School re-opening under threat

[jomartin281271]

Headline in the London Evening Standard today that this new surge could threaten re-opening of schools. I'm not surprised. The government know that it's not safe to open schools under their current guidance. Cramming children, teachers and admin staff into those tiny spaces could cause a catastrophe. I feel sorry for teachers. Most of them are really committed to the job and their lives are being put at risk. Scary times.
www.standard.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-second-wave-schools-september-a4511516.html

Schools will probably start to close quite quickly. Teachers with symptoms can't go in and have to isolate. Not enough teachers means schools close.

Cant we need to stop prioritising some dc. Completely isolating some children so others have small bubbles is no longer acceptable. Wasn’t really before but no choice.

I have at no point suggested we should prioritise some dc - I was furious that keyworker childcare continued long after its critical importance ended.

All children should have planned blended learning initially - week and week about for secondary, half weeks for primary. All secondary pupils (and possibly upperprimary) should wear masks, teachers should wear visors.

Governent should fund

• Cleaners and equipment
• Outdoor sinks
• Laptops for deprived families and remote teaching equipment for teachers
• Doubling of school transport capacity to allow SD

@Tootletum

So how am I supposed to earn a living? Teachers won't lose their jobs if schools close, I will.

No, teachers won’t lose our jobs because we will still be doing our jobs if schools close. I can say quite faithfully that I worked from 8-6 every day during lockdown teaching online, preparing distance learning materials, and marking. I am continuing to tutor as a volunteer over the summer.

My large state secondary was able to provide a very high quality remote experience for the majority of children, but as a union rep I also hear of many other school settings and I realise that this simply wasn’t possible in all schools - there are so many variables.

I say this with greatest sympathy for your situation though. There needs to be provision made to enable parents to work, but most school environments will not be safe. Childcare, education and children’s socialisation need to be considered carefully and separately.

The government have set out guidelines to open schools as safely as possible

Pray do tell. You mean wash your hands more even though it’s an airborne virus?

Is there any reason why you think an entire generation would have serious mental health issues

Exactly. Handled well by parents, there’s no reason to believe an entire generation will be affected by a few months out of formal education.

Where 9 love the official figures show no cases at the moment, May change of course with peeps coming back from Spain, but if the 2 week quarantine remains on place, then by September will have flushed through those travellers.
Where I love also has demographic of lower risk residents so even if 'cases' rise, mortality will be low.
Clearly Rochdale is in a different situation entirely. So while there may be pockets where serious cases arise, it is ridiculous to have a one trick pony solution for the whole of England.
Surely the likelihood is local restrictions/LAs have been given the power to do that. But it should be morbidity that drives that, not cases.
Additionally, risk factors very massively and the calculations are available and updated constantly. So you can calculate your own risk factor and adapt your conduct appropriately.
Would be ridiculous overkiill for a healthy 30/something not to go to work where I livr for example.
And the hyperbole about children beings 'orphaned' is just that (BOTH parents over 60 with underlying conditions? And single parents are rarely truly that unless actually widowed.
However, given that there are people who catastrophise about orphaned children, they should adjust their whole behaviour -perhaps change job if their job puts them in a situation the they deem risky. It is not up to a whole generation to have their loved and education disrupted because of that too-small-to-calculate group that wants to remain in a situation that they are frighted of.
As a teacher I have been working on schemes of work for September and beyond to make them 'tweakable' for different types of learning. We had to do this on the hoof last term, but now have had enough time to learn what works best if remote need to be switched on. It is really worth
checking g with your school how 'agile' they can be in this regard and ask for specifics, not generalities.

@cantkeepawayforever

All those saying 'my priority is to get my child / children back in school - what do you regard as acceptable collateral damage for this? In terms of staff illness and death, and in terms of increased community spread leading to the illness and death of those in the community around a school?

The same amount of community infections and deaths again as we have already had? More? Less?

Or is any amount of adult infection and death allowable as 'children don't get it too badly so their education has to take priority'?

This ^^

My clinically vulnerable DD with ME caught covid from either DS or DH (a teacher) and has relapsed. She has missed 4 years of education so far from the age of 14 and has now had to defer re-entering education due to her relapse.

