The schools are open! Except to all the kids self isolating...

[DonLewis]

I keep reading about closing the schools is the last point on the plan for closing things down in the event of another lockdown.

Great.

But, both of my kids schools are open but they both have whole year groups self isolating. And each week they're open another year group bubble gets burst and another 200 kids are at home self isolating.

But the government get to say the schools are open. It's really getting my goat. My kids have had less than a week at school between them! And I can't see things improving. It's not the schools fault. Why can't we do something different? Close the schools for 2 weeks. Kind of force a 2 week self isolation for all school kids. In those 2 weeks schools get to focus on their online provision. Then, reopen the schools and if bubbles get burst, the teachers have had a head start on planning.

Not sure what I'm posting for. I'm just feeling quite fed up about it all.

Quite a challenge for the teachers to balance what different people want.

But that's not a decision that teachers make, surely? Schools just do wha5 the health authorities say.

The DfE is very frustrated that schools are closing whole year groups and have made it very clear that only close contacts should be sent home. It's only been a week, schools and the Health Protection teams will find a way to reduce closures. I'm fully expecting (more) new guidance this week.

There shouldn't be many children who've had more than fleeting contact, or at least that's the view of the DfE official I was talking to.

Our school is awaiting advice from PHE to tell them whether they need to isolate whole years. I really think this year will be very hard indeed to keep any level of normality. I have Year 13 kids and it is a big worry, exams are planned more or less as normal.

From the DfE guidance, close contact means:

• direct close contacts - face to face contact with an infected individual for any length of time, within 1 metre, including being coughed on, a face to face conversation, or unprotected physical contact (skin-to-skin)
• proximity contacts - extended close contact (within 1 to 2 metres for more than 15 minutes) with an infected individual
• travelling in a small vehicle, like a car, with an infected person

Thee could be a lot of contacts in the first category, and it could be difficult to identify them.

My DDs school have already informed parents they will not send home the whole year. They are bubbles within bubbles, I think it depends on the size/pupil numbers/staffing numbers in schools. We were told that if a bubble was sent home with pupils dialling into Teams to watch the lessons.

@DonLewis

I keep reading about closing the schools is the last point on the plan for closing things down in the event of another lockdown.

Great.

But, both of my kids schools are open but they both have whole year groups self isolating. And each week they're open another year group bubble gets burst and another 200 kids are at home self isolating.

But the government get to say the schools are open. It's really getting my goat. My kids have had less than a week at school between them! And I can't see things improving. It's not the schools fault. Why can't we do something different? Close the schools for 2 weeks. Kind of force a 2 week self isolation for all school kids. In those 2 weeks schools get to focus on their online provision. Then, reopen the schools and if bubbles get burst, the teachers have had a head start on planning.

Not sure what I'm posting for. I'm just feeling quite fed up about it all.

Well what do you want? Covid 19 isnt exempt from school settings! If you dont isolate the bubbles, you will have a huge number of cases. This is what parents wanted. Children back at school was it not? It was ill fated to begin with. A sustainable option should have been considered. Children in a few days, home a few etc until this whole shit storm passed. Instead teachers wont be able to teach anyway because there will be children here, not here! Learning will fragment. What do you expect when they have all been shoved in a class like there is no virus.

It will take a teacher or a student to die before something is done sadly.
I really hope not.

Would have been good to have adequate testing up and running!

Hey @neveradullmoment99

I never said I didn't think this wouldn't happen. Or that schools aren't magically immune from covid. And that's not my beef.

My beef isn't with the teachers. Or the schools. Or PHE. My beef is with this idea that schools are open, la la la. I'd have been quite happy to listen to alternatives to sending every child back to school at the same time on the same day! We weren't given any alternatives to listen to! The day before my youngest was sent home from school the school were forced to send out (by the LEA) quite a threatening letter about attendance and fines for unauthorised absences. Parents have zero choice.

I had no choice (well apart from deregister and home school for ever) but to send my kids to school and I now have no choice but to keep them off school.

I'm happy to do my civic duty and keep them off to prevent forther spread. Doesn't mean I can't whinge about it, about how tiresome it is for me right now. About how wrong it is thaT boris Johnson can say that the schools are open! Aren't we doing fine job of educating the kids.

So I'm not sure how you got from my posts that I'm part of the problem, but hey, crack on while I drink a bottle of wine a cry quietly into my new work bag arranging emergency childcare.

@Herewefall

Would have been good to have adequate testing up and running!

Yes true. Although its slightly better in Scotland i think.

"This is what parents wanted. Children back at school was it not?
It was ill fated to begin with.
A sustainable option should have been considered. Children in a few days, home a few etc until this whole shit storm passed. Instead teachers wont be able to teach anyway because there will be children here, not here! Learning will fragment. What do you expect when they have all been shoved in a class like there is no virus."

