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.

@veryvery yes I agree. It's annoying that we all had to find out the hard way!

And schools are providing online lessons for whole bubble/class closures. It often takes a day to get sorted and the first lesson recorded but locally it's definitely happen.

For individuals it's harder as staff can't do both - teach the rest of the class and then teach the child/ren at home. For various reasons you can't just live record the activity class lesson as it happens. We are providing home learning for these individuals but it is limited - they will get a list of the topics covered in core subjects that week, and the story of the week. Then maybe a copy of any worksheet being used, and links to national oak or bbc bite size etc for the relevant topic - because the teachers really can't do both jobs.

As for vulnerable staff - it depends what you look at. I wasn't in the shielded category but I am clinically vulnerable regards Covid. I worked from home full time from March but now back in school full time.
Within 3 days I had picked up a sore throat and a cold from a child/ren- because unsurprisingly children do pass most bugs/viruses around. Even the so called Covid secure school classrooms aren't preventing that!

@AllWashedOut

The vulnerable children SI. There are plenty of cover staff about. My friend works for a local agency, she's very good but most of the year she doesn't have work. She says there are plenty of teachers like her prepared to step into schools. They might not all be great teachers with extensive experience, and some areas will have access to a deeper supply pool than others, but how many vulnerable teachers do you think there are? Sometimes I think people guess the vulnerable class must comprise 1/3 of the UK population or some such! If it were 1% I'd be surprised.

Somehow, with 1/3 you’ve roughly hit on the figure our hospital Occ Health dept came to. And that doesn’t include all of the vulnerable groups listed by the govt as clinically vulnerable.

I think it might be you who is hugely underestimating the number of people at risk of severe illness.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay Here's some shock stats for you then: an adult in England faces daily risks of a 1:2000,000 chance of dying from covid, and a 1:200,000 chance of surviving with 'long covid'. A child is more likely to die of a lightening strike than covid. (source: private eye this week)

Hard to reconcile that with over one third of the UK population at risk of morbidity/mortality from covid. That is 18 million people!

@Aragog

And schools are providing online lessons for whole bubble/class closures. It often takes a day to get sorted and the first lesson recorded but locally it's definitely happen.

For individuals it's harder as staff can't do both - teach the rest of the class and then teach the child/ren at home. For various reasons you can't just live record the activity class lesson as it happens. We are providing home learning for these individuals but it is limited - they will get a list of the topics covered in core subjects that week, and the story of the week. Then maybe a copy of any worksheet being used, and links to national oak or bbc bite size etc for the relevant topic - because the teachers really can't do both jobs.

Ds zoomed into his class today as it happened! All went very smoothly.

I know of about 4 high schools in my area that have sent and entire year group home in the last week.
North west but not in a high risk area.