NEU calls for two week closure for secondaries and colleges following leap in infections

[noblegiraffe]

The NEU has called for a two week closure of secondary schools and colleges following a more than 9-fold increase in the infection rate in secondary school children in a month.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-teachers-demand-2-week-school-closures-after-cases-jump

The infection rate in Y7-11 was 0.5% last week, according to the ONS survey of random households, but this nearly doubled to 0.93% in the latest set of figures. This rise cannot be ignored or passed off as relating to university students as has happened so far.

In other, entirely unrelated news, 61% of teachers report that if a student doesn't wear a mask in a school where they are mandated in communal areas 'nothing happens'.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-61-staff-say-nothing-done-if-pupils-wont-wear-masks

And Teacher Tapp data from yesterday had 26% of teachers reporting that their schools were partially closed to students.

In the meantime, the testing positivity rate in 10-19 year olds is 17%, which means that this group is severely under-tested and lots of cases will be missed. The rate should be below 5%.

Yet the insistence continues that in any lockdown scenario, schools will remain open. Idiocy.

Marsha,

We have students coughing, who sound fine generally.
A few coughs without catching it. Pupils sneezing... Colds are going around, we only test for very limited symptoms in the UK.
And not those that present in dc!

Control in school has been lost, a one way system really isn't going to help.
Back up measures are too weak, pupils, even teachers are all on different pages when it comes to the virus. There is no consistency.
They or someone banned singing happy birthday but students sing anyway! They hug, they get close, they gather... They share music sharing ear phones. There is simply no way to police them or control them to the ninth degree.
They share food... They moan about the cold, parents call in Moaning about the cold.

I genuinely think that there will have to be a shift in an economy that requires both parents to work full time to get by (including my own family). I also don't think teachers can be expected to continue taking these risks week in, week out, only to find they're so restricted as to what they can do during holidays that there's no release.

I don't want this to happen from my perspective. But if I worked in a secondary in the north of England, I might feel better about it.

Trying to teach 7 and 8 year olds via Teams, is not something I want to repeat. I worked ridiculous hours trying to teach in lockdown, to mostly no avail.

Resplendent a cough here is feared as it gets you sent home. I just kept dc home with cough (tested negative though).

But I agree with you on this
They hug, they get close, they gather... They share music sharing ear phones. There is simply no way to police them or control them to the ninth degree.

Which is why I don’t think part time really helps. I know my teen doesn’t SD at lunch time. None of them do.

I agree, no avail. I've had three pieces of work back from 60 pupils taught online this week.

@SaltyAndFresh

Teachers with no underlying health conditions are not at risk.

Teachers with no underlying health conditions are not at risk

At risk of what?

Tell that to my colleagues still suffering after being ill back in the spring!
Ok they're alive, but they are not what they were and might not ever be.

My BMI is too high (PCOS), my immune system is fucked after glandular fever picked up at school and I'm knackered. I have no underlying conditions though so that's fine. Feel a bit sorry for the one with the heart condition though.

@Mistressiggi

‘Long COVID’ does not exist. A very small number of people do suffer post viral syndrome. But this is not a new thing at all- it can happen with any virus.

Clearly it is not pleasant for the individuals concerned but it is not a reason to shut everything down.

@Notselfish

Night *@DBML*

One thing is that while teachers and parents are busy blaming each other because we are all shit scared for our families.

We are not blaming this shitshow of a government.

I'm not blaming parents, only the ones who tell me I'm lying, that I want schools closed, that I should just suck it up, that teachers and the families of students aren't at risk, that I don't enjoy my job, or don't understand that children need their education.

My issue isn't with parents, its with arseholes.

I think trying to force a blanket closure for all secondary schools and colleges without considering the vast differences in what's going on is weird.

I don't see why my DS1, who is Y11 in alternative part-time provisions with 7 other Y10 and Y11 students, the latter of which are currently going through BTEC assessments (and discussing how to get in the ones they couldn't finish last year), in a college that has pretty much all the things that I can see people want for students and teachers to have for schools to be open in a city not under any additional measures should be considered in the same position in being forced to close as my DDs' secondary in an old temporary building that's been awkwardly divided up for each year group & has to bus forms for PE as they don't have the space.

I can see the argument that the latter may not be entirely safe and more considerations towards a two week closure or blended learning could have merit (though I have doubts if closed as before that it would reopen that fast in England), but I cannot get why because they and so many other schools are simply unable at this point to be made safe to the standards discussed that those at my DS1's college who can and did should be punished. He's already doing 'blended learning' with only one day a week on campus and everything else online, but he needs that day for Engineering - not all subjects do well online & his college has done absolutely everything so students like him can do that.

It'll be more complicated than a blanket ruling, but more consideration to what's already been working well and what's just structurally stuck as less safe would be better.

[quote Ecosse]@Mistressiggi

‘Long COVID’ does not exist. A very small number of people do suffer post viral syndrome. But this is not a new thing at all- it can happen with any virus.

Clearly it is not pleasant for the individuals concerned but it is not a reason to shut everything down.[/quote]
You know better than the BMJ? www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3489

I have done a small amount of research in a related area, and I know that this sort of illness is complex and multifactorial.

