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

@SengaStrawberry

Or what’s your answer OP? Keep schools closed forever and keep denying children their fundamental human right to an education?

Even if cases rise, they still need to go back to school. Nothing is ever going to be risk free. Having an uneducated population and a completely screwed economy is worse than COVID. We all live with the risk of illnesses every day that can have lifelong effects. We can’t shut down society to prevent getting them.

If schools reopen more or less as normal, then the closure of schools within a matter of weeks is inevitable. One cannot negotiate with exponential maths.

We do live with all kinds of risks, but we don’t normally live with a lethal pandemic virus. Pretending this is a normal pathogen was part of the government’s mistake from the outset.

Bubbles will not work either, I’m sick of the word to be honest. How can a group of 270 kids be called a bubble? Most of them will have siblings, some will mix with other kids from other schools and year groups out of school. It’s all going to be a shit show.

@BrieAndChilli

What the alternative though? People need to work. The country is financially screwed already. Kids need social interaction and proper learning. Sucide rates have doubled. Cancers aren’t being detected in time. Poverty will increase which leads to more death and poor outcomes and health. At what point do we say that the lives adversely affected by lockdown are greater than the lives adversely affected by covid? Which lives do we pick as more important? Lives are going to be lost no matter which option we decide to continue with.

The country is in a mess, so we might as well do things that will make it worse...

This thread is full of suggestions from teachers and others to help reduce risk, but they require investment and planning. The government would rather not spend or have to do any work to make schools safer, so it’s pretending we can go back to normal.

I'm a teacher and parent to a secondary school child. The measures in my school and my son's school are strict and quite frankly will be pretty tough on the kids, especially for my son. However it's better than being at home. My son's school ran an amazing online learning provision (state secondary) but he still found it hard and I know learning was lost. Online learning is no substitute for being at school. There are many many vulnerable children and families where being off school is disastrous and not just eductionally, the child protection issues are huge. Cases are currently low and so we need to have children back in schools. There are powers for localised lockdowns which need to be used as and when necessary. We can't keep schools shut or part time just in case. The risks to children and young people in keeping schools closed are greater than the risk of the virus and I say that both as a teacher and a mum.

@Orangeblossom78

It concerns me a bit that secondary pupils will be in groups of around 240. Our school has 1200 in total. Whereas primary in groups of 30 (given that the former may be more risk than the latter). I understand most university students are online next year. However think it is not good for secondary to just be online. I have no answers.

Our bubble will be 90 in primary school . I am worried.

Are you sure as think it is bubbles of 30 in primary? (class size) even if you have 3 classes in a year (90)

Popfan what kind of thing do you mean? (tough) Ours has given no info yet.

We need to learn from the experiences of other countries. Israel was one of the few countries to reopen schools with normal class sizes and the consequences were disastrous.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/israelis-fear-schools-reopened-too-soon-as-covid-19-cases-climb-11594760001

Op who do you suggests cares for all the children staying at home long term - in your plans? What do you suggest is the solution for working parents? And if the parents cannot work (which I suggest will be your solution) who pays to support them and the decimated economy? I’m presuming you aim for remote learning until a vaccine is in place, which could be months or years.

Our bubbles are Year group bubbles. (Primary, so 60 here.) It is difficult to achieve the same quality of learning with less resources and flexibility. It will degenerate into Chalk and talk / childcare.

I am in favour of whole school return. However, I am glad that we are starting to be honest about the risks. There has been a sort of panicky head-in-the-sand adherence to a narrative that it won't spread in schools, which went against common sense. Schools need to prepare for a flexible way of working this year and so do other employers and employees.

The measures taken so far will allow for bubbles to close if necessary and for other children to get on with their learning in the best way.

@Orangeblossom78

Are you sure as think it is bubbles of 30 in primary? (class size) even if you have 3 classes in a year (90)

Nope, we are working as a year group bubble. My head has set it all out this week. The bubbles will be the whole year group, so 90+ children. The classrooms are not big enough to have 30 children in as we have a lot of shared space and outdoor space. And to top it off, they can't sustain the hand sanitizer bill so we are left with soap and water!

Definitely agree that the lack of resources and money for this sector is appalling.

@Barbie222

Our bubbles are Year group bubbles. (Primary, so 60 here.) It is difficult to achieve the same quality of learning with less resources and flexibility. It will degenerate into Chalk and talk / childcare.

I am in favour of whole school return. However, I am glad that we are starting to be honest about the risks. There has been a sort of panicky head-in-the-sand adherence to a narrative that it won't spread in schools, which went against common sense. Schools need to prepare for a flexible way of working this year and so do other employers and employees.

The measures taken so far will allow for bubbles to close if necessary and for other children to get on with their learning in the best way.

