Should this school have sent the whole year home?

[MrsWhites]

Our secondary school have so far had positive cases in YR’s 7, 8 and 9. In each case they have ‘identified those children who will need to isolate’ - sending home approx one class of children each time. My understanding of the bubbles idea was that the whole year group would need to isolate after a positive case. Surely it is impossible for them to identify those children that have been in passing contact with an infected child during lunchtimes, breaks, passing in the corridor etc.

School are adamant that they are following government advice.

I would agree with their approach and it is what's recommended. Bit scary when your children are in the school but needs must as the devil drives.

Depends on the school, some schools can keep different year 7 classes apart etc. I would be grateful the whole year group isn’t loosing 2
Weeks of learning again.

All our year 11s have just been sent home for 2
Weeks- terrible.

Schools don't make the decisions on this. The local public health authority make the decisions on who to isolate. When a case is confirmed the school calls the PH number. They then formulate a plan on who we isolate and who can stay in school.

So stop blaming schools!

Excuse me @ramblingsonthego, where did I blame the school?

I’m not saying it’s a bad approach or that it was their decision to react with this approach? My understanding was that the whole bubble would have to isolate which is the route other secondary schools in the area have taken.

My child is in a year no affected so far anyway thankfully.

The criteria for isolating is spending 15 minutes in close proximity to the person with symptoms (who has tested positive). Just passing in the corridor or walking past at lunch wouldn't count

@dementedpixie thanks for that, I wasn’t aware that a time frame had been assigned to ‘contact’ so that makes it much clearer!

Don't know if this will be readable but gives info about who a Contact is

The criteria for isolating is spending 15 minutes in close proximity to the person with symptoms (who has tested positive). Just passing in the corridor or walking past at lunch wouldn't count
This is correct.
According to gov.uk: "within 2 metres of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 for more than 15 minutes"
And the alternative would be to shut whole school down otherwise as passing contact isn't just limited to a year-group.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-contacts-of-people-with-possible-or-confirmed-coronavirus-covid-19-infection-who-do-not-live-with-the-person/guidance-for-contacts-of-people-with-possible-or-confirmed-coronavirus-covid-19-infection-who-do-not-live-with-the-person

Thank you all. I wish school had sent some of the guidelines out to parents along with the letters regarding positive cases.

V useful post @ProperlyPdOff. Seems a better approach than sending whole year groups home willy nilly

It isn't paying contacts op.

Imagine you go to Costa and log in. Eat your cake, walk through shipping centre and go home.

You get Corona and the track and trace thing does its thing.

They'll be looking at who was in Costa when you were, not everyone in the shopping centre who may have walked past you.

If you also popped into Spar then it would be people who were in Costa and Spar, not the people in-between.

So if Mary had all her lessons in 7J, all of 7J go home. If they're split in difference lessons, then any of the classes they attend would.

@MrsWhites I agree, there is a lot of confusion. My DC school did the opposite - sent the whole school year home (several hundred in secondary), apparently advised by PHE. Then a few days later had to let back those who had not had any prolonged contact with the positive case.

@ProperlyPdOff

The criteria for isolating is spending 15 minutes in close proximity to the person with symptoms (who has tested positive). Just passing in the corridor or walking past at lunch wouldn't count This is correct. According to gov.uk: "within 2 metres of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 for more than 15 minutes" And the alternative would be to shut whole school down otherwise as passing contact isn't just limited to a year-group.

In my elder DC's class, the children are shoulder to shoulder. I would say that the classrooms are less than 4m x 4m,for 30 children.The classes last more than 15 minutes.

He is in a tutor group, and in another teaching group.

So I assume that if any one of these children tests positive,they would automatically all have to go home.

I wonder also how it is decided that children are magically not going to infect each other, if they are walking around the very crowded corridors together, or crammed into a school bus together, or all in a crowd waiting to be picked up at the end of the day. and so on.

@herecomesthsun there is scientific studies underlying this approach. Good piece in El Pais about the study if 3 mass transmission events that concluded that passing in corridors etc leads to little transmission (I guess unless someone sneezes).

[quote ProperlyPdOff]www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-contacts-of-people-with-possible-or-confirmed-coronavirus-covid-19-infection-who-do-not-live-with-the-person/guidance-for-contacts-of-people-with-possible-or-confirmed-coronavirus-covid-19-infection-who-do-not-live-with-the-person[/quote]
@herecomesthsun - I didn't write the rules or perform the studies underlying the science advice, just passing on the current guidelines/rules! And I even provided the link from the government.

DD’s school is sending home a whole year group when there is a positive case then figuring out who is a close contact so the others can come back. Which seems very sensible to me.

What does it say in the schools risk assessment, OP @MrsWhites? You could always ask to see it. My school have published theirs on the school website for transparency with parents and carers.

I wonder also how it is decided that children are magically not going to infect each other, if they are walking around the very crowded corridors together, or crammed into a school bus together, or all in a crowd waiting to be picked up at the end of the day. and so on.
I think it's now than in reality the LIKELIHOOD that passing by someone in a corridor, in a shopping aisle, etc will give you their Corona virus is slim, and the isolation implication makes it impossible. Depending on the setting you'd potentially have to send a whole school or certainly large chunks of of it for a positive case, if you pop into a shopping mall then the next day test positive there would have to be a local broadcast saying anyone who was in the X shopping centre between a-b times needs to isolate for 14 days

@MrsWhites

Our secondary school have so far had positive cases in YR’s 7, 8 and 9. In each case they have ‘identified those children who will need to isolate’ - sending home approx one class of children each time. My understanding of the bubbles idea was that the whole year group would need to isolate after a positive case. Surely it is impossible for them to identify those children that have been in passing contact with an infected child during lunchtimes, breaks, passing in the corridor etc.

School are adamant that they are following government advice.

The school have not identified who they have to send home, they are told by Public Health England) or equivalent what year groups/classes/tutor groups have to be at home.

Every school is different OP, so not useful to compare to other schools.
Your understanding is only partially accurate.
There are schools that have the capacity to ‘bubble’ classes. For example, in my school, Years 7 to 9 are staying in one classroom all day. They each have their own toilets to visit, they eat in the classrooms and have different staggered ‘free time’ to have breaks in the school fields.
In this instance, only classes would have to isolate.
It really does depend on what each school is able to manage, so no, your school should not necessarily have sent home whole year bubbles. We’d need more information to tell you otherwise.

Thanks everyone, interesting to see how schools are doing things differently.

I will check out the risk assessment which I’ve just noticed is on the website.

@ChloeDecker I think that’s where my misunderstanding has come from, they aren’t operating class bubbles, pupils are still moving between classes and mixed sets so for example my dd may have English with one set of 29 and then maths with an almost completely different class. But thinking about it, that is more of an issue in years 10 and 11. The positive cases so far have been 7,8 and 9 which I believe do mix less so perhaps the approach will be different if/when it reaches the later school years!