Secondary schools minimising positive results

[gingerbread88]

I wondered whether this had happened in other schools/areas?
Our local senior school has an outbreak that hasn't been clearly communicated.

@WhyNotMe40

Have to say as a secondary teacher I have no idea what is communicated to parents as I never see any of it - only know if the students tell me.

We often hear important news from colleagues who have children at the school, and so receive letters as parents!

Of course schools should not be sitting on info about numbers within their walls

They aren’t - the whole school is isolating!

Okay. So I work in a university. Should we stop publishing our numbers so we don't panic people? Obviously enforcing is a separate thing; what they choose to feel or not feel about that info, which is none of our business anyway, is up to individuals. The only legally binding advice is the advice to isolate, which is separate from the numbers. But I'm fairly sure there would be unions involved for other establishments sitting on numbers and not releasing them. So the DfE in a democratic society decides institutions can withhold info that should be publicly available so as not to 'panic' people now?

The school did their job. They told students to isolate.

Parents are to blame totally! They are ignoring the schools advice so it’s not the school fault there’s more cases.

People spread the virus.

If school said 3 cases or 300 these idiots wouldn’t follow the rules any way.

If public health/ DfE have told school what to tell parents then it's on parents to do their bit, not demand school share additional information before they decide if they fancy isolating their child.

The government handling has been awful, but the situation you describe falls on parents. There's too many people who are quick to decide they don't have to follow the rules, they don't need to be tested, they don't have to isolate etc so no wonder cases are increasing in schools

The really don't need to send the entire year group of 200 home for two weeks. Only close contacts.

There are circumstances where this may be necessary.

I'm interested to see how this all pans out once the students return after half term. Not just for the school I posted about but senior schools in general, I'd hope there's a bit of a'circuit breaker' due to the half term break.
I don't know what the answer is, I fully place the responsibility on parents to enforce advised isolation but a high volume caught Covid from within the building prior to half term and I still feel the school should shoulder some of the responsibility in making the school community aware of the extent of the outbreak. I really do feel differently about 30+ students testing positive as opposed to 2 students.
I take on board all points of view though.

*You only notify those who may have contact with that person.
*
It isn't a notify all parents situation for each case.

That's what I'd expect too. As a parent I only need to know about cases related to my child. I wouldn't be interested in knowing about a case in another year group. The school would have to write lots of letters/emails to parents of pupils not at all affected.

They are completely missing the point that if parents knew the extent of the outbreak they would be more inclined to stop their teens from being all over the community for the past 2 weeks and with each other having sleep overs and parties

Parents need to parent. We know the extent of the outbreak - you can’t bloody miss it. If there is a chance you have been in contact with a positive person and you have been advised to isolate then surely that is what you do? If the school has been off for the last two weeks then that is the end of their involvement. You, as a parent, need to stop your kids having contact with their friends. It is not the school’s job to police sleepovers and gatherings.

@gingerbread88

My main issue is that it is half term so has meant the students have been all over the community possibly unwittingly spreading Covid when if they knew of the extent of the outbreak and the high numbers involved they may have taken the advice to isolate more seriously.

Well those parents aren't very sensible. They've been advised to isolate. That should be enough. They shouldn't have to be told that there are lots of cases to judge whether they think it's serious enough to follow advice. They should be doing it anyway.

It is not the school’s job to police sleepovers and gatherings.

This.

@Enoughnowstop

They are completely missing the point that if parents knew the extent of the outbreak they would be more inclined to stop their teens from being all over the community for the past 2 weeks and with each other having sleep overs and parties

Parents need to parent. We know the extent of the outbreak - you can’t bloody miss it. If there is a chance you have been in contact with a positive person and you have been advised to isolate then surely that is what you do? If the school has been off for the last two weeks then that is the end of their involvement. You, as a parent, need to stop your kids having contact with their friends. It is not the school’s job to police sleepovers and gatherings.

This.

State secondary - we've had two cases in yr11 separately. On both occasions notified by email promptly and whole yr sent home for 2 weeks to isolate. Along with teachers. Home learning activated. System in place to get students home safely asap and out of school buildings.

