Do people realise that if their child's bubble bursts.....

[IfYouCantSeeMyMirrors]

.....and that child is therefore sent home from school for 14 days, the child is supposed to stay solely within their own house or garden for that entire period? They might be completely well for the full 14 days, but during that time, they can't take any walks. No bike rides. No drives in the car. If they haven't got a garden, they cannot go outside at all.

Many, many children are going to be in this position very soon - quite possibly multiple times - and it goes some way beyond the initial lockdown situation.

@whattodo2019

Along with the rest of the family!! Not just the child who is sent home from school but all other members of the household have to isolate

This isn’t true. The family are not contacts of a confirmed case and only need to isolate if their child develops symptoms.

But of course someone will need to do childcare. This is what I am concerned about if my DS has to isolate due to his bubble bursting. DH and I are both teachers so the childcare will be very difficult. Just hoping it won’t happen for a while.

@whattodo2019

Wrong! 🙄

@ohthegoats what a disgusting piece of journalism.
I really feel for teachers right now. They will be blamed as will the parents.

@FinnyStory one of the schools with multiple staff infections was a sn school which I understand has a whole heap of further risk factors for staff. Also kids get it milder or may be symptom free but could still be spreading it or have it.
I thought most staff rooms were closed too.

Yes, Northernsoul and it's good that individual school circumstances, in terms of the local situation and the cohort are considered, but there are several schools now where the staff seem to be the issue, not the kids. And that is interesting. Not to blame anyone but to assess what's going wrong and change it.

We have only 8 allowed in the staffroom, which basically means get a drink and leave and our department and other meetings are all being done remotely. I honestly don't think staff are having much contact with each other in school. I was surprised to hear the head of the school in Norfolk where they have 7 infected staff, say he would look at how they run staff meetings. Good that he will act of course, but I'm really surprised to hear some schools are having f2f staff meetings.

@FinnyStory I agree it seems wrong that they are doing that. Certainly my children's school seem to be really strict with sd although as a parent I have no idea what goes on in the staff room or on inset days.
Just automatically blaming the teachers doesn't sit right with me as no one really knows where the infections came from and how many kids are involved.

@FinnyStory - I thought Norfolk was one of the parts of the country with a worryingly high number of covid infections? Obviously you will get more teachers coming down with it in higher risk areas, and finding it easier to pass on to each other even if being careful, because the chances of having a super spreader on the staff team are increased. It was admitted right from the beginning that the adult staff in schools have the biggest risk of getting covid 19 and passing it on.

That may well be true, obviously the "first" case came from somewhere, but the contact tracing seems to confirm that these teachers caught it from each other, when really, there's no need for staff to be that close to each other. I completely accept SD from pupils is tricky but why do staff need to be so close? Especially so many of them. It's not "blaming" the staff though, but stating that the controls in that school are insufficient.

@FinnyStory - yes, it does seem odd they would all have got so close to each other. False sense of security before term started?!

I work in a sn school and it's almost impossible to social distance when 2:1 with a child in a small room of 10 kids and 8 adults. Plus having to perform personal care etc means that we are often close to the children. We obviously try our best to minimise contact as much as possible but it's not easy.

Same here talking.

I feel very worried about both infecting my pupils and other staff as well as risk to me too as CV, as no masks are being used.

[quote Walkaround]@FinnyStory - yes, it does seem odd they would all have got so close to each other. False sense of security before term started?![/quote]
I think we've seen it on here often enough, school staff saying there's no point social distancing because they're going to be with 30/300 kids...Staff and often school controls, seem much more nervous of the students than colleagues, when contact with students tends to be more fleeting and there's little difference in the risk each group presents.

It's all very interesting but I'm starting to form the view that schools have spent too much time and energy on protecting staff from students when it was distancing from colleagues that needed more (or equal) attention

Surely if a child has been in contact with someone who tests positive then their siblings & family need to isolate as well? Child sent home to isolate, may already be asymptomatic but tests positive a week later, could have transmitted to other family members who in turn are asymptomatic & carrying on as usual but spreading virus around school & workplaces until child at home tests positive & family must isolate. This really hasn't been well thought out.

This thread has been an interesting read and I’m glad the OP posted it as I think this is where we’re going to get into a mess again if I’m honest! Like another poster said:
I too understood theoretically what isolate meant and that it would happen, but the reality of possibly repeatedly keeping my child home for 14 days has only just sunk in, in terms of accepting thats what lifes going to be like.
We’re experiencing this now as my youngest DD’s bubble burst after her attending 4 mornings and 2 full days - she needs to isolate and will miss 9 days of school?! My DS has been impacted because the entire school has closed but he doesn’t need to isolate. We were informed at 20:30 of the situation and expected to resume home schooling the next day. How you isolate a 4 year old is beyond me and I’ve worried about sending my oldest DD to school. Both myself and DH work from home so can start to juggle again but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t tough. We’ve stuck to lockdown rules throughout and like others not eased when the rules have if we didn’t agree/questioned the reasoning. Sending my children to school to sit in bubbles of 25,27 and 180 has concerned me - I had thought they would be in smaller bubbles. All I can see now is that the bubbles will keep on bursting and we’ll be off and isolating more than in school. As a family we’ve made the most of outdoors during the lovely summer bike rides, walks, seeing friends and family in gardens (sticking to restrictions) but if you’re isolating your child then you are either having to split up parents and children so one can take the others out or you’re all staying in. It feels worse than before because of the uncertainty and the risk and the restriction on everyone’s life. At the moment I’m feeling worried for everyone’s safety, I hate not being able to control the risk to my children and us anymore.

