Is shutting a whole year group overly cautious?

[Marcellemouse]

I have 2 secondary school DC at different schools. Both schools are old buildings with small poorly ventilated classrooms so unable to social distance. There's been a case of CV in each school however the infected DC has not passed the virus on to any other DC in their year group (year 8 and year 9). It's made me wonder how necessary it is to shut the bubbles. What experience do others have? From what I can see locally it doesn't seem to be spreading massively amongst pupils like we thought it would which is great.

Couldn't they send everyone home until they get a negative test result? Why do they have to stay at home for 14 days untested.

The school has a policy which they have told us all about from the start of term which is to send the whole year group home. I don't think PHE will change that

Also, you have no idea how schools work soooo...🤷🏻‍♀️

@notevenat20

Couldn't they send everyone home until they get a negative test result? Why do they have to stay at home for 14 days untested.

Because they're not allowed to ask for evidence of a negative test. And because that's what the government has told us to do.

I'd be interested to know who has these detailed convo and what about?
I mean our healthy and safety person may say windows open, doors open, sd students but that day student may have closed windows, done group work and door is never open and they all get to close and spend lunch together etc

@savetti yes all had to isolate for 2 weeks and all back now. In each case the DC had symptoms which is why they were tested. Both schools following advice from PSE.
@SmileEachDay by too extreme I mean closing year groups for 1 case as it's been shown in both these schools that it's not lead to further cases.

We've had an Indian summer here, today was our first cold day, more dc in class at lunch as no where else to go, one had stinking cold and cough, Windows shut..

@notevenat20

Couldn't they send everyone home until they get a negative test result? Why do they have to stay at home for 14 days untested.

Great idea in theory but we don’t have enough tests

Also it takes a few days to register as positive

But having fast available testing for stuff like this would be good

@notevenat20

DCa school just sent home a whole year group for 14 days because one child tested positive. I can't see this system working . You only need 6 cases to empty the entire school.

The only solution is smaller bubbles I think which of course causes another lot of problems.

There are other solutions - identify close contacts in each case and only send them home, or select a higher threshold for sending the whole year-group home without further analysis. I don't know myself! I wouldn't call it extreme, but I find living under the threat of the dreaded email from school a hard way to live. 2 year groups already at home, but as I said no teachers affected or further transmission apparent in rest of school. Better testing would be a start, but this country is far behind other countries (and private schools) in that respect.

I'd be interested to know who has these detailed convo and what about?

The Head initially. Then the members of staff in charge of H&S. Then the teachers who were teaching the positive child. Then the Head. Then the Head again.

They wanted to talk about exact proximity and lengths of time the positive child had been with other people. It was quite thorough!!

I think the French probably have the right idea. Hopefully they have been finding its not spreading in schools as much as we feared.

it's not lead to further cases

How do you know?

They tell us about each case identified in the school. So I know that no other year groups are affected. I don't know about the families of the identified positive cases, but to some extent it has been implied that the cases were caught at home in the first place (e.g. pupils who had already been at home for quite a long time before getting a positive test result). And no teachers with positive cases.

@belowradar same here.

They tell us about each case identified in the school

We have shedloads of kids off waiting for tests. They aren’t available so the kids are just off for 14 days. But they can’t count as “confirmed” because no positive test.

@belowradar

Same, cases at our school caught in the majority outside of school and not transmitted within school to any notable extent. 1 positive case is managed by identifying close contacts and 2nd case means whole year group home for 2 weeks. No staff with positive test results after those cases - first of which was several weeks ago now.

This sounds sensible as more than one case shows likely transmission within school.

The school will work with local health protection teams and follow the advice accordingly. For our school they are bubbled in year groups which means that if there is a positive test the whole year group has to self isolate. There is no social distancing in classroom and the year group will mix in different subjects. Masks are only worn in corridors and social areas.

DD’s year 13 had 2 cases, on Monday 14th, sent home close contacts. By Thursday 17th they had 5 cases. Still sent home close contacts. On Sunday they closed the year for 2 weeks, now at over 30 cases. 180 in year.

Thankfully haven’t heard of any being really unwell with it.

@Flower262

DD’s year 13 had 2 cases, on Monday 14th, sent home close contacts. By Thursday 17th they had 5 cases. Still sent home close contacts. On Sunday they closed the year for 2 weeks, now at over 30 cases. 180 in year.

Thankfully haven’t heard of any being really unwell with it.

How do the school communicate with you re number of cases? Plus did they all get tested

@notevenat20

Couldn't they send everyone home until they get a negative test result? Why do they have to stay at home for 14 days untested.

Do you mean the contacts? There is a 14 day incubation period, so even if you have the virus in your body and are incubating the virus, it may not show up as positive on a test. You have to complete the 14 day isolation period. Testing in that period is meaningless (unless you have symptoms yourself).

Great idea in theory but we don’t have enough tests.Also it takes a few days to register as positive.But having fast available testing for stuff like this would be good

Yes I was thinking you would have to wait 5 days at least before getting the test maybe. It's true that getting a test is not so easy these days.

But how can you know if all situations this will be the case, ie that it seemingly wasn't spread. I think sending year groups home is fine and is one of the only protections in school to stop it spreading everywhere.

@Flower262

DD’s year 13 had 2 cases, on Monday 14th, sent home close contacts. By Thursday 17th they had 5 cases. Still sent home close contacts. On Sunday they closed the year for 2 weeks, now at over 30 cases. 180 in year.

Thankfully haven’t heard of any being really unwell with it.

Oh dear. I hope your DD is ok.

@AliciaWhiskers that's bad. I wonder why there's such a big spread compared to my local schools, maybe age of the DC?
The oldest year group I know of with a positive case is year 11 at my dnieces school in a different area and nobody else showed symptoms.

notevenat20
Couldn't they send everyone home until they get a negative test result? Why do they have to stay at home for 14 days untested.

Guidelines deal with this specifically. Even if kids got a negative test result, it has 14 days to incubate so they could get it in 3 days time.

At DS’s secondary school, both the year above and the year below him have been sent home to self-isolate as there has been 1 positive test in each year. Each year has 9 classes of around 30 children each, so 538 healthy (at the moment) children are now not in school. The school is in a local lockdown area, so they already wear masks in all communal areas (but not lessons), sanitise their hands regularly and only move classrooms when absolutely necessary (PE and Art), and they have staggered start/end and lunchtimes and got rid of break time, so they don’t have much contact with children outside of their class.

IMHO it is overly cautious to send whole year groups home to isolate like this. If it happens in primary schools too it will cause hardship as parents either end up taking unpaid parental leave or potentially lose their jobs if it happens repeatedly, or disobey the rules and get someone from outside the household to babysit whilst they work.