Has your child's bubble been isolated yet? Please log here and give thoughts.

[BilberryBaggins]

It has become very clear over the last few days that children are going to be repeatedly told to self-isolate (ie stay AT HOME for 14 days). If this happens over and over again for children, this will be far worse for their education and mental health than the previous term of home schooling was.

I thought it would be useful to have somewhere to log people's experiences. So, please give me your thoughts on this system, and if your child has had to self-isolate through their school bubble, log it here.

@SweepTheHalls

Just to add, none of this is the school's decision, when a case is reported, Public Health tell ua6 what we have to do next. Dont blame schools!

Absolutely!!! (I work in schools so am v much both informed and onside!).

I don’t think schools will stop bursting bubbles for one case. They don’t want to be liable.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

I don’t think schools will stop bursting bubbles for one case. They don’t want to be liable.

I agree, they would need explicit government guidance that they don't need to.

There may be a minority of schools which either are able to isolate smaller groups because of their set-up, or are taking a more nuanced approach but the consensus seems to be it's a whole bubble approach.

www.expressandstar.com/news/health/coronavirus-covid19/2020/09/10/the-black-country-and-staffordshire-schools-with-confirmed-coronavirus-cases/

A moat or schools who have closed bubbles in my region.

*A list of

Not yet but there’s only 22 on his bubble. Fingers crossed!

Our primary has had to close till Monday for deep clean an year groups r there bubble so far y6 y4 y3 y1 an nursery are all have isolate till 22nd due to postive test I then years so only y2 y5 an reception will return on monday

I don’t think schools will stop bursting bubbles for one case. They don’t want to be liable.

Our entire primary school closed when 1 staff member tested positive!

Teacher friend just called. Her sons bubble of 90 have to isolate for 14 days due to a positive test.
Friends head teacher doesn’t want to allow time off for her to care for him. Grandparents all in vulnerable categories and her DH is also a teacher.
They’ve reluctantly allowed her 2.5 days off and her DH the same, she has no idea what to do for the other days!

@madcow88 what do you have in writing then? And from who?

If it helps a school in our federation had to send a year grouo bubble home whikst they spike to PHE / local health team. Then they used that time to track children that had actually been in contact of close proximity for 15 mins and the rest were able to return very quickly.
I think it highlights how tight they need to keep the bubbles from mixing to minimise disruption.

Boycott return to unsae school facebook are logging the positives.
There are already hundreds.
With results taking so long and bubbles continuing im sure many will have spread.
Imo several areas need to go remote and others part time.

The guidance doesn’t explicitly say that schools should automatically isolate a whole “bubble” but does suggest that bubbles are helpful in identifying close contacts.

However this is definitely primary school thinking. If whole year groups are mixing freely with no SD in secondary schools (which they are) it’s impossible to identify close contacts so schools need to resort to sending the whole year group home.

I’m in Manchester so the likelihood of my child having to isolate at some point is quite high. On one hand I am
concerned as he is in Year 10 and needs to do well in his GCSEs. On the other hand, he liked working from home and liked the break from the relentlessness of school so the odd break wouldn’t do him great harm. His school provided a decent enough timetable over lockdown. So, no, I’m not overly concerned unless he ends up out of school more often than in.

Oh and DS has already had Covid. He was really ill with it in May so I’m hoping that means he won’t get it again, or at least not badly.

TA working in GM primary here.

In the bubble I work in, we've already had to send 5 children and 1 member of staff home for showing symptoms / contacted by track and trace. We're currently waiting for tests to come back. Thankfully most have come back negative, although one of the parents refuses to get their child tested.....

It's a similar story with the other year groups.

I honestly don't know how we're going to stay open until half term.

@HipTightOnions

The guidance doesn’t explicitly say that schools should automatically isolate a whole “bubble” but does suggest that bubbles are helpful in identifying close contacts.

However this is definitely primary school thinking. If whole year groups are mixing freely with no SD in secondary schools (which they are) it’s impossible to identify close contacts so schools need to resort to sending the whole year group home.

The reality of primary schools is that the bubbles are 30 children; if one child is +ve then they will need to isolate the whole class, because classrooms are by definition 'close contact'. There's no way round it.

Secondary school bubbles are 200-300 but as you say, you can't work out who's been with who, and so 1 +ve test has a massive impact. Possibly over and over again.

@middleager

17 schools in my area have had to send classes or year groups home. This is in less than one week of returning.

This has now increased to 24 cases. 7 more reported since I posted at 4pm.

@madcow88

I can assure you that isn't the case... we have it in writing.

I'd be interested to know what your school has sent home in writing? I think the DfE and Public Health England (or whatever replaces it) would instruct the school how to proceed, so whatever the school's wishes, they may not be in control of what happens.

France to pay parents to stay home with children if coronavirus closes schools

This means each household with a child under age 16 will be given 84% of one parent's wages.

Though this new announcement was interesting they’ve extended their Furlough too.

Yes. My year 5 DC has been at home since Wednesday after a child in her year tested positive. This is worse that the original school closure as I think I am right in saying that she should not leave the house at all, so I can't take her to the park, even the empty bits where you don't see another person for ages. I don't think she will go outside/ exercise at all for 2 weeks, because I have no way to force her to go out in our small garden and run around on her own. My other DC can go to school still and I can go to work (DH is still WFH) except when I am at work DC2 can't go to school because DH can't leave DC1 at home twice a day to take her and pick her up, so DC2 is also missing out on education as no work is set for her to do at home. DH can't teach/ do anything with them while working, so they sit in their pyjamas and play minecraft and watch tv all day, and I try to catch up on school work on my days off (I do realise we are lucky to have a parent at home, and will appreciate this even more next time this happens as he is going back to his office soon). DC1 still refuses to put any effort into the work she is set to do at home.
I wonder if school will ever seem like a regular routine thing to DC2, who started Reception last year but spent half of it at home, is now having random days off with no work while her sister is off, and at some points will surely have her own year group isolating and this will repeat.

@badlydrawnbear

Yes. My year 5 DC has been at home since Wednesday after a child in her year tested positive. This is worse that the original school closure as I think I am right in saying that she should not leave the house at all, so I can't take her to the park, even the empty bits where you don't see another person for ages. I don't think she will go outside/ exercise at all for 2 weeks, because I have no way to force her to go out in our small garden and run around on her own. My other DC can go to school still and I can go to work (DH is still WFH) except when I am at work DC2 can't go to school because DH can't leave DC1 at home twice a day to take her and pick her up, so DC2 is also missing out on education as no work is set for her to do at home. DH can't teach/ do anything with them while working, so they sit in their pyjamas and play minecraft and watch tv all day, and I try to catch up on school work on my days off (I do realise we are lucky to have a parent at home, and will appreciate this even more next time this happens as he is going back to his office soon). DC1 still refuses to put any effort into the work she is set to do at home. I wonder if school will ever seem like a regular routine thing to DC2, who started Reception last year but spent half of it at home, is now having random days off with no work while her sister is off, and at some points will surely have her own year group isolating and this will repeat.

I agree that kids isolating now is worse than when they were home learning because they can’t go out for walks etc now.

5 days into new term a teacher at dds secondary tested positive. He had been teaching across all year groups.
No bubbles isolated at all, school deep cleaned overnight apparently.

We're now above 20 schools affected in my area. All with bubbles isolated. I hate this year so much.

Yes a year 2 bubble is now isolating.