What was the science behind schools staying open?

[OneofPansPeople]

Missed the briefing last night so I wondered what the scientific data was that allowed schools to stay open?
It appears to be a very contentious subject but I wanted to try and stay away from the argumentative threads.

[FrippEnos]

[quote Ecosse]@noblegiraffe

Schools are all COVID- secure and there is no evidence the virus is being transmitted in classrooms.

Dr Jenny Harries has been very clear that any risk of transmission in schools comes from teachers and staff gathering together in informal settings.

Staff rooms and coffee breaks are the biggest risk in schools, not D.C.[/quote]
funny, especially that you contradict yourself.

[Sonnenscheins]

Are people really asking why children need to go to school?

Really?

This

[Sonnenscheins]

The ‘science‘ behind keeping schools open is the social sciences, which is just as important as the medically based science. From psychological, social-economic, child development etc standpoints the benefits of keeping schools open massively outweighs the increased risks.

Absolutely!

Add to that the unintended economic consequences of parents inability to work, paying teachers' furlough payments etc.

The socio economic costs would be HUGE!

[HerculesMuligan]

The ‘science‘ behind keeping schools open is the social sciences, which is just as important as the medically based science. From psychological, social-economic, child development etc standpoints the benefits of keeping schools open massively outweighs the increased risks. The long term risks of any children not attending school for months or even years do not bear thinking about. Particularly in a country that has such massive levels of inequality, not to mention child poverty.

There’s very little I agree with the current government on, but keeping schools open is one thing I do strongly agree with.

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

Are people really asking why children need to go to school?

Really?

[barbites]

Why do some people assume older kids can just stay at home and learn? My dd in year 11 has had to "revise" the Cold War over half term. I say "revise" because she wasn't taught it...had a booklet. It's a huge topic and she and her peers deserve to be properly taught...

[Sonnenscheins]

That is a political/ policy decision that is grounded on weighing different values and harms.

Exactly.

We need to balance the benefits of closing schools with the massive costs of doing so. The costs are so huge because they include not only the disruption to education and the consequences of that, but the knock on effect on working parents.

Michael Gove said this morning that pupils had to be kept in classrooms even if it meant extending the lockdown.

[noblegiraffe]

Some studies conducted in countries with actual mitigation measures may show less of an impact than ours which opened in a reckless and irresponsible way.

We know the virus is being transmitted at a high rate in secondary schools. We also know why.

[Bizawit]

The truth is there is no ‘science’ that can tell you whether to close schools. That is a political/ policy decision that is grounded on weighing different values and harms.

There is evidence/ data that can provide an indication of how the spread of COVID in schools may, or may not , be contributing to the overall progress of the epidemic. That is a more narrow question. The evidence on that is very limited , and in terms of what there is so far, it seems to be very mixed, with some studies saying schools don’t have much of an impact and others saying the opposite.

[noblegiraffe]

The government ignored the science because Boris wants schools open. SAGE wanted secondaries closed because of the infection rates.

inews.co.uk/news/politics/scientists-urged-government-to-close-secondary-schools-744795

[Sonnenscheins]

The reasons are scientific but are mainly to do with social science reasons. It's to do with the long term implications of school closures! And there are many many negative consequences.

Other Governments seem to understand these, and I hope BJ does too.

[jerometheturnipking]

Scotland didn’t “close schools”, the circuit breaker up here coincided with some ares being on their usual October holidays for either one or two weeks over the first 3 weeks of October.

[monkeytennis97]

There is no science.

[Dawnlassie]

There isnt any but its so parents can still work.

[Beebeeboo2]

Paraphrasing from a pp on another thread:
"There is very little sense in allowing 15 million unrelated people to mingle in close quarters 5 days a week if you're hoping to contain the spread of a virus. In the age demographic of secondary school to university, cases are fifty times higher than they were in mid September.

People are going to suffer a fair amount during this lockdown in different ways. It’s a shame that it may all be for nothing I’d our borders remain open and the two areas (secondary and universities) where infections rates are highest are kept open.

I can understand primary schools being open as younger children do worse with remote learning, infection rates are lower there, and parents can work."

[LastGoldenDaysOfSummer]

@ChloeDecker

Schools are all COVID- secure and there is no evidence the virus is being transmitted in classrooms.

*@Ecosse* You keep posting this line on all these threads admit it, you copy and paste it don’t you!? despite physical evidence to the contrary. I wish MNHQ stamped down on this.

You’re a management consultant-nothing to do with education so how would you know?

I just hope anyone reading your posts can see them for what they are

Most people will have worked it out.

[Sonnenscheins]

There is a lot of research that missing school for long periods of time is detrimental to health, education and future prospects.

We're sacrificing other parts of society by locking down, so that we can keep schools open.

Of course there will be some transmission in schools, that's inevitable.

