No social distancing in 6th form classrooms/common room

[kitnkaboodle]

I know that there was an earlier thread on this that ran to 1000 messages and shut down, but ...

I'm sitting here with egg on my face, as through the summer I didn't believe my DS (16) telling me that in his (new) Y12, they wouldn't have to distance from the other pupils in sixth form or be spaced out within the classrooms. He said that things would be 'the same as normal', and I honestly thought he was talking rubbish.

He's just home from his first day and, sure enough, the WHOLE sixth form is classed as one bubble and there are no social distancing measures at all between the kids there apart from desks all facing the front. I'm not sure about teachers - will ask later, but I presume they aren't in the bubbles and have to keep apart.

I glanced at the earlier thread title (that was something along the lines of 'the govt are letting the public believe there will be SD in schools') and thought it was all a bit paranoid (without reading it). However, I now genuinely believe that photos of all the 'back to school' stories have been carefully curated to show kids standing/sitting at least a metre apart. I'm one of those who thinks that we just need to 'get on with it' now, regarding schools, but I do feel royally hoodwinked by that. It was very subtle ... (and now I have to apologise to DS for not believing him!!)

@Piggywaspushed

I know exactly where my DS is every hour of the day.

This thread is about 16-18 year olds

Now i know where my 17 year old is...but not my 18 year old, every hour of the day

I happen to know where my 21 year old is at the moment....because he’s sat next to me

It can be very Difficult to be really sure where they are all are

I think the issue is that at schools and colleges the kids are forced into situations where they are indoors with hundreds of others with little or no option to socially distance, for up to 6 hours a day. Outside of school there are not many opportunities where they would be able to do this even if they wanted to. At most they could be at a park in a large group but being outside the risk of transmission is greatly reduced. All other indoor public places are now covid secure.

Well you have two choices, they go to school or you home school them. Those are the two choices available, you might not like either of them but one is less worse than the other and each carries its own risks.

@cyclingmad

Well you have two choices, they go to school or you home school them. Those are the two choices available, you might not like either of them but one is less worse than the other and each carries its own risks.

The vast majority of us know there are two choices

Send children to school with no social distancing etc

Or

Keep them Home

Most of us are just pissed off with the lies/ disingenuousness

( and before anyone says anything...I’m well aware of the true situations inside schools)

@StaffAssociationRepresentative

The lack of SD at school this week has led to a lot of parental complaints today. Therefore in spite of all the hand gel, one way systems, hand washing stations, extra cleaning during the school day, temperatures checks, fogging the school every 48 hours, marquees providing extra dining room on tennis courts, from Monday masks will be compulsory for all.

I’d be really happy if that was in place.

Instead dd has, no one way system, crowded corridors, no cleaning in between classes, people clogging up the entrances & classes crowding round the teacher to see something on a computer screen.

It's just a matter of time until they will need to wear masks everywhere. I give it 2 weeks.

Well, I’ve been moved into a significantly smaller classroom with small windows, some of which don’t open..
The school is trying really, really hard to SD to be fair, but it’s on a hiding to nothing in reality.

I assure you I do .One is 16 and one is19.

When the 19 year old goes back to uni sure. But at the moment, I know where they both are.

Not really the main point of the thread, but just wanted to point out, if you have contact with someone, you don't have the exact same risk of catching Covid that they have. If this was the case, then every single person who had been in contact with a positive case would catch it, and that absolutely doesn't happen, by a long margin. For every step removed from the actual person who has it, your risk of catching it diminishes. So, if your child is at school with a teenager who has been mingling left right and centre, your child's risk is still smaller than theirs, and then when they come home, your risk is smaller than your child's.

It doesn't have any real bearing on this thread, but I've seen lots of people saying "Well, I've got the same risk as a teacher as soon as my child comes home" or "the child of a nurse working on a Covid ward has the same risk that they do" and it just can't possibly work like that. There are lots of occasions where one person in a household is positive and others are negative, thankfully.

In my school, they've done a really good job of providing a 2m exclusion zone for the teachers and all the windows open. We've pretty much worked it out now so the year groups stay separate.

