Surely they can’t keep schools open as normal if cases keep going up like today!

[Worriedmum999]

My daughter went back to school last Thursday. She really needed to go as lockdown played havoc with her mental health. She was fine doing her academic work but she is someone who needs the social side of school.

We are a vulnerable family and, with this shitshower of a government, I had no faith that cases wouldn’t rise and I wouldn’t be forced to take her out of school again. But I cannot believe that she has been back 2 days and the jump in cases has been so huge. I honestly expected us to be able to get to half term. Of course deaths are going to rise now. Why wouldn’t we follow the pattern of the other European countries. Add to that the fact that people can’t get tested now and we’re fucked. And I’m so fucking angry and upset about the damage that this is doing.

What are the government going to do? Surely it will be impossible to expect parents to keep sending their children to schools when the death toll is huge again and the ICUs are full.

And child and adolescent mental health issues were only put on hold by lockdown and home learning. And mental health issues do not just affect those in abusive families. My DC have had a lovely upbringing, but mental health issues are the same as physical health issues, you cannot stop them developing. They are not a failure of anyone, parent or child.

@bringbacksideburns The virus is spread by people. That's the behaviour of people in your community. It spreads by people usually ignoring the guidance- meeting in homes in groups of more than 2 households, in pubs, hugging and kissing, partying, and so on.

If you want to be out of a red zone, maybe ask your neighbours to start following the rules that help stop the virus spreading. Don't blame the government.

I feel like the government have just left us to it. Absolute circus.

What do you want ‘the government’ to do? The problem is a virus that has increased our risk of severe illness and dying and they can’t actually solve it.

They also can’t actually win. Different people assess risk differently. I’m generally on the ‘it is what it is’ side but even I have watched the arguments about foreign holidays and the number of people going with total amazement. But everyone’s different and everyone has different views.

Class sizes in schools are too big and that doesn’t help, but constant cutting of government expenditure is what people have voted for through ‘austerity’ so that isn’t really their fault either in one way.

Long term it becomes more of an issue. Hard to quantify but I know many children who thrive at school will be glad to be back. Mine have returned to how they were immediately and life wasn’t that bad during the last term. Just too much screen learning wasn’t great for them.

@Legoandloldolls - my reception child ... is 6 and cant read or write yet. I cant see how this wont effect her education at least medium term.

Did you do reading and writing with her during loclkdown? how come she's 6 and in reception? Did school send home any work or resources for her? If she has SEN, was anything put in place for her?

I'm sure she'll catch up when she's back at school and things are more normal. Everyone else in her year has been in the same boat.

Most kids start school later than kids in the UK, and they seem to catch up...

I am just enjoying a blissful thread without endless teachers telling me I am the worlds worst person for wanting my children to have an education smile

Shhh... they will come :)

As stated above, my DC has mental health issues and the doing-nothing of lockdown did lead to some improvement in acute symptoms, but unless he is going to spend his life sitting on the sofa binge-watching boxsets, his mental health has not actually been benefited and the issues were just 'on hold' and are still there now. It is stupid to say that young people's mental health could be benefited from staying at home for a few months. And neither did their physical health. My DC put on weight, despite daily walks of several miles. There was too much time to snack and the lack of much activity, mental or physical was not good for their physical health either.

@Hereinthesticks apologies you are clearly well placed to comment. My issue is that many band “mental health” around without understanding what it means. Trivialising it. Also for the vocal majority who say their kids were negatively affected being off school there are an equal number of kids who benefited. I read something poignant on Twitter someone sat looking out their window at the children crying going back saying “is this the normal we rushed back to”

The point is everything in life is a spectrum. By all means let’s raise our individual personal views but don’t assume or claim that applies to all children and families. Not all children have suffered from schools closing by a long shot.

@TheAdventuresoftheWishingChair

I honestly expected us to be able to get to half term. Of course deaths are going to rise now.

Not necessarily. I understand the panic and fear and yes, they might. Equally there are so many reasons why they might not. I don't think the best way of getting through the next few months is to make snap assumptions at the numbers rising when the situation isn't black and white. We're in a very different situation to March.

-We know how to treat the virus better. That has changed significantly particularly with those who get seriously ill
-People seem to get the virus much more mildly generally thanks to masks/social distancing
-We have lots of capacity in hospitals
-Lots more people will have topped up their Vitamin D over the summer months
-Care homes/hospitals have better access to PPE than in March
-Lessons were learnt from March about people being discharged into care homes without being tested so the spread will be contained
-we have far more testing capacity and although contact tracing isn't perfect, it has worked so far to contain some localised outbreaks
-we know lots of people with the virus right now are much younger and at tiny risk of death

Why wouldn't death rates rise as infections rise? Currently it seems to be mainly younger people infected which is suppressing the deaths but these infections will start to percolate through society again because the elderly and vulnerable are no longer separated from the rest of society. It just stands to reason that infections will spread to them. Looking at Europe and America we can see the numbers needing hospital care is going up.

As for treatments - there really aren't that many options available that make a huge impact on outcome.

Testing needs to be expanded so that it's available in every town seven days a week, none of this travelling 100 miles for a test or postal tests not being available over the weekend.