Tbf if DC can't cope with a few months of missed education, they need to learn to be more resilient. Otherwise how are they going to manage when something really shit happens, like 4.5 years of being ill?

@tootyfruitypickle

It’s not even just about education, but the impact on society of an entire generation with serious mental health issues in the future. That risk is higher than the risk of Covid in my view

I agree - but in the sense that telling teenagers that they are a lost generation, that their future has been ruined and they will never recover from the missed work is incredibly damaging. My oldest dc’s school sent a letter home asking parents to stop catastrophising in front of their kids as it was making the kids panic and damaging their mental health.

I mean. Imagine having to be told that, but that’s probably for another thread, along with “British kids can’t possibly wear masks even though kids manage in other countries.” Why? Are they stupider than kids in other countries? Doubt that very much.

For the love of all that is holy please teach your kids resilience. They might get more learning done in school if resilience can be taught at home instead of passing that job on to teachers as well...

The government have set out guidelines to open schools as safely as possible.

You know this isn't true. Having bubbles is simply give the illusion that something is being done. As is telling people to wash their hands more. When in reality schools have limited hand washing facilities, and there is no extra funding to increase this. They've given schools guidelines, but they're not measures that allow schools to open as safely as possible.

My children’s school has over 900 pupils and staff and have managed to implement safe systems to allow all children to return in September.

They've implemented measures, but that doesn't mean these measures are actually making the environment safer.

They are making it as safe as is possible. Like I say we live with risks every day. Until a vaccine we need to live with this virus and that means getting all children back to school.

The measures put in place are:

Bubbles of 30
Staggered start and finish times
Good hand hygiene continuing with the caretaker squirting sanitizer on each child’s and parents hands as they enter the school grounds
Each child will have their own bottle of hand sanitizer on their forward facing desk
There is to be no mixing with other bubbles at break or lunch
Should a child or staff member in the bubble have symptoms they will immediately be tested. If negative the bubble will continue as normal, if positive the bubble isolates in accordance with the guidelines.

The school remained open for key workers throughout and managed to open up to the necessary year groups without any problem and without a single case.

People need to remember the risk of getting it is slim, the risk of being hospitalised even slimmer and the risk of dying slimmer still. Yes I know it’s horrifically sad for those who have lost their lives but they know more about the virus now than they did in March and hospital treatment, if necessary, seems much more effective now.

It’s a risk benefit to society . Do you drive? What about the risk you might kill someone?

About 1,700 people have been killed in RTA in the UK each year over the last few years.

About 46,000 from Covid so far.

As an over 50 teacher with an underlying health condition, I would suggest that the risk of me becoming ill or dying from Covid is rather higher than my risk of being killed (or killing anyone) in a RTA?

I am also not sure why the mental health risk to a child of ongoing blended learning (part time in school, part time at home) is considered so much higher than the mental health risk of their teacher becoming ill or dying?

At DD2 & DD3's school, the measures they are implementing are:

• Separate entry queues for each year group, with hand sanitisation on the way into school.
• Each year group has a designated 'home zone'. All lessons except specialist lessons (PE, Music, Dance, Drama, Art, Science) will be taught in a single room for each group, with teachers moving to them.

-Designated lunch spaces -Extra time for hand washing -PE kit to be worn into school on PE/Dance days -One way system.

I am also not sure why the mental health risk to a child of ongoing blended learning (part time in school, part time at home) is considered so much higher than the mental health risk of their teacher becoming ill or dying

Exactly. Not to mention taking it home to family members, grandparents etc.

"... but if the 2 week quarantine remains on place, then by September will have flushed through those travellers...."

There is no mandatory quarantine and no one is checking. And no track and trace. It's like sprinkling fairy dust in the air and wishing something away.

The gov has has the means, but not the will to do anything rational or logical.

Many of these selfish twats will go in pubs, shops, work, transport and spread the virus knowingly or unknowingly.

"...The government have set out guidelines to open schools as safely as possible....."
Oh ffs. People should read the guidelines themselves to see how not true this is. It's fuzzy, unrealistic and doesn't give a crap about a lot of things that are already known. And it's guidance. If a HT decides not to do things accordingly (not from spite, but need maybe) then it's up to them.
This whole things is about transferring responsibility to the schools when it should live with gov.