Although I struggle to see this working with isolated bubbles. Children have siblings throughout year groups so surely they could also be affected? It's such a big old mess. I think we'll probably have closures before half term. Our LEA sent an email to all parents asking if they had adequate WiFi and devices

Op what do YOU think should happen. It sounds very much like you want schools to stay closed with distance learning? Instead of criticising, what would you like to see happen

Whilst some children may do ok in a distance learning environment, not all do. My 6 year old son was beginning to show signs of depression before the holiday club at a local private school opened and I could get him in there, even though his school don’t break up until Friday.
Being at home was doing him harm.

Covid is not the only risk you know?

I do agree there should be preparation made for if schools HAVE to close but closing to face to face in person teaching should be an absolute last resort for as shorter time as possible.

What will do with your 7-year-old if you catch the virus and are one of the unlucky people who has debilitating symptoms that go on for months

TBF you can use this argument with absolutely every illness there is in existence. All illnesses carry the risk of complications because everyone responds in their own unique way and you never know how you will respond until you are in the position of having caught it. You might have successfully faught off flu in the past for example but then on one occassion end up as one of the unfortunate ones with meningitis or encephalitus as a complication depending on what else is going on with your immune system at the time (yes, I know flu isn't caparable and there is a vaccine etc etc but people still do catch and suffer complications regardless). Have you not read the extensive list of side effects and complications that comes with all medication - whos to say you wont be one of the 1 in 100, 1 in 1000 that suffers a detrimental impact this one time you happen to take it. Yes, Covid is nasty for some but you can't shelter yourself away and have everyones lives put on hold indefinately due to a what if scenario. Its all about balancing the risk.

I think it's pretty staggering how many people missed the point that this is one of the few studies about teenagers. There is data on under 10s but it's informative to hear about older kids too.

The photos in this article suggest that they have screens and masks in South Korean secondaries
www.standard.co.uk/news/world/schools-south-korea-close-coronavirus-a4453936.html

Are you sure as think it is bubbles of 30 in primary? (class size) even if you have 3 classes in a year (90)

Our bubbles are Year group bubbles. (Primary, so 60 here.) It is difficult to achieve the same quality of learning with less resources and flexibility. It will degenerate into Chalk and talk / childcare.

I work in an area of high community transmission. Our school has a lot of children who live in multi generational households. We were told we have to have bubbles of 30. The second comment above worries me hugely. How are we going to catch these kids up, or even keep them up, when we can't run normal streamed classes or interventions properly. We have year groups of 120, so move children around a lot.

I find it very interesting reading all the posts where people are completely unprepared to return back to their busy offices on a packed train, due to the risks of Covid, but want their children and our teachers to do just that

I suspect for some, not wanting to return to an actual office has more to do with the money they are saving on travel/lunch/not popping into the shops to buy needless crap on their break, not having to factor in to their day the time wasted commuting, not having to don a smart suit/heels/full face of make up everyday, not having a boss micro managing them, no longer having to deal with the excess work that gets piled onto you simply because you are there when your boss walks past and best of all, not having to put up with trivial office politics all day every day rather than having an actual fear of covid itself.

But the virus is in decline now with the R number well below 1 and has been for weeks. The chances of anyone having it now and spreading it to others is minuscule. Obviously we can’t spring back to normal and need to keep the other measures we have in place going to keep that being the case but 700 people in Scotland are currently believed to have the virus and it’s hopefully going to keep falling. It’s a different place where we were before schools closed. A second wave or an increase will only happen if people’s behaviour lets it.

Kids need to be in school and they need to be educated properly. It’s not an optional extra. It must happen. I am bemused at how little importance some people seem to attach to the importance of schooling and education. This nonsense has gone on long enough. Back to school. We can’t stop every single person getting it or passing it on but if we keep following the rules I don’t see why it can’t stay manageable.

I think we should be allowed to ask for proof of a negative test before a child with symptoms returns.

We had a parent a few weeks ago who phoned to say DC wouldn’t be in as he had a temp. We advised her to get a test or isolate. She then said oh I didn’t measure it, he was just hot as it was a hot day.

Schools need to be empowered to enforce zero tolerance when it comes to illness in the autumn term.

We can't just stop education. Vulnerable and shielding need to take precautions, the rest need to get to some sort of normality.

And this may be more controversial, but I think parents should have to get their children tested, no choice. I work in EYFS / KS1 where there will be no social distancing and I think staff deserve to know if they have been in close contact with a positive case.

There’s no sign of a vaccine.

If we close schools forever, what happens? I can’t imagine, really. There are many, many faults with the school system, but to abandon it in one fell swoop...

The whole country does not consist of invested middle-class parents eagerly home schooling. There will be kids wandering the streets. Unsocialised kids. Forgotten kids. It will be a huge social problem.

We can't just stop education. Vulnerable and shielding need to take precautions, the rest need to get to some sort of normality.

What provision do you then think there should be made for vulnerable and shielding school staff?

It’s a different place where we were before schools closed.

February half term - do you remember that? It ended on 22nd February. Cases were low, there was a bit of concern about people coming back from Italy after half term ski trips, but schools were open as normal.

A month later the country was in lockdown.