In contrast, I have a friend in the NW and her school is just sending home the children that sit adjacent to the covid positive student - not the class or the year bubble. I did say WTF - and said class subsequently had numerous pupils confirming positive, the year bubble still remained in school. Again WTF.

@Boeufsurletoit - what have universities got to do with schools at half term? Are you suggesting that when students go home in the university holidays, universities should keep track of whether or not their students are testing positive in the holidays while at home, and reporting this to all students and parents throughout the country?

@may09bump exactly this. Schools are either not getting the same advice or are going rogue and doing what they see fit. My school is very much like your friend's. Less than 10 kids sent home when one tested positive despite lunchtime contacts and different seating plans in up to 10 different lessons. At the minute it's working and we've had very little disruption but we'll see in the long term how it pans out.

@Walkaround No, and I can see your point. But we also have local schools who weren't making numbers public before half term started. There do seem to be attempts to minimise. Parents are of course responsible if children aren't isolating when they should be, but I still think it's a very worrying development when information is being kept back. It's in no way okay to choose to keep parents and local community ignorant to avoid 'panic' as some posters have suggested.

There were cases initially. Those cases made the school tell the whole school to self isolate for 2 weeks. It is not then in their remit to make that happen, they've done what they can realistically.

Only cases that occur within 48 hours of contact with people at the school would be reported to the school and then to people who need to self isolate. There's no practical reason to then tally up any other cases of people who would have started with symptoms on the Monday as they wouldn't trigger new isolation periods for anyone as they were already not in contact (ideally, if they weren't breaking the rules and mixing).

DD's school had a case and advised isolation. Then another case came to light so isolation was extended by an extra day. But beyond that we won't hear.

I would have thought the public health officers should have put out strong warnings to the community. Although I can see the concern about panicking people.

I get what you're saying OP.

Whatever happened to the covid marshals?

People are not babies. They might feel anxious if they know the scale of the outbreak but you can’t withhold information because people might be a bit worried about it. They have a right to know the information so they can make an informed choice about it.

30 cases in one establishment at one time is a big outbreak OP. There will be many others who are asymptomatic.

Go to your local paper. They’ll get to the bottom of it.

Parents are to blame here. Sounds like the school has been very clear - isolate for 2 weeks.

If parents are ignoring this and letting their children go out and socialise then THEY are putting the wider community at risk, not the school.

The school has told you to self isolate as there are confirmed cases. We are in a pandemic. If parents aren’t taking it seriously that’s on the parents. What level is serious? 5? 30? It’s not down to the schools to get parents to behave responsibly. That’s their own responsibility.

The issue here is the spread is continuing

If they’d have isolated then the spread would be limited. They have effectively extended the isolation period for another two weeks.

Your anger is directed at the wrong people

Or you could do the maths

2 cases on Thursday - they each infect the rate of two others - Friday we have 6 cases
Saturday increases to 14 Sunday it goes to 30

It’s not rocket science is it?

The issue here isn't whether or not parents have been given sufficient information to know to keep their kids indoors. Of course they have and the kids should be indoors. The issue is that this is a community public health problem, and a local outbreak of any significant disease being allowed to look smaller than it actually is just generally unhelpful for the whole community, as well as wasting an opportunity to motivate contacts into better compliance with self isolation.

You can bet there'll be a few families who think the school must be overreacting because it's only a few cases. You can imagine the conversations now - "So how long was the head in there with you? only a few minutes? I'm sure you're fine to go out." It'll be small consolation to the people those kids spread the virus to, that someone somewhere can say "oh well it's not our fault, we did tell them to isolate".

I don't blame the school, if they were being pushed from above to minimise, but it's still not OK. From the point of view of covering their backs, yes the school have technically done enough by telling everyone to isolate. From the point of view of actually trying to help reduce transmission in the local community they're part of, they could have done a lot of good with a one line email telling people that actually there have now been a lot more cases since the first two.