But that's a smaller cost than than the cost of closing schools!

[saraclara]

Schools are all COVID- secure

Seriously, you have to laugh or you'd cry.

[Walkaround]

@herecomesthsun - that’s precisely why my subsequent post pointed out that schools need more money and support to minimise the risks and cope with the massive societal burden placed upon them. Just sending kids back into schools now, with the current high rates of infection, without better guidance and more support, is asking for trouble. But schools do need to stay open in some form, because this government has shown that the alternative option is out of sight and out of mind. As for the issue in hand, that isn’t the pandemic, it’s the government wasting money in the long run in a bid to save money in the short term and thus managing simultaneously to maximise both the economic and the health harms to society. Basically, it’s trying to keep two separate plates spinning and regularly dropping them, instead of working out how they can be connected together.

[ChloeDecker]

Schools are all COVID- secure and there is no evidence the virus is being transmitted in classrooms.

@Ecosse You keep posting this line on all these threads admit it, you copy and paste it don’t you!? despite physical evidence to the contrary. I wish MNHQ stamped down on this.

You’re a management consultant-nothing to do with education so how would you know?

I just hope anyone reading your posts can see them for what they are

[whyarewehardofthinking]

[quote Ecosse]@noblegiraffe

Schools are all COVID- secure and there is no evidence the virus is being transmitted in classrooms.

Dr Jenny Harries has been very clear that any risk of transmission in schools comes from teachers and staff gathering together in informal settings.

Staff rooms and coffee breaks are the biggest risk in schools, not D.C.[/quote]
And you were last in a school when?

1. They are not COVID-secure. I teach in one room with no opening windows, therefore ventilation is not possible. Therefore not COVID-secure. My office also has no ventilation at all.

1. I have evidence. We have actual seating plans of students in rooms with the dates they get a positive test result. It is spreading in classes and year groups.

1. There is no social gathering of staff in my school. The staff room is closed. We eat in our classrooms when we get the chance. I say the chance as we are running on double duties at the moment to ensure students are kept as distanced as possible. We have science teachers eating in their labs (whihc is a massive no-no) as we have nowhere else to eat, unless you go to your car.

[herecomesthsun]

@Walkaround

The science is that they think you can get R below 1 whilst schools remain open, provided you reduce contact between people elsewhere. Various experts - paediatricians, psychologists, economists, social workers, etc, are in agreement that the risks of keeping schools open are outweighed by the risks of closing them. Schools not only provide an academic education, they also provide many other community services (health screening, mass immunisations, safeguarding, food, socialisation, etc), and a sense of direction and purpose for young people who otherwise just see chaos, unemployment, and a lack of useful skills as a general prospect. It’s not just a childcare issue, although resorting to grandparents to help with childcare, or leaving teenagers unsupervised for hours at a time, is an obvious example of where you are just swapping risks, not reducing them. What’s the alternative? Sending teachers directly into the homes of families who for one reason or another are not engaging with long-distance education to find out why? Or pretending social services could possibly cope with the hugely increased burden of finding out what might be going on behind closed doors during a pandemic?

There was a scientific model that gave the contribution of schools alone to the R value as 1.0, quite apart from other factors. So this seems a bit foolhardy, especially with very limited attempts to reduce transmission inn schools through social distancing/ masks/ extra space/ extra teachers etc.etc.

It is a separate argument whether schools do good in lots of ways. I'm sure they do, but they are very effective places to spread disease in a pandemic, if this is the issue in hand.

[herecomesthsun]

@Lavenderseas

*I’m a teacher, I know NO teachers that would prefer schools to be shut.
The unions do not speak for me or my colleagues.*

On Mumsnet you get a different impression

The impression I get on Mumsnet is that teachers by and large would like schools open, but want mitigations (you know, social distancing, cluster tracing, testing available, bubbles with workably appropriate sizes, the boring old WHO recommendations) to make them safe.

Are you reading a different Mumsnet?

[herecomesthsun]

@Deliaskis

I did also see somebody post some graphs in another thread that seemed to show numbers coming down in Wales and Northern Ireland, who also have everything closed except schools. It's on page one of one of the schools threads.

I think that's exactly the opposite way round for Northern Ireland.

According to the BBC www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-54533643, they closed schools last month. My impression is that numbers then got better, and I understand that they are now poised to re-open schools.

[saraclara]

@Lavenderseas

*I’m a teacher, I know NO teachers that would prefer schools to be shut.
The unions do not speak for me or my colleagues.*

On Mumsnet you get a different impression

Really? I don't recall any teachers saying they didn't want to go back (though there might have been some fearful ones) when the unions were trying to make sure that schools would be safe before they opened.

Even if I'm wrong, the vast majority of teacher MNers wanted schools to open. But they wanted assurances that they'd be safe. If anything there were a lot of parents who weren't happy about their children going back.