Close the borders, have a 14d mandatory quarantine in gov facilities as a start. We are on a fucking island after all.

Scotland is about to say what it is doing for school return www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-53436237

They return the 11th Aug

It is a ridiculous situation. We had sturgeon standing up berating people for not social distancing and she would re-close pubs and restaurants if people didn't start doing what they were supposed to be doing. Quarantine was re-introduced and people should stop going to crowded places because of the scary spike in numbers we are seeing everywhere else.

In the next breath Swinney stands up and states children will return to school come hell or high water.

All completely wrong.

I'm a Scottish teacher literally sitting waiting to watch the announcement in 10 minutes announcing a full return to school for us.

I am really struggling to understand the logic that dictates that I don't need PPE and that my 16/17 year old pupils will not be expected to wear masks. I probably teach as many pupils in a day as many shop assistants serve, in closer proximity for longer, yet with none of the same protection or consideration.

It's scary.

So, Lougle

• Do the year groups travel separately to school, or do they share public or school transport?

• What safety measures are in place for the teachers, who will each face hundreds of children per day? Can they wear masks / visors? Are there screens? Is there a clear 2m zone around their desk? is air flow towards or away from their normal position?

• Given that airborne transmission is at least a possibility, how well ventilated are all classrooms? How are they heated? Do all windows open, and do any have blown air heating? Which direction is the air flow?

• How many children are there in a year group? How many in a group? Is there any opportunity for social distancing?

• Are toilets shared? How many sinks are there for each group?

• How often are rooms cleaned?

The way to test whether this is genuinely virus safe, or whether it is just a set of figleaves, is to picture a particular child's day - if they have Covid, how many people can they infect, and what measures will reduce this?

So a sibling - one of your DDs, say, is in close contact with their sibling from another year at home. They catch the school bus, on which there is no social distancing and air circulation is on. every child on that bus is now a close contact with the infected child. Those children get off and jouin their separate year group lines, where they mix with children from other class groups, not socially istanced. They sit for hours in the same classroom, not socially distanced, and without very good ventilation - every child in that classroom is now a close contact, and every classroom containing a child from that bus is now a close contact too. Each teacher coming in has to use much of the same equipment as the previous one (as there is no time for full cleans between lessons), and due to lack of space is within 2m of the children in the class, including your infected DD.

The class shares toilet facilities and other facilities with the remainder of the year group - thus they become infected.

The teachers who have taught your DD's class use the same staff toilets as other teachers, where the now infected teachers spread infection to their colleagues.... and so on.

Do you now see why the safety measures are a set of figleaves?

Arrangements that reduce the number of children in any group at any one time, and allow genuine social distancing, both in scool and on school transport, would be much more useful, ditto masks and visors for teachers.

I'm a teacher. If I've got this right, I will have to self isolate for 14 days if anyone in my household gets a cough. I can't even go back early if I get a negative test, because of the incubation period. I'm not sure if I can go back if I have no symptoms and the household member tests negative? It's pretty unclear.

So, I see 2 options.

Option 1: Teachers follow the self isolation guidelines. For me, I estimate that will probably mean 6 weeks absence between now and Easter and I am not a special case. That's roughly a quarter of my time in self-isolation, and I am not basing this on anyone in my household actually HAVING Covid. This option means we will probably be trying to run on at most 75% of our staff at all times. I'm not sure how doable this is.

Option 2: Teachers might self isolate if they themselves have symptoms, but choose to lie about household members having them, and go in anyway. We MIGHT get away with this, but obviously, it will contribute to the risk of outbreaks in schools. If Covid cases do increase, this will really add to it, and if there is an outbreak in the area, it's likely to mean more schools shutting down completely.

Ideally, I'd like to see some way of using the 25% who are self-isolating, but quite possible perfectly well enough to work, in providing better quality out of school learning. I think we should be planning for high levels of self-isolation, because whilst we don't know how Covid is going to act over winter, we can bloody well figure out what all the other usual viruses will do and what levels of absence they will cause.

