How many cases in your child’s school so far?

[Magnavixen]

Our children back have been back to school since last Thursday.

So far 3 positive cases in 3 different year groups.

They are in bubbles of approximately 180 students each.
2 of the positive cases have been in their year groups.
Only close contacts required to isolate.

I’m surprised at how quickly the cases are appearing. Is anyone else experiencing the same?

Secondary. Area under lockdown. 1500 pupils. One case. Was already isolating, no effect on school other than parents kept informed.

8 confirmed cases in the bubble that was shut down with another 10 awaiting results!

DS says there's several people off in his year but no confirmed cases as yet. I think it's only a matter of time.

O in my DC's school, know of 2 in another local high school, but they have only sent a limited number of close contacts home
I don't understand why some schools only send close contacts home whereas others send a 250-pupil year-group home, plus anyone who went on the bus etc.
I am a bit resentful because my DC school is in the latter camp and so any DC at the school are at a massive disadvantage and higher risk of spending this autumn, winter, spring mostly at home.
(the bus thing particularly annoys me since it is a short journey, with masks on, with an upstairs and downstairs - so highly unlikely any pupil will spend 15 minutes in close contact without a mask with anyone else).

I don't understand why some schools only send close contacts home whereas others send a 250-pupil year-group home, plus anyone who went on the bus etc.

DS's school claim to be getting their advice from PHE. Two cases close a bubble for 14 days, since they have considerably more than that it's closed down until further notice. One case in a bubble only seems to trigger close contacts.

DS is on public transport so there's 7 year bubbles from 2 different schools on it though of course they're all wearing masks

I don’t understand how different schools are applying the rules differently. Only close contacts seem to be sent home at our school, the rule is sitting within 2m in any class. Does anyone know if they take into account who they spend break and lunch with? Who they walk home with? I presume social contacts are contacted separately as that wouldn’t be schools responsibility, but because they don’t tell you who it is your child wouldn’t know!

[quote littleowl1]@Magnavixen

We havent had cases yet but I know its only a matter of time. And I am totally dreading it.

We were pretty worried with our daughter going back to school last summer term when school reopened, to such an extent that I started pulling the daily coronavirus data in our local council to help us decide what to do. Anyway I did end up setting up an email service www.covidmessenger.com.

Each day I compile the latest number of lab-confirmed, positive coronavirus cases across the country into a bitesize email – one for each district council in the UK - and send it out.

You are most welcome to sign up for the email for your local council so you can keep an eye what is happening locally. I subscribe to three (of my own emails!) as my daughters school's catchment area straddles three councils and I really want to know if there is an outbreak in one before it makes its way into the school.

www.covidmessenger.com[/quote]
Thank you! It's fantastic.

OP, are you still sending your children to the school?

I get the feeling that each school had to set up a robust set of procedures to support their recommendation of who/how many need to isolate (ultimately they have to do what local PHE tells them). It probably helps that a lot of the senior team have school-age children and a lot of academics and doctors send their kids to the school.

DD's secondary has always split the year into two parallel groups (I think it just makes timetabling and streaming for certain subjects easier - who knows). Those two groups probably count as two bubbles, though I think they are hoping to keep things at individual class level if kids need to be sent home. They all have bubble classrooms and bubble areas and lab lessons are scheduled so that each bubble group has lessons one class after another and then they are cleaned for the next year group bubble.

All teachers are teaching at least 2m away from the pupils. If a teacher is self isolating, and well enough, they will teach from home on Teams and the kids will do that lesson in school. If a pupil is unwell, they have to stay at home and get tested and then cooperate with Test, Track and Trace to identify who they have been near for more than 15 minutes (or whatever the guidelines are).

It seems plain daft to send whole year groups home because a few children have sore throats and runny noses (like my neighbours's Junior school). 50 families had to get tests and they were all fine.

@Chestergirl39

I don’t understand how different schools are applying the rules differently. Only close contacts seem to be sent home at our school, the rule is sitting within 2m in any class. Does anyone know if they take into account who they spend break and lunch with? Who they walk home with? I presume social contacts are contacted separately as that wouldn’t be schools responsibility, but because they don’t tell you who it is your child wouldn’t know!

We've had 2 cases so far in a large secondary. Only sending close contacts home, although for one student that was nearly 50 people. School sorts out who they were near in lessons and positive student says who else they spent time with at break and lunch, then school sent the letters to the close contact students.

Two. Y12 & Y7

My child's school currently has 7 confirmed cases, with a newborn at home this is horrible.

Our medium sized village school has 2 cases. 1 child and 1 staff member, both in different years. It's not good. We are in an area where supposedly community cases are still fairly low. I expected to get further into the winter before we had to go through this. They send the whole year group home (2 classes).

Does anyone know how many cases a school has to have before it has to close for a while? Or do we just wait until everyone has been sent home.

One in DS1s primary, they sent the year home. His class has been ok so far (Reception).

Ds's bubble has just closed, I think with only one case, but all the children have complex needs, with several being medically vulnerable.

All teachers are teaching at least 2m away from the pupils

This is what my schools says too. We aren’t, though.

No children positive so far at DD's small village primary (15 per year group), although I know it's only a matter of time as we're in tier 2 now. One teacher positive and off isolating. Reassuringly, still only one individual case in the high school we feed to with close contacts isolating. I always felt was the high school was likely to be biggest risk to us in terms of sibling connections and much wider transmission.

I'm grateful she's had 6 weeks of education and resigned to the fact there'll be periods of isolation in the weeks/months to come. So far it's been significantly better than I had expected.

We received an email from secondary HT last week saying zero cases so far but some off with symptoms

Not sure about primary but no closures so far

Had been off I mean, but test was negative

No cases in our small village primary. We're tier 1 but very close to several tier 2 areas so I'm sure it's a matter of time. I agree with pp - I'm very grateful for every week my dds get to be in school.