There are so many negative threads. Here’s one with some ideas of what you, as parents, can do to help the situation in schools in September. I am sure my many colleagues on here will have some great ideas but here’s my starter for 10.
*Send your children to school with a pencil case (secondary) with the following items: red, blue, black, green, purple biros; pencil crayons; eraser; ruler; maths kit (set squares, compass etc), pencil sharpener that works (and with a pot for collection of shavings so no getting up out of seat); English dictionary and a bilingual dictionary; calculator; glue stick
*if you can afford it, fill a pencil case for someone less well off and send in to the school. There will be lot of people who would be grateful. Equally, you could send some school supplies to your local food bank and/or drop into the food bank box at the supermarket? Food bank volunteers may want to confirm if that would be helpful or a nuisance?
*Send with a couple of reusable masks and a plastic zip lock bag for safe storage. Please make sure these masks and bags are washed if used. Try and choose plain masks and avoid anything vaguely ‘designer’ or with some kind of label.
*Send with a couple of disposable ‘in case of dire emergency’ masks plus bag for disposal. Maybe add a pair of disposable gloves if you have them. In a ziplock bag these can be offered to any member of staff who might need to help them if they are injured in anyway or if your child is showing symptoms.
*send with hand sanitizer. You can get an empty bottle with a clip from ebay/amazon to clip to rucksacks. Question if the bottle comes home unused. Keep the bottle filled up and tell your child to sanitise when leaving one room and again when entering another, when they have contact with doors, floors, books etc Remind them daily to wash hands with soap at lunch as a minimum but at break too would be good.
*wear clean uniform daily. I know blazers are being insisted on in some schools so not much to be done about that but even a weekly wash should help.
*Send sufficient tissues (many primary teachers would welcome a box of tissues as a donation for the classroom and possibly also antibacterial wipes and a bottle of hand sanitizer)with a sniffy child and reiterate the need to throw them away after use. Teach coughing into elbows.
*take every cough or sniffle seriously and get tested. I might be wrong, but I cannot see any school threatening fines for children who are off being cautious. Keep emails/texts about tests as your evidence.
*encourage outdoor activities amongst teens who are meeting friends and reduce the number of randoms in your home. This will be increasingly important in the winter months. Limit sleepovers or eliminate all together.
*do not assume a cough or cold is nothing and do not dose up your child with calpol to mask a temperature. Get tested.
*have back up plans for the inevitable cleaning day closures when cases are discovered in schools and for potentially longer closures. Don’t complain to schools. Heads will be doing what they think is best for their community so support them.
*make sure your child can reliably wash their hands properly unsupervised.
I am sure there are loads more!