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.

PHE may be advising but I presume it is based on what the schools tell them. Both our primary and secondary said before any outbreaks that the whole year group/ KS would be sent home as a bubble. Presumably then when PHE speak to them they just tell PHE that they can't determine close contacts due to the way the bubble works so they send the whole bubble home.
I know schools have a really difficult time but I do think they need to rethink the bubbles. In our primary they are KS1, LKS2 and uKS2. In normal years they mix across the KS for different lessons (ie move class rooms for maths etc, especially as they have a split year group for each KS). However I do feel that for this academic year they could just keep each class as one class and cope with the split year groups. It might be tricky but so is sending the whole bubble home to isolate every couple of weeks which is how it is going to end up.

[quote Flower262]@belowradar yes the original cases started from a party which the original 2 cases attended, an 18th.[/quote]
I wish there were sanctions against parents who let their DC attend parties during a pandemic. There have always been restrictions on the number of people from different households and since 14th Sept there has been the rule of six.
These are very bad parents and even if their concern is to ensure their DC are popular as well as educated then they need to realise they are the worse kind of selfish. And they need to stand up to their children. If they are 17, take away their car keys if the DC are going to a big social gathering. Set an example of how to behave as a decent human being.

@belowradar in all honesty I don’t know how many were at the party, for all I know it could have been 6, it was on the 12th so not sure what numbers were allowed then.Only know about the party as the school said in the letter which closed the year group that the outbreak can be linked back to a party. I’m am still surprised how quickly it spread through the year group though...

It's the DfE now, not PHE, that advises.
I've heard it takes an age to get through!

One of our primaries in my are has 15 staff out due to cases in two year groups.

@middleager it took more than an hour to get hold of them and we had kids turning up!

As for what we can do to separate even more? Build another school at this point. We are using our space to the maximum, staff are on duty at least once a day so we don't get breaks and there are no 'free rooms' as we've split as many classes as possible and are trying to keep social time separate.

I think those in a low case area have no idea how frantic it is in schools where numbers are so high. My partner teaches in Bolton and they are having the same problem in many of their schools; kids testing but coming in (or parents) and then they need to shut down year groups because the parent then the child has tested positive.

My issue with sending whole years or classes home is the there's a significant time delay between the bubble last being in physical contact with whoever has tested positive and the positive result coming through at which point they are sent home to isolate for 14 days from result day. It can sometimes be upto a week from last having contact to the result coming through and then they start another 14 days so it then turns into a 21day cycle. It seems overkill to me as the bubble has been freely mixing in those days(week) from last contact and the positive result.

@Concerned7777

My issue with sending whole years or classes home is the there's a significant time delay between the bubble last being in physical contact with whoever has tested positive and the positive result coming through at which point they are sent home to isolate for 14 days from result day. It can sometimes be upto a week from last having contact to the result coming through and then they start another 14 days so it then turns into a 21day cycle. It seems overkill to me as the bubble has been freely mixing in those days(week) from last contact and the positive result.

My DC school do it from last contact with case. So from when contact was last in school.

@belowradar thats how I thought it should be but schools local to me are sending home whole year groups for 14 days from result

@Concerned7777 it would be 10days since they took the positive test, or 10days from when they showed symptoms, so shouldn’t think it would be much more than the 14 days.

It's the DfE now, not PHE, that advises.
I've heard it takes an age to get through!

The helpline is to the DfE. Not sure of the systems behind that, but I do know that the PH teams are doing the actual work in advising.

I think it is probably too soon to determine how much transmission is occurring in schools. In the interim, I do think it is sensible that schools are as cautious as can be.

Yes, and at since my DC school most cases were initially caught outside school, and the previous poster who confirmed the virus got into the y13s through a party, parents need to take more responsibility for what their DC get up to.
The argument that the pupils spend all day in the same bubble so should be able to socialise together at a party is totally bs if you remember what used to happen in the sixth form parties of our youth - those kind of things do not happen while sitting eating your lunch together at school or in physics together.

I’ve put this elsewhere but our school, well the parents as instigated by them, have been good. Masks at pick up, no hanging around, no indoor play dates. No enforcement but people are doing it.

Think it’s down to appreciating an open school again! Even when the school opened in June it couldn’t take all the years back that were meant to.

A friend of mine works in a uni and they had to cancel 2 days of activity across the whole uni because of one positive case in the first years' halls (not a campus uni).

I appreciate the need to be careful, but at the same time, we had an outbreak of meningitis while I was at uni and they didn't cancel classes and lectures - they dealt directly with those who had been in close contacted, did deep cleans and ran an info campaign to raise awareness of symptoms.

Our primary has sent several children home with symptoms but they have all tested negative.
High school have two confirmed cases but have only sent home close contacts, don’t know how they decide who is a close contact.
Our secondary have also arranged for all years to have a separate area of the school for break and lunch including hot food sold at both. My DS started this year so has had an easier introduction as kept away from the older ones, but I spoke to a year 11 who loves it and says she has been speaking to people she didn’t realise were in her year. The school have said when this is all over they will be considering keeping some of the new arrangements in place as they have been very popular.