Ds school has split entry to 3 entrances, 800 kids entering at each entry, last week it was chaos, no social distancing because there isn't room to spread out to queue to get through the gate, still issuing detentions if pupils aren't sat at their desk when registration starts & all pupils leave at the same time when school finishes, again no social distancing.

How you isolate a 4 year old is beyond me

We had to isolate a 5, 4 and 1 year old for 2 weeks in March due to 1 year old having a high temp and a cough (no tests available then). It was shit but it passed.
Of course the day before they came out of isolation lockdown was announced 🙄

This isn’t true. The family are not contacts of a confirmed case and only need to isolate if their child develops symptoms

True unless you live somewhere like I do in an area of localised restrictions in which case the whole household of contacts does now need to!

Totally unworkable and will be ignored

To clarify! If I didn’t have other children of school age who are expected to attend school otherwise I will be fined (and my DD be in despair at missing more school) it would be easier to isolate as we would as a family isolate. But in reality keeping a 4 year old isolated from their parents and siblings is impossible. So the fact that the guidelines say as long as my DD is isolating the rest of the family can go to work and school as normal I find worrying to say the least as I really can’t see anyone being able to do this correctly with children of this age. Like I said, it’s possible if the whole family can isolate, wfh, homeschool, but what if you can’t???

@Everythingstaken

To clarify! If I didn’t have other children of school age who are expected to attend school otherwise I will be fined (and my DD be in despair at missing more school) it would be easier to isolate as we would as a family isolate. But in reality keeping a 4 year old isolated from their parents and siblings is impossible. So the fact that the guidelines say as long as my DD is isolating the rest of the family can go to work and school as normal I find worrying to say the least as I really can’t see anyone being able to do this correctly with children of this age. Like I said, it’s possible if the whole family can isolate, wfh, homeschool, but what if you can’t???

Ah ok apologies I misunderstood. Yes it would be impossible to isolate a 4 year old from the rest of the family.

It's all very interesting but I'm starting to form the view that schools have spent too much time and energy on protecting staff from students when it was distancing from colleagues that needed more (or equal) attention

Rubbish. I've had the message from school from the start to focus on maintaining distance with staff despite being in an sen school where there's no SD with pupils.

@NeurotrashWarrior

It's all very interesting but I'm starting to form the view that schools have spent too much time and energy on protecting staff from students when it was distancing from colleagues that needed more (or equal) attention

Rubbish. I've had the message from school from the start to focus on maintaining distance with staff despite being in an sen school where there's no SD with pupils.

How can you possibly say it's rubbish in all schools? The evidence would suggest otherwise.

I wrote large parts of our RA and I'm interested in ways it can be improved, rather than defensive about how I can't possibly have got anything wrong or we couldn't be implementing it better.

Ah ok apologies I misunderstood.
Yes it would be impossible to isolate a 4 year old from the rest of the family.
Thank you! It’s a mess really and we’re all trying to follow the rules and do our best aren’t we! In then end it was my eldest DD who we tried to isolate as she was the one leaving the house to go to school so in our mind posed a risk to others... none of us have any symptoms yet thank goodness. I can honestly say after months of feeling pretty safe because of avoiding what we saw as high risk activities we now feel really exposed. I hope by writing this it will help others prepare for the likelihood of this happening to them and the decisions they are going to have to make.

@Everythingstaken you don’t have to isolate the 4 yr old from family, just from people outside the family. If the 4 yr old develops symptoms then you need to test them and isolate together as a family until a negative test

"when really, there's no need for staff to be that close to each other"

Ds's class has 4 pupils and 7 staff so I think it is possible that all of them could be infected fairly quickly. Each pupil is supposed to only have personal care/ very close contact with particular staff to limit the chances of it happening. The number in that special school I am suprised about since it happened so quickly and immediately after the start of term.

It has definitely been made clear from the beginning that staff are the biggest risk to each other, but I think teachers, like all other human beings tend to feel safer among people they feel they know and trust, even though this is a stupid way of assessing risk from viruses, because it just means you are more likely to be made ill by the people you trust, not that you will be protected. That’s why family gatherings, sleepovers, friends meeting up, etc, are such a problem.