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Concerns About School Covid Response

3 replies

saltysurfer · 28/09/2020 10:32

My child attends primary school and has been back for a number of weeks. Upon returning, it seemed to me that, compared to other schools, our school's approach to setting in place risk management procedures are a bit sloppy. By this, I am referring to the way the kids enter and leave the school, how they are merged with another year group at play time and the sharing of toys etc between two different year group bubbles. We also received a letter to say that a child had tested positive for Covid and that the child had been "isolated", however none of the other children in the class seem to have been sent home and the school will not share which year group was affected. In addition to this, an older sibling of a child in my class was sent home from the middle school, as he had been sitting next to a child with Covid. Only two children were send home from the middle school and the next day the younger sibling of the child who had been sent home was in the class with my child. Surely that whole family was expected to isolate themselves? This is all of particular concern to me, as I have my elderly mother living with us and she is in the high risk group and I know several other families are in the same situation.
I contacted our local council to ask about the schools strategy for minimising risk, but they just told me that they devolve government guidance to schools and each school does their own risk assessment.
Can anyone let me know if they are experiencing similar issues and how they are dealing with it. Other than going to the school (which I have only ever contacted once before and received no response), there seems to be no point of contact for concerned parents.

OP posts:
Augustbreeze · 28/09/2020 10:36

School should be replying to communications from parents, esp at the moment!

It's not schools' decision who gets sent home, but PHE's. PHE give the text for the letter as well, and they're not allowed to identify which years etc.

No the whole family doesn't have to isolate if one person is sent home to isolate because of contact, because the other family members are at much lower risk.

Augustbreeze · 28/09/2020 10:38

It might also help to bear in mind that compared to secondary pupils, in "bubbles" of 200*+ and where older children mean infection and transmission is more likely, most primary children are in much smaller "bubbles" therefore at lower risk.

saltysurfer · 28/09/2020 10:51

Thanks for the responses. I can only compare what I have seen at our school to what other people I know are telling me about their schools, where the responses seem to be much stricter and much better organised. I just feel that if there is an option to make the school safer, then why not do it. The other schools I know of seem to have found the balance between putting in place sensible procedures at the same time as doing things to try and make sure that the kids don't feel anxious. Many parents were commenting on the first day back how chaotic things seemed, but they just seem to accepted it. If the local council don't intervene, though, who does?

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