Is it really safe to return to school?

[MrsHookey]

Child is in school. 4 year groups have been sent home to self isolate. Is this a widespread thing? Is it relatively safe to have the child back at school?

I dont believe that it is safe, children may be mildly affected or asymptomatic, but they are going home to families with vulnerable people and spreading it amongst the community, not to mention the risk teachers are facing.

Both schools my kids go to have confirmed cases. That's all of us at home now as eldest has a high temp!

Is it ok to keep children away from education indefinitely though until it is safe? Because I doubt it ever will be safe......there's no such thing as risk free. But children need an education, they need to play with their peers. Like it or not schools need to be open and children need to be there. And I say that as a mother a teacher and someone who is extremely vulnerable. Life has to go on now

It was never safe from the spread of virus beforehand yet no one batted an eyelid then. Its getting ridiculous now sending home 150 kids for 2 weeks to isolate, miss education, miss exercise, miss socialisation for 1 positive case and then to keep doing this on repeat.

Notifiable infectious diseases in school aren't new. Measles. Scarlet Fever. Chicken pox. Even flu. All can have long term consequences.

It could have been handled better. But we can't keep children home indefinitely.

Agree with @OpheliasCrayon 100%. Nothing is going to be 100% safe for a very long time. But children need an education and people need to work to put a roof over their heads and food on the table.

Is it safe? No but the risks of missing out on education and MH means staying away isn’t safe either.

It's a bit late to be asking that now.

Oh doesn't feel it no. All the assurances or tests the government stated they would have to meet for schools to open have not been met.

I think they were right to try and open schools, I think it's neglectful to not admit this isn't working. I don't know what the answer is though. I am lucky that my business is on the back burner as it can't run so I can home educate and I think it worked quite well for mine, but it's not the same for so many others. I'm gutted about the experiences they miss out on, but i have no idea how this is going to work going forward if we don't take action now.

Depends what you mean by safe.

It's like asking "is school/nursery chicken pox safe?"
Even though most people abide by the exclusion rules if their child has symptoms, we accept that our children are pretty likely to catch it but for the vast majority it will be mild and have no long term consequences.
For a few it will be very serious, or even fatal.

The worry with covid is that children will get it in school and then spread it to other vulnerable people.

The risk to children being out of school is greater.

Children are not at risk from this virus.

No. Not safe for anyone.

And not sustainable. Children do need and education but just shoving us all back into school with no protective measures was just sheer laziness on the part of the government.

The whole system is ready to collapse. And then how will the kids get an education?

Seeing as Boris finally admitted yesterday at his select committee that children can transmit the virus then no, it is not really ‘safe’ for schools to be open as they are currently. Yes, the likelihood of children getting seriously ill is fortunately rare but they can transmit to adults (teachers, parents, grandparents etc) who may not be as fortunate.

We've had our first case today at DS's school.

It depends what you consider to be safe. I believe schools are as safe as they always were, because there has always been a risk of picking up infections or viruses in them. Covid is really no worse than flu which can be caught at school and is mild for the majority, so it seems perfectly safe to me.

If you want school to be a sterile place where nothing is ever transmitted, even nits, then no, it’s not safe.

@NailsNeedDoing

What utter drivel!

Going to school was never ‘safe’. One of mine was hospitalised after catching scarlet fever at school. A child at a school near us fell and hurt their head badly and was permanently brain damaged.
Are children ‘safe’ from Covid? They are no more at danger from it than many other illnesses.
Is it safe for everyone else? It will depend on their level of vulnerability.

‘Covid is really no worse than flu’😂😂😂😡

Wtf is going on your head?!

I feel fine about it. I'm more concerned about the disruption than Covid. Thankfully no cases at DS's school yet.

No

People can die of flu or they can have a mild illness, much the same as Covid. There have always been illnesses around that are mild for most people but lethal to a few, like chicken pox. Now that we know more about Covid than we did previously, I really can’t see the need for people to still be scared and worrying about schools being safe as if they were completely germ free before.

Covid is really no worse than flu
In many cases its not even as bad as flu but unfortunately no one can predict how mild or bad it will take effect on each individual. Of course we can make a prediction on how it might effect based on age and existing medical history but nothing is certain.

This is the norm here in Birmingham after a week. One child managed a week in school before the bubble burst, another has 3 cases in school.
More than 50 schools with cases here.

Healthy children are not at risk, what Im more worried about is the amount of grandparents (some in their 70's) that I see everyday picking their grandkids up. I really worry for them but parents have to work etc so what is the alternative.

@BelleSausage

No. Not safe for anyone.

And not sustainable. Children do need and education but just shoving us all back into school with no protective measures was just sheer laziness on the part of the government.

The whole system is ready to collapse. And then how will the kids get an education?

This a million times, thanks for posting @BelleSausage. This message needs to be repeated a trillion times.

Not safe and not sustainable. Furthermore it leaves us in a worse mess than a planned, safer, blended learning approach would have done.

I think the government got lucky too; if the weather hadn’t been so good this summer I think we would be in a far worse situation now. Schools might even have stayed shut to the masses.