Coronovirus IS transmitted in schools

[mosquitofeast]

And lots of teachers have died

I am just clarifying this, as I don't know how many times I have read on Mumsnet that this has never happened. I don't know where this misinformation is coming from, but its rubbish

It was transmitted several hundred times in my school (secondary)before lock down. Hundreds of children and dozens of staff were affected. Some have been seriously ill and have been left with long term health problems, such as low lung capacity and loss of hearing.

I am a teacher and I was infected at school. I did not use public transport, or go into any shops or other businesses for the whole of March, and I was living alone. The only time I was in any contact with anyone else was in school

A school near us (also secondary) had to close a week before school closures were announced, as so many teachers were infected.

Thankfully, no staff or student in our school died, although several students have lost parents, and many have lost grandparents. One of my sixthformers has withdrawn her university application as her mum has lost a lung and a leg and now can't run her home and care for her younger children on her own.

However, according to the union, around 200 school staff have dies to date, so we have just been lucky so far.

So please don't repost this fake news that "no one has ever caught covid in a school" - because |I have watched it happen in front of my eyes, and experienced it myself.

Last two week of July a report from America states 97000 children were infected with Covid. This correlates with when more children were returning to school.
“ At least 97,000 children in the US were infected with Covid-19 in the last two weeks of July, according to a new study from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.

The study finding a 40% increase in child cases across the US comes as some states begin to reopen schools.”

Obviously, this won’t happen in England....coronavirus doesn’t transmit in English schools!

@IrmaFayLear

Private schools do seem to have raised their game. The prep school near me (I looked at their website) seems mightily impressive with their work scheme, online activities and engagement etc.

BUT the elephant in the room is that these kids are all up for it - or at least much more up for it given that their parents are shelling out ££££ for the service.

Some of the local schools? Frankly I can’t quite see how a teacher is going to be able to manage to direct, through a screen, 30 kids to collect bugs and identify them and then find out their names in French...

You’d think so but at my old independent there was a questionnaire sent out 40% of parents were unsure about sending their kids back. Class sizes of 15 and under.

Our new prep won’t commit to anything which is driving me bonkers! They just keep saying we’re aiming to have every one back in bubbles but won’t elaborate wether it’s full time/part time or if after school care is on. Class sizes of ten.

Can't be done. Pupils are in different classes for each subject dependent on ability, level of course and other course choices.

This can very easily be done at Y7-9 level by streaming the year group rather than setting for subjects. Most setting is very close to streaming anyway so in the short term it's a very practical solution.

@LizzieBlackwell further Government guidance is potentially being issued tomorrow, so some schools are waiting for that before making any final decisions, and there may still be even further guidance before schools start back if summer term is anything to go by (over 40 different versions!). There has already been an updated version issued on 7th August.

Not all eligible children went back in the Summer Term at the Prep school attached to the Senior school DS goes to. However, their online provision was very good.

I really do not understand why, for secondary pupils, learning from home was not enabled in the same way that working from home was back in spring/early summer for those subjects where it was possible in state schools, but remote learning became the norm in independent schools. Maybe state schools had to prioritise DC of KW and DC with an EHCP whereas independent schools didn't. Maybe independent schools had to continue to deliver learning to justify fee.

For most secondary school DC though the content could have been delivered online, better than huge gaps in learning or parents scrabbling to familiarise themselves with the specifications for multiple courses

Resits of exams based on what was taught and not covering the whole curriculum is not the answer if DC want to continue a subject at A level if, say in maths, they have never encountered the quadratic equation, curved graphs, SURDS, differentiation etc and could impact on next years cohort to a greater extent.

Being back in F2F is not the same as catching up. What happened to catching up? No learning over the summer because funding was not planned to be released to schools til September. And schools are too busy planning return in September in the midst of a pandemic to have the time to plan catch up which assumes the pandemic is all but over.

This has already increased inequality and widened the gap but the only response seems to be to get DC back in school. This will not solve the problem.

Lack of technology both from school and pupil point of view @KeepOnKeepingOnAgainandAgain. Lack of funding to provide said technology. Government promised laptops to the most disadvantaged and made a big deal about it in the press, what actually was provided was nothing like they said.

@KeepOnKeepingOnAgainandAgain

I'd be interested to know the measures being taken by independent schools to minimise transmission.

Eg. Staff/student testing, PPE, SD etc.

Is it planned to return to F2F teaching in September or blended or remote learning? Is there parental choice?

Are class sizes being restricted or are smaller classes, greater space referred to in terms of safety (rather than academic advantage).

Class sizes are much smaller in independent schools allowing for more social distancing.

For most secondary school DC though the content could have been delivered online, better than huge gaps in learning or parents scrabbling to familiarise themselves with the specifications for multiple courses

We did have a fair bit of online learning tg. And the school were very good at not allowing gaps to grow.

but remote learning became the norm in independent schools

It did in most state secondary schools.
Students didn't want live lesson as they couldn't access them. There have been a million threads about this that I won't rehash.