Personally, I just wanted what was best. I didn't 'expect' anything. I can see the benefits of being in school but as I said earlier there becomes a point with numerous isolations where the children have a worse quality of life than been educated remotely.

As parents we are relying on the leaders of our country to make the decisions we can't. They have the advisors, the data, the scientists to make the decisions. We don't. Even if we are critical we have not got access to all the information needed to make decisions for the whole country.

In most Sixth Forms and FE Colleges 'bubbles' can be as high as 500 or even over a 1000. Pupils sit shoulder to shoulder in classes of over 20. They mix with different students in different subjects and in the canteen or for extra curricular activities. I want our schools and Colleges to be open. I also want the government to be honest about what is happening and allow vulnerable staff or students to work from home.

A child sat in the centre of my class would be within 2m of about 10 other children so it would be more than just the child either side that had to isolate even if we did send only close contacts home - for y10-13 they are in several different classes so not the same students each time further increasing the number. Plus there would be who they sat next to on the bus and their friendship group who they spent time with at break and lunch. So your average y11 student might have 50-60 close contacts a day.

In my classroom, every student is within 2m of at least 8 others for getting on for two hours. They'll then go to another class and another 8, and another class and another 8. In form, another 8. Plus whoever they walk to lessons with, plus the people on the bus of the train. Plus their siblings in other years.
It's a mess.

Dont we already have a school where so many of the staff are ill that the school is closed?

Schools also have to look after the staff

Dd3 year 6 is isolating for two weeks and she only started school last Tuesday. I’m not so concerned for her but hoping dd2, year 11, doesn’t have to isolate too but if dd3 gets any symptoms, we’ll all have to self isolate.

Honestly feeling so fed up today. The email arrives to say we need to provide work for isolating students whilst also teaching those in front of us. This is effectively two jobs with constantly moving goal posts. On top of this colleagues are self isolating and too sick to set work so we need to set work for them. Classes are likely to be merged to deal with the lack of staff and it will be impossible to teach effectively. There are no tests, so things aren't going to improve anytime soon.

@Ginogineli

Gov came out strictly yesterday and said close contacts only

Not contacts of contacts or it’d never stop

Dds achool uses a seating app and only those who’ve been sat next to child isolate

Not entire class

This is actually shocking. If this becomes the rule the virus will spread like wildfire and we will all end up back in lockdown.

@bigvig how are bubbles 500 or 1000 ?
Surely they divide in to year groups or classes
My ds at college he has a bubble of 27 as all doing same course , they have to wear a facemask in corridors and lunches in classroom etc
Why would 500 of them be mixing
There are probably hundreds in his college but he isnt in a bubble with all of them , i cant think of a situation where 500 / 1000 would be in a bubble together
Ds2 at secondary bubble is whole year group as they mix classes and have outside lunch and breaks together , but all year groups have at different times

Also OP how would you expect the goverment to enforce all school children to of isolated for 2 weeks before school as parents still have to work and could bring virus home as well
Year 10 upwards may also work and have jobs especially year 12 /13 many have cars to run wtc to get to college / 6th form etc

Hi Notfeelinggreat, students in our college move from one subject to another and have the same lunch and break times. They can use shared resources together, I.e. Library. We've been told this is fine as they are all one big bubble. I am in contact with colleagues in other colleges and this seems to be happening across the country.

Schools aren't the decision makers when it comes to which children or classes isolate - PHE decide.
Absolutely you have hit the nail on the head: the government will get to say the good news and someone else gives the bad news here. This was very clear from the start!

For those asking about why the bubbles are so big. Secondary school children take different options, children are streamed some subjects are limited by numbers (woodwork) classrooms are tiny so around 10 close contacts for 55 minutes at a time, and the remainder of the class are in a small unventilated room. The dfe/govt seem to have forgotten what schools are like otherwise they would have realised months ago that this wouldn't work

As parents we are relying on the leaders of our country to make the decisions we can't.

I think a vocal minority thought they knew best here. Children didn't spread the virus, they said, and they couldn't, or wouldn't, look further along the line than the first coffee and sit down without their kids in September. As we have a weak government, the idea of blended learning was dismissed in England too quickly.

It's really annoying that we are now seeing people call for the very idea which teachers thought would give the most weeks of quality teaching to the most people, when we were called all sorts for having that vision in the first place.

Yes, of course blended learning isn't the thing for early years, children with SEN and children without good access to tech. But it would have given most, especially secondary, children the best learning for the longest time under the circumstances and shouldn't have been pushed onto the back burner.

Local schools have year groups self isolating. Mainly secondary but also one primary. The trouble is the kids move between classrooms and at break/lunch times they mingle in year groups, and in corridors. Schools often just aren't big enough and are too over crowded.

Schools earned about this when trying to implement government plans but the media shouted them down saying they were being instructive and whinging.