We also need ECV people to be given accurate advice - I came out of shielding and back to.work at the start of August, following the unshielding letter from PHE. Was unwell.last week and consulted my GP who was aghast at me being back at work and lectured me on how at risk I am and wanted to know what extra precautions my employer has in place for me - err, none, because that was never advised. So what is going on? Do the de shielded need to isolate again, do we need extra precautions, if so what? We've got vulnerable staff working in schools now - how much risk are they facing?

Why haven't your work done a risk assessment?

More children are dying of mental health related issues than COVID-19. Closing the schools would be selfish, stupid, disproportionate and likely to lead to more deaths than keeping them open.

That was to @EDSGFC

In terms of how much secondary school children transmit covid, the science is definitely not yet definite but...

People under 18 are typically (but not always) either asymptomatic or have the disease very mildly. If you are not coughing heavily you just don't transmit the disease as much as it is an airborne disease. So it is a fair guess that those under 18 who don't have symptoms will transmit the disease much less than older adults. If they have symptoms, they should stay at home of course.

I'll second that Oak. Anxiety and plenty of other negative emotions are a perfectly normal reaction to the situation we find ourselves in. For most people it won't be a long term mental health issue, although it will for some. And there will be plenty of people for whom this has had a positive effect.

WRT resilience, it shouldn't be linked to MH issues, but it might be important for those that don't have pre-existing issues or in preventing some children in the middle of the spectrum developing them. I think what seems to have been noticeably missing from discussion, particularly on here is how to help maintain your MH. It's very easy to sit and say that life should go back to normal, because what about the mental health impacts, but that might not be possible. So we might be better off discussing how we deal with that and how we help our children to deal with that.

@Oaktree55 Indeed there is plenty of research showing that anxiety has decreased in children and young people during lockdown. And it is true that many countries do not start formal education until 7 years old. But there has already been 6 months of this. How is a young person with exams in 1 or 2 years' time supposed to teach themselves GCSEs and A levels in the long term. Many will be starting new subjects this week.

@notevenat20

I am just enjoying a blissful thread without endless teachers telling me I am the worlds worst person for wanting my children to have an education smile

Shhh... they will come :)

No they won't because they are a straw man fiction

The harsh truth is though that no we cant shut schools because it is clear that this isnt going anywhere and we have to learn how to live with it (like we have learnt how to live with many other horrible things before).

We need to find a way (like Sweden) that enables us to reduce transmission as much as we can (SD where possible/mask wearing as much as we can/track and trace/decent testing) and hope that we can get a vaccine programme in place whether it be a one off (unlikely) or a rolling one like flu vaccinations are. Within this I expect there to be localised school closures and bubble closures within school.

At the moment in England - this isnt schools, its partly holiday returners and potentially partly the idea that this is endemic in some places.

No they won't because they are a straw man fiction smile smile

As a survivor of the mumsnet teachers I can tell you it's not a pretty sight.

And the point about anxiety decreasing during lockdown says more about the education system in this country and the exam-culture (promoted by the conservatives removing nearly all continuous assessment and coursework). It does not really support the argument that lockdown and quarantine are good in themselves for mental health.

Do we know how many schools have been impacted till now?

Closing schools is not the answer. But if pp find their dc have improved being out of school they can take that option.

The study on anxiety was conducted in May and reported recently. It’s obvious a short time off after Easter will be different to long term impact around motivation etc

@Tomatoesneedtoripen

Why haven't your work done a risk assessment?

Apparently occupational health did it for all returning shielders and the precautions were deemed to be the same as in place for everyone else. My GP disagrees and when I pressed him as to what should be in place he said I need to wear a mask at all times, avoid being around people (not possible), wash my hands frequently and use hand sanitizer constantly (don't even know what that looks like). My point is, that appears to mean that it isn't safe for me to.be out yet government is not advising that and if I were say a teacher then I'd be expected to be back in a classroom teaching 150 children a day with no PPE.

@Hereinthesticks I think exam years should be prioritised obviously. The current plan doesn’t afford them this. If people truly cared about Education and didn’t use it as a smoke screen for their own personal wants they’d realise yes as a Society let’s figure a way to get those teenagers with exams looming sorted first.

There’s no flexibility Gov just opening as normal crossing fingers ignoring precedent in other countries.

At least they can say they opened schools eh!

* If you want to be out of a red zone, maybe ask your neighbours to start following the rules that help stop the virus spreading. Don't blame the government.*

Please don't patronize me.

And I didn't say schools shouldn't open. Life needs to go on as normally as possible.

But it's not as clear cut as some of you are saying. I don't know anyone who has been irresponsible and myself and my neighbours have been adhering to the rules since March thanks very much - even though this joke of a government seem to have distanced themselves completely with not even a weekly press conference any more to update us on what the hell is happening in our areas.

We aren't all out there partying but believe the media hype and ignore the poverty, over crowded areas, people working zero hours contracts out there with no choice to WFH, higher BAME etc and just pretend it's because we are all thick and hugging and kissing eh?

The condescension!
Don't blame the government - because they've handled it all so wonderfully well haven't they?
lets blame the working class and not Dominic Cummings, because he's 'educated shall we?

Fucking hell