Our local secondary is having staggered start times for year groups. Both dds will be having all their lessons in a few classroom so there appears to be an attempt to keep to year group bubbles separate. Not quite sure how dd who is doing 3 science A levels is going to do any practical work as none of the sixth form area is anywhere near a science lab. I guess this will be postponed for now.
In terms of dropping subjects not sure what else can be done when they have already missed chunks of ther GCSE courses.

I am still worried about the risk to staff and parents especially of Secondary kids but it has to be done.

Class sizes may be smaller in private schools but in the smaller private schools classrooms might not be that big, sometimes they are housed in buildings that used to be people's homes (lord of the manor type places)

In terms of dropping subjects not sure what else can be done when they have already missed chunks of ther GCSE courses.

They shouldn't be dropping subjects at all. Government v clear on this. Unless extenuating (not just pandemic) circumstances.

[quote Flimflamfloogety]@sonicbook

Thanks for taking the time to discuss openly, I am genuinely curious.

I can't speak for other parents, but personally I wouldn't mind if the top/middle/bottom set approached was abandoned for the time being, and some of the options were dropped (return to more of the classic subjects) to allow the kids to stay put for most of the day. Just for foreseeable future not as a permanent change.

Subjects like English for example, could easily be done outdoors if the weather is okay. Just get the kids to park their bums on the grass and do some reading as a group. Any lesson that was going to be a lecture anyway could be done outside - no furniture or equipment needed.

Our local primary school have canvassed local organisations for donations of gazebos to ensure as many lessons can be outdoors as possible. Again this can be managed at school level - get the governors and PTA involved.

I understand your concerns, but so far I'm not seeing anything that can't be managed if the head teacher just pulls their finger out (with the exception of kids wearing PPE). To liken it to the office environment, your head is your manager so to speak so they need to make your environment as safe as possible.[/quote]
So, students taking their GCSEs in 2021 just abandon some of them? And you think it's perfectly ok to teach higher ability in with lower ability too? So, basically, no one gets taught properly?

As for teaching outdoors - that's fine as an ad hoc, spur of the moment ",oh, it's a lovely day. Let's go outside" but you can't plan to teach a timetable outside can you? This is England. It can be 31 and sunny today and 16 and pouring down tomorrow. What would you do then? Just send students home if their lesson is rained off?

Students didn't want live lesson as they couldn't access them. There have been a million threads about this that I won't rehash

This is often said on MN but is just not true! My dc school moved to live lessons (state school) from day 1 - it worked well. The uptake was excellent- if a student was absent pastoral staff followed up tgat day in exactly the same way they did in school. If students had technical problems / struggled working at home they went into school and accessed the live lessons from there.

We had live audio lessons

I mean with PowerPoint etc just not focussed on teacher’s face

@KittyMcKitty Good for your students.

Ours were a combination of

• no home broadband
• parents working during the day on computers
• parents working using bandwidth
• no device at home
• using data

In school our PCs don't have speakers or headphone capabilities. Only staff computers have this. So fruitless getting them in.

We tried some, they were poorly attended and parents didn't like them. Even the super supportive families weren't mad keen. We did lots of recorded videos that could be watched later.

We had nothing like that. We just had activities on purple mash that consolidated things they already knew. No new learning was going on.

Jr was that primary or secondary?

When I used to work in a school (science technician) I used to regularly get colds. Since leaving 6 years ago I haven't had a single one. That's the only lifestyle change I've made. I assume colds and Covid are transmitted in similar ways so yeah I'm glad I don't work in a school now. Best of luck everyone involved.

Threads like this serve no purpose other then to set parents against teachers and everyone just shouts - it’s just horrid! Comments on all these threads by teachers about students are really offensive- all the 30 children sitting facing me infecting me comments (this was in another fhread). Can we not Centre the children’s education in this and then work outwards as to how to minimise the risk for EVERYONE whilst providing a high standard of education for all. (The OP suggestion of yr 7-12 getting 40% of teaching time and year 13 0% is NOT a solution).

I work with students in close proximity (not a teacher - fraction of the pay) and will do so because it is the right thing to do. I hope others will do the same for my children.

Being out of school has caused my 17 year old to become very withdrawn and give up on life in many ways - they need to be back in school.

Please can people just stop shouting and bitching it’s horrendous

@KittyMcKitty

It's not shouting and bitching and it's certainly not offensive.

It's a discussion about why the government don't see the need to keep teachers safe the way they do with the rest of the the working population.

@MarshaBradyo

Jr was that primary or secondary?

Primary. Sorry if you were talking about secondary. I am a primary teacher and my eldest is in y2 where i have taught for years so I was able to teach him, but from school it was just activity after activity not learning anything new. My middle one is in nursery and they went to the opposite extreme of expecting a daily phonics lesson to be delivered by parents even though its not even taught until reception in the school

Jr same here. Primary completely different to secondary. Latter was brilliant in every way, but primary no new learning. Just links and copy and pastes in email. LCD.

We absconded to Oak Academy, different year as was too easy, to at least try and do some learning and challenging (knew about 80% but 20% was key to make dc feel he was being stretched).