Secondary schools are fucked

[noblegiraffe]

The latest ONS data for infection rates in pupils in Y7-11 shows that they are now nearly as high for university students, the ones who were getting blamed for catching it at pubs and parties.

The latest data for number of cases per 100,000 in each year group looks alarming, even more so when you realise that the latest column is an underestimate. The figures for Y11 in particular are horrendous, and this is a crucial exam year group.

Attendance data for secondary schools is going down each week - 82% according to the latest data (excluding those on half term).

On 22nd October an estimated 557,000 pupils were off school, either isolating, or with covid (this includes primaries, I can't see the data for just secondaries).

On 22nd October, 55% of secondary schools had at least 1 pupil self-isolating due to contact with a case in school.

There is, as far as a I can see, no discussion from those in charge about what to do about this. Schools are a priority, except when it comes to talking about them. Data is hidden, covered up or just ignored. People use arguments about primary schools (parents need to work!) to apply to all ages of pupil.

Secondary schools were set up with 'bubbles'. Risk assessments were based on premise that bubbles would be mixing, and would be sent home if there were cases. This was abandoned a few weeks into term when the DfE elbowed PHE out of the way and took over the the decisions about who would be sent home. Now only 'close contacts' are sent home rather than whole bubbles, which makes no sense in the context of what we know about covid transmission in poorly ventilated spaces with no social distancing. Kids who were told that they could mix 'because they were in a bubble' are now wondering why they're in a bubble but not in a bubble in any meaningful sense.

If, when it comes to any upcoming lockdown, the message is 'schools will stay open' and there is no distinguishing between primary and secondary, and no discussion about how this trend in secondary can be addressed, then be aware that any lockdown isn't going to solve the problem because it's spreading in secondary schools.

PS: I don't want schools to close but they shouldn't stay open as they are because the data shows there's a real problem with as they are. I do want a discussion about specifically secondary so talk about primary elsewhere. If you find the data scary then that's a problem with the situation, not me posting it. I don't want any anecdotes about how your school hasn't had any cases unless you put the word 'yet' at the end of it. If your school has masks everywhere that's great for your school, but the government says their use should be avoided in classrooms and their use in corridors is only mandated in lockdown areas. Schools are not all open in Europe.

Some suggestions: masks, ventilation, review of who is being sent home, regular testing (especially if there are cases), review of fines for pupils who would be safer at home, review of working conditions for ECV teachers, it to be made clear that if a school sends your child home they are legally required to isolate.

And if it’s so serious why are teachers laughing? Disgusting

@Teateaandmoretea I don't think any teachers are saying it's not hard to try and educate your kids at home whilst also working in many cases. We get it, we really do. Most of us are loving being back at work but it simply isn't safe as it stands and screaming it is, or sticking your fingers in your ears like Boris is, isn't going to make it so.

I think the least you can do is show some empathy for those teachers who are literally risking their lives (yes teachers have died) to provide an education for your children. We need to be working together, teachers and parents, to find solutions that keep people safe and protect the children's right to an education.

Actually @Teateaandmoretea if you knew half of what @monkeytennis97 was going through you would know her dark humour is easing her pain. Just remember teachers are people too, with real lives and real families. We are not just a ‘teacher’.

We either go for no lockdown or total lockdown including schools. Positive cases are Year 11,12 and 13 and teachers mostly in our school of about 1500. Dd in a bubble of 200 which means in reality = plus siblings plus parents plus their work contacts plus us. What’s the point if secondary schools don’t close? I know the hospital doctors themselves are being hit hard near us too. Don’t have an accident or get ill with anything that needs a hospital folks!!

Can we please go back to my original OP with the intention of seeking mitigation measures in order to keep schools open rather than berating individual posters?

Sorry working Th read @noble!

Apologies again for the typos, on my phone rather than laptop - but I’m sure you can work out what I mean!

@Zandathepanda completely agree. We need a total lockdown or no lockdown. Shutting the hospitality and non-essential shops is not enough and will lead to a prolonged lockdown once the government realises it is not enough.

@motherrunner

Can we please go back to my original OP with the intention of seeking mitigation measures in order to keep schools open rather than berating individual posters?

I'm keeping the windows open, cleaning desks after lessons if there's a different bubble coming into the classroom, and wearing a mask if I have to move from the front of the room to help a pupil. Following the school one way system.