Very ignorant to be so very dismissive of an emergent clinical phenomenon like this.

and very insulting I am sure to anyone reading this who has these symptoms.

The teachers on this thread are not talking about shutting everything down, they are talking about how we can keep things going.

Long COVID’ does not exist.

It's four different syndromes, at least. And it affects a big chunk. What a thoughtless comment.

[quote Ecosse]@Mistressiggi

‘Long COVID’ does not exist. A very small number of people do suffer post viral syndrome. But this is not a new thing at all- it can happen with any virus.

Clearly it is not pleasant for the individuals concerned but it is not a reason to shut everything down.[/quote]
We just don't know that, CV is a new illness.

You appear to be equating CV to say seasonal influenza.

@BiBabbles

I think trying to force a blanket closure for all secondary schools and colleges without considering the vast differences in what's going on is weird.

I don't see why my DS1, who is Y11 in alternative part-time provisions with 7 other Y10 and Y11 students, the latter of which are currently going through BTEC assessments (and discussing how to get in the ones they couldn't finish last year), in a college that has pretty much all the things that I can see people want for students and teachers to have for schools to be open in a city not under any additional measures should be considered in the same position in being forced to close as my DDs' secondary in an old temporary building that's been awkwardly divided up for each year group & has to bus forms for PE as they don't have the space.

I can see the argument that the latter may not be entirely safe and more considerations towards a two week closure or blended learning could have merit (though I have doubts if closed as before that it would reopen that fast in England), but I cannot get why because they and so many other schools are simply unable at this point to be made safe to the standards discussed that those at my DS1's college who can and did should be punished. He's already doing 'blended learning' with only one day a week on campus and everything else online, but he needs that day for Engineering - not all subjects do well online & his college has done absolutely everything so students like him can do that.

It'll be more complicated than a blanket ruling, but more consideration to what's already been working well and what's just structurally stuck as less safe would be better.

I agree completely with this, with the caveat that somebody needs to come up with a plan for GCSEs and other exams that takes account of the disparity of provision from one area to another.

Ecosse I'll continue to believe the evidence of my own eyes, but thanks anyway.

notevenat20, whilst it may not be clear that ALL schools increase the rate of infection, its bloody clear that a lot of them do.

I really meant on average. But you don’t hear of school years where 50 children have tested positive in the same week. This is what I would expect if it was extensively spread within schools and is exactly what is happening in university student halls right now.

There have been two recent studies about covid spread in schools. One from Sweden and one from Germany. If anyone is interested I will dig them out.

You appear to be equating CV to say seasonal influenza.

You have reminded me of one of my bugbears. About 50,000 people died of covid between March and August this year. 394 people have died of seasonal flu since January 1 2020.

@SaltyAndFresh
I've had three pieces of work back from 60 pupils taught online this week
And you're advocating long term home learning????

Wow some teachers are desperate to keep away from kids

Wow some teachers are desperate to keep away from kids

To be fair to teachers, MN chat seems to have attracted half a dozen particularly extreme and angry people who are teachers . I don’t think they are a fair reflection of the profession in general.

@Notevenat20, the rate in my school is 1500 per 100,000. The rate in my local area is 130 per 100,000.

How can this not be evidence of widespread transmission within schools? There are several other teachers on Mumsnet saying that their schools have similar levels to mine. There are also teachers saying their schools haven't been hit that hard yet. The ones that haven't been hit hard don't negate the fact that some schools are being decimated at the minute. Averages don't help the places at the extreme.

I am not saying all schools have higher than community transmission. But mine, and many others, absolutely do. We do not need to read a study from a different country, with different conditions, for you to try to prove to us that our own experiences are invalid.

I have looked at the statistics. Its not just a case that my school is unlucky, or at one end of a range of possible scenarios, based on normal, community spread. It is more likely that I would win the lottery than that I would have as many cases in my school as I have by bad luck. And the fact that other teachers are reporting the same situation means all those other teachers would have had to "win" that same lottery too.

What's needed isn't to deny that some schools are being hit incredibly hard by Covid outbreaks, what's needed is for the government to start recording cases in schools, not just outbreaks. They need to start looking at WHY some institutions are vulnerable, and others escape.

My own theory is that it is a function of both community spread and size. If you don't have many cases in the community, you can keep cases low in school, and hopefully stamp out any fires before they spread. However, if the virus gets a foothold in a big school, then no amount of one-way systems, bubbles year groups, sanitiser and spray will help it.

Oh, sorry for that extreme and angry response to your post telling me that my first hand experience of my own working conditions was flawed.

[quote RubyandBen]@SaltyAndFresh
I've had three pieces of work back from 60 pupils taught online this week
And you're advocating long term home learning????[/quote]
But it will be the parents fault for not forcing their children to Engage with online learning, you know when they've been left alone day after day whist their parents work because thats OK now apparently. Just because a teenager has the physical build of an adult we now have to assume they all have an adult maturity that goes with their size. Any child that doesn't engage is simply the product of bad parenting, its not like for decades teenagers have earned a general reputation for being rebellious and of course everyone on MN back in their teenage years would have wholeheartedly engaged with online solitary learning