However, not all the teachers are opening the windows, because they don't like the chill breeze, and there is no distancing within the 400ish students within each year group. Similarly, many of the teachers are not bothering to socially distance, even where it is perfectly possible.

My primary and sixth form dcs went back this week.

The primary has been great - social distancing of parents encouraged, lot of hygiene measures in place in the classroom - hand washing and table wiping encouraged. Obviously no SD in the classroom, but only mixing with the same 30 children daily.

Sixth form, on the other hand... DS said the common room we rammed - a room meant for 160, with around 200 students. He didn't feel comfortable and ate outside with friends. I wouldn't feel comfortable with that, so why are kids being put in to crowded situations?

It seems highly likely that the spread will increase and parents are at risk. Blended learning, with part time days and smaller class sizes, would be our preferred option.

*Not really the main point of the thread, but just wanted to point out, if you have contact with someone, you don't have the exact same risk of catching Covid that they have. If this was the case, then every single person who had been in contact with a positive case would catch it, and that absolutely doesn't happen, by a long margin. For every step removed from the actual person who has it, your risk of catching it diminishes. So, if your child is at school with a teenager who has been mingling left right and centre, your child's risk is still smaller than theirs, and then when they come home, your risk is smaller than your child's.

It doesn't have any real bearing on this thread, but I've seen lots of people saying "Well, I've got the same risk as a teacher as soon as my child comes home" or "the child of a nurse working on a Covid ward has the same risk that they do" and it just can't possibly work like that. There are lots of occasions where one person in a household is positive and others are negative, thankfully.*

This, this is so important. If SD in schools is gone to shit it's more not less impprtany to be careful elsewhere.

www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/smarter-living/why-youre-probably-not-so-great-at-risk-assessment.html

www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/opinion/coronavirus-schools-tradeoffs.amp.html

Sorry wrong link

Both were interesting links, though.

I must confess, I don't quite get the logic of some of that second link. If my ds is in school in close contact with his two best friends, how does it add risk if he then sees those two friends together in our house? (I won't let him, because it's against the rules.)

I have to admit, I'm of the view that my children can see friends after school if they see them within school. I see the point of them not mixing in different groups, like drama clubs, though.

@lazylinguist

I must confess, I don't quite get the logic of some of that second link. If my ds is in school in close contact with his two best friends, how does it add risk if he then sees those two friends together in our house? (I won't let him, because it's against the rules.)

Is it against the rules? I thought people from up to 3 households meeting indoors unless of course you are in an area with special measures.

No - it hasn't changed from 2 households only. I just checked on the gov.uk website.

Personally I think it's not right to try and keep kids/young adults socially distanced. They need both education and socialisation.
I think best to keep them away from their grandparents/older relatives though.

My teen and pre-teen are a lot less bothered by social distancing than most adults I know. And there's evidence that teen anxiety went down during lockdown. The generation that's so used to being in constant online contact with each other was always going to find that easier. My DM has found it hard because she refuses to have a mobile phone and thinks the internet is the scourge of the modern world! Kids will get education and socialisation in school, plus they are able to see friends at the park and one friend at home. I have no issue with sticking to the rules, I just question the specific logic of how they apply to certain situations!

@Nellodee @lazylinguist

The article explains why. The more risky things you do, the higher your total risk.

If you do one thing that has a one in 50 risk, your probability of a negative outcome is 2%. If you do five of those things, ten things, eighty things?

I have explained it to my youngest as being like Jenga. The tower is most stable if we leave it alone. But we can take a few bricks out and keep it stable enough. Take too many out it gets very wobbly, and eventually crashes down.

Put simply, if you allow your kids to have sleepovers as well as go to school, your family is at higher risk of catching Covid than a family only doing school and outdoor meet ups.

Those having sleepovers are putting school at risk for everyone, because they've removed another block from our shared Jenga tower.

@lazylinguist

No - it hasn't changed from 2 households only. I just checked on the gov.uk website.

Thank you. I think I must have dreamt that it was now 3!

@hopefulhalf

It's just a matter of time until they will need to wear masks everywhere. I give it 2 weeks.

Yes I can see the upper school having to wear masks all the time. Maybe October half term

Hah staff I think in that case we will see many parents who were moaning about how state schools weren't replicating private provision becoming a little bit quieter.