Which brings me to my last point - Why hasn't someone already calculated how much teacher absence is likely to be caused through self-isolation of normal viruses? It should be within our capacity. Someone could use school records to see what proportion of days off are caused by what types of illness. It wouldn't count all the students who come in with colds who now won't be, but it would work as a best case scenario and we could plan around that (as opposed to my back of a fag packet calculations above).

What the parents who are posting ‘my school is implementing safety measures and I’m happy with them’ seem to be missing is:

They don’t apply to the teachers.

It’s great that the kids are in bubbles protected from the rest of the school with zones and one way systems and handwashing and they will all be facing the front of the class instead of facing each other. (Ignoring the fact that the bubbles do bog all to protect you from the rest of the school if they mix the minute they leave the school site)

But teachers will be teaching in all the different zones, mixing with all the bubbles and in the classroom, all the kids will be facing them! They also won’t have time to wash their hands because they’ll be travelling around the school from lesson to lesson and hopefully slapping on a bit of hand sanitiser in between logging onto the computer (quick wipe with dettol) and trying to calm the chaos of a class who have been left unsupervised for the first 5 minutes of the lesson.

Parents might be happy with what’s being provided for their kids, but they should also respect that it’s an entirely different deal for the teachers and perhaps it’s not good enough.

I'm not sure if I can go back if I have no symptoms and the household member tests negative?

Yes, I think so. The 14 days only apply with a positive test. If they have a positive test and you test negative, you still have to isolate for 14 days because a negative test is no guarantee of you not developing it in a few days.

@Lougle

At DD2 & DD3's school, the measures they are implementing are:

• Separate entry queues for each year group, with hand sanitisation on the way into school.
• Each year group has a designated 'home zone'. All lessons except specialist lessons (PE, Music, Dance, Drama, Art, Science) will be taught in a single room for each group, with teachers moving to them.

-Designated lunch spaces -Extra time for hand washing -PE kit to be worn into school on PE/Dance days -One way system.

1. in each home zone the aircon/heating/air circulation will make sure that in the 6-8 hours that the same kids are there most of them will catch whatever they can.

1. In this country everyone goes into work/sends kids to school with the "sniffles". How do we expect these people to take anything seriously, when using a tissue paper is beyond them? I have put my foot down last winter in the office, ordered tissues and sanitizers to all desks and made it mandatory to blow your nose instead of sniffing all day and sneezing because of it, then sanitize your hand. This for grown ups. And they grumbled and called me a tyrant, but at the end understood that I have an underlying condition and a simple cold is 3 weeks off for me. And that where I come from this is called basic self-hygiene. It turns out that this winter we had 0 colds/flu sicknesses for the first time in the office (according to HR records) compared to about 20-30% sick-time in previous years.

And enforcing it was a pain, because it meant that every time I had to call out these adult men/woman as if they were children. It wasn't nice/good, but if their parents didn't teach them than it was bloody time someone did. (I also ordered a stack of mandarines to each desk 2x a week as a vitamin C supplement)

Is there any reason why you think an entire generation would have serious mental health issues

Exactly. Handled well by parents, there’s no reason to believe an entire generation will be affected by a few months out of formal education.

How would I have been able to handle it well when I was at out work all day throughout lockdown and my teenager was at home alone all day trying to do the school work without any help from me? I was educating other people's children who have come on in leaps and bounds because of being in such a small group with high ratios (2 adults, 8 children) whilst mine struggled alone. The school provided excellent online teaching, that wasn't the issue but being at home alone for 30 hours a week for 4 months isn't ideal for any child or teenager.

Boxer how is your children's school safe?? Do you actually know our have you just had the upbeat positive letter. My school has lovely positive letters to parents. All staff told be positive with parents. But in reality it is far from safe. I find it astonishing so many parents are so focused on there jobs that they don't want to hear from the people who actually work in a school. Also I have children so I totally understand the want of getting our children back to some sort of normality but not at the sacrifice of safety. My children go to different schools to me so I could very possibly have the same working dilemma.

Cant no I know I was more explaining my post to pp who posted about single dc being a priority, I’m glad we agree on moving away from prioritising some.

I agree with all your recommendations except with ft education.

A Scottish government assessment confirms that pupils will return to school full time from 11 August

Just breaking news now..

Isolating children ?