2m distance impossible in many classrooms, unfortunately. My classes complain of the cold, but I've told them scarves, coats etc. not a problem in lessons. I allowed the balaclava, but warned the pupil other teachers may not!

All Noble’s threads have been about keeping schools open safely and ensuring students get educated.
It takes a special kind of stupid to read them any other way.

I think it’s deliberate, born, they can’t argue against better safety measures for schools so they switch it to ‘schools must close’ and complain about how awful I am.

It really is as simple, in my mind, as saying locking down without closing schools will destroy business' whilst achieving nothing.

It would destroy community services (albeit private ones) such as gyms, leisure centres and pubs. Pubs are not only for young people getting pissed - in some rural communities they're the only place elderly men get to socialise and get out of the house. In Ireland at one point some areas were running minibuses to go pick up elderly farmers and drop them to and back from the pub because suicide rates had rocketed amongst that demographic during the recession and drink driving laws meant they couldn't go to the pub.

Numbers wouldn't drop and maybe, at some point, after dithering for another age, government would be forced to face that secondary schools needed to close or go blended. All of the time up to that point would have been a waste and completely pointless destruction of the economy.

@Teateaandmoretea

And if it’s so serious why are teachers laughing? Disgusting

Oh you have no idea what I'm going through. My laugh is hollow.

Thank you noblegiraffe for your update on the stats. Such a vital service that I am so grateful for! So predictable that the same false accusations are being thrown at you on here (and against other dedicated teachers) as a way of deflecting from the point of the thread and evidence it highlights.

I feel that to keep Secondary schools open more safely, the government need to urgently plan support for KS 4 and 5 and provide the proper funding for it. In addition, those teachers need to be provided with appropriate PPE ASAP.

Anything less is just criminal. Gavin-you are a fucking disgrace!

If we didn't laugh we'd cry. Most of our lives are crazy at the minute trying to deal with the cognitive dissonance of not being able to see family (even where it's not against the rules because we're so scared of infecting them) but having to stand unprotected in crowded classrooms with kids from a thousand plus different households.

I shouldn't have to say it but yes I do love teaching - no one would do it if they didn't because it's a fucking shit show in terms of funding and resources and conditions of the environment (eg leaking rooves and a 20 year technology gap).

In another lifetime I worked in psychiatric care in dangerous locked units and there too gallows humour and alcohol were the back bone of staff retention.

So given that schools broke up for half term on either the 16th or the 23rd, if schools were the cause of transmission, then we'd expect to see a drop in prevalence in school aged children on or around the 21st. Then from the 28th you'd expect to see another fall, since I believe more children have the later weeks holiday.

Most schools didn’t break up on the 16th.

As well as incubation periods you have not factored in the time taken to get the test results and prepare the reports.

“In the research study, it takes a day to get the swab to the labs, then often three to fourdays to do the tests because we are behind the queue of all the symptomatic testing.”

This week’s data doesn’t represent half term transmission.

This has reminded me I have been sent a home test kit for antibodies as part of a clinical trial which I must do.

Have been sat wasting time waiting on a government who are hold us in such contempt they can't even be arsed to be punctual.

interesting in that graph in the north east and the north west there are more cases from care homes than education and the reverse is true in south east and london,
in the southwest the two are identical

If your school has masks everywhere that's great for your school, but the government says their use should be avoided in classrooms and their use in corridors is only mandated in lockdown areas.

I never quite understand the relationship between the power heads have and the guidance set by govt. If some schools have masks everywhere then presumably heads are allowed to make that choice. Is that right?

If heads can make that choice then presumably parents and teachers in a particular school can lobby a head to make that choice.

Remember that mad group of parents were preparing to sue head teachers who mandated masks in schools against government guidance.

Do people not even read the thread title before wading in?

@DownstairsMixUp

We've had no cases in any primary schools here. Madness to close them!

That's a ridiculous argument.

No-one in my children's schools have died of cancer in the last year, but that's not a reason to stop cancer research and treatment is it?

No-one in my children's schools have died of cancer in the last year, but that's not a reason to stop cancer research and treatment is it?

That is also a ridiculous comment

Remember that mad group of parents were preparing to sue head teachers who mandated masks in schools against government guidance.

I didn't hear that. On what legal basis? But in any case it clearly hasn't deterred some heads who I assume haven't been sued?