school. Why would you have five hours of one lesson?

Some schools are working on this model from Sept.

The problem is having 25% of year 10 in one day per week has used 45% of staff to social distance properly. This is why 2 days a week plus online won't work. There isn't the staff hours. Who monitors the online stuff? Who marks it? Who preps it? When do they do this if they're in school teaching?

I'd rather be back FT than half and half with me expected to teach FT and provide blended learning on top.

Ours has put a person on the door clicking them in and put to count numbers. Nothing like back to normal, according to my friend who works there (apparently the Manager is very good and listens to staff concerns carefully).

Parents who think schools will be "back to normal" come September are deluded.

All the reasons why are on this thread. You will need a back up plan.

No shops at all had anyone monitoring how many were in there in my shopping centre. Morrison’s did have someone clicking people in but once I got inside it was extremely busy and impossible to distance and get things of the shelves. The queue for checkout alone was down one of the aisles with people squeezing past. No staff were in masks and freely stocking the shelves/ looking busy walking around

@DomDoesWotHeWants because back up childcare plans are so easy to arrange right now

@Pebble21uk

I've just caught up on this thread. *@noblegiraffe* and *@Climbdad* your endless calm and intelligent posts in the face of quite frankly, ignorant, kneejerk and reactionary posts are fully supported by many - teachers, staff and parents alike.

I hope that collectively during the time we have left, government will come to listen to some of the proposals you have eloquently suggested and which have been mooted by so many. If they don't - well, I think we have already worked out the consequences.

I'm bowing out of this thread. There are people here who don't want reasoned debate at all. And as the saying goes, 'You can't argue with stupid'.

Thanks @Pebble21uk

It's like February all over again. The science is reasonably clear, the evidence is in from other countries, but people want to believe Britain will somehow be magically different.

For the avoidance of any doubt - if schools go back with normal class sizes and no masks, thousands of people will die. If you're someone who is telling parents and teachers to 'like it or lump it', bookmark this post and come back to it in 2021 whenever you find youself wondering how we added another 100,000 COVID-19 deaths to our already horrendous tally.

but teachers are not going to be around confirmed cases are they? They are not getting up close and personal in the faces and bodies of confirmed COVID patients? They won’t be in the same building as confirmed COVID patients. NHS are.

My DS has just been to get her nails done. Nail technicians are presumably not going to be around confirmed cases either.

What did they have in place?

Masks for all.
Writing a signed confirmation that you are not suffering from Covid symptoms.
Plastic screens between you and the nail tech
Hand bac used on entry
Temperature taken on entry
No waiting in the shop-you had to queue 2m apart outside.

School staff are going back to normal with no changes in the most part, apart from more duties and fewer breaks, so hand washing (about the only thing we have been told to do) will be much much less than usual. Oh, sorry-one change. Teaching children in rows instead of groups. Which protects children from breathing on each other, but actually means all 30 will be breathing straight at the teacher.

It's no doubt true what you say about maths and would quite probably be horrific herc. Oddly enough it would work really well for my subject.

But @Letseatgrandma schools are not going back to normal? Both my DC primary and secondary plans for September have been emailed and they are far far from normal? ESP the secondary school. Why do people keep saying they are going back to normal? It took 3 pages of pdf to outline all the measures and changes!

We're baulking at the idea of 2 hour lessons twice a week in maths piggy. It just doesn't work as well as little and often. However humanities and English are looking forward to it. Science aren't keen for retention either. I guess it's to do with the retention of skills vs knowledge. (Huge other debate on this out there!). If I remember you're media? I can see how whole days would be really beneficial for that.

Because lots of things that are supposedly being put in place aren't actually possible.

Bubbles actually don't and can't exist in secondary schools. End of.

Handwashing can't happen because there aren't any more sinks (we have 1 per 200 children) and teachers won't get a break or toilet break more than once a day.

Social distancing is impossible. Teachers cannot fit in a classroom of 30 and be 1m away from students, let alone 2m.

No PPE allowed.

Teachers don't count as part of a bubble even if the bubble is sent home.

@Time2change2

But *@Letseatgrandma* schools are not going back to normal? Both my DC primary and secondary plans for September have been emailed and they are far far from normal? ESP the secondary school. Why do people keep saying they are going back to normal? It took 3 pages of pdf to outline all the measures and changes!

So-called bubbles of hundreds of pupils. Normal class sizes. No masks. There's a lot of window dressing and extra work for schools, teachers and staff, but the fundamentals aren't being addressed.

The way to reduce transmission is to minimise the number of people in contact, particularly indoors. The virus doesn't care about sectioned off corridors, different start times, or fewer PE lessons. Don't be fooled. These are nonsense measures to give the illusion it's safe.

Airborne transmission means class numbers have to be reduced:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202031254X

Video demonstrating the dynamics of fomite (surface contact) spread:

Yes, there have been lots of plans and lots of change. Schools are having to drastically alter their timetables to attempt to keep year groups in separate zones.

But...

Because it’s apparently fine for all staff to cross all zones, things are much as normal for staff really. The risk is the same to them. Most are still teaching the same number of classes/year groups as normal. They are just in addition to this, having to race around across the school to different rooms, will have more duties and fewer breaks.

A different ‘normal’ yes, but no less risk to school staff.

But there are lots of measures that are possible that you haven’t mentioned. Staggered start and finishes, staggered lunch and break times, kids going to their form rooms via their own door, the school literally being sectioned off so each year group has its own section of classrooms, isolation rooms for kids who feel unwell at school, temps being taken each morning, hand sanitizers used regularly, rooms being re organised and everything except desks and chairs or essential equipment being taken out to give a little more room, areas of the outside grounds being sectioned off for each year group. I don’t expect my DD to mix much with other year groups from the email they have sent. Loos is the only place they might mix and even then they have allocated loos to each year group.

Have any teachers come up with answers yet?

You can't have staggered start and finish times in secondary because of transport.

@climbdad

I completely agree with you. The only effective way to reduce transmission in schools is to reduce class sizes. However this is impossible.

Some of those things are in place at my school but form rooms don't have their own doors and there are not enough toilets to allocate per year group. I think all your thinking is about primary time.

Have any teachers come up with answers yet?

Read the thread.