Isn’t the elephant in the room with schools the parents mixing at pick up and drop off?

[Reastie]

This doesn’t seem to be mentioned in the media atm when discussing schools.

I remember Chris Whitty saying around the last lockdown one of the major risks with schools staying open was parents congregating at pick up and drop off. At dds school parents socialise in groups of more than 6 outside the school gates without distancing despite what the school requests and this isn’t an isolated thing in schools. I wonder if the govt will give stricter schools guidance in general, including addressing this more stringently.

I thought they'd realised there was v little spread outdoors? The real risk being indoors/crowding/non ventialted spaces.

Surely there is only so much space around a school. I mean you can issue whatever guidance you want but you're still limited as to what can actually be done

We queue 2 m apart outside the gates and wear masks. Isn't that what everyone is doing?

We’re restricted to one adult per family on site, asked to wear masks, have a window of time for dropping children off so no queuing, and there is a 2m cordon around exits from which staff in visors release children. Any conversations with other parents are outside, in masks, typically at least 1m apart, often more, and last less than a couple of minutes. I’d consider that low risk.

Our school have, like most, put in the best measures they can with the space they have.

What they can’t do anything about is the groups of daft parents who stand about huddled together chatting just off the school grounds

@Sirzy

Our school have, like most, put in the best measures they can with the space they have.

What they can’t do anything about is the groups of daft parents who stand about huddled together chatting just off the school grounds

We have a similar situation at our school. We even had a phone call from a member of the public complaining, but once parents / carers are off site we can't do anything.

Schools rely on parents following guidance. My observation is that different groups of parents follow guidance to different extents. I'm happily antisocial so distancing is easy. The cliques still cluster.

Also is it any worse than people talking outdoors anywhere else? I think that's still allowed

We have staggered times which helps

Isn't there vastly more spread in secondary schools where parents don't do pick ups?

@Pinkfluffyunicornsdancing

Isn't there vastly more spread in secondary schools where parents don't do pick ups?

But those figures will only show the pupils with it not the spread amongst parents at the school.

As of yesterday parents in Scotland (Tier 3 and 4) must wear masks on school grounds at drop off and pick up.

In secondary schools it's the buses and public transport that many use, its utter carnage!!

What are you doing with other parents to "mix"? Outdoors, 2 metres + away, not touching anything, that isn't really "mixing". We have to wear masks now too.

The risk outside is pretty tiny. You have children mixing in a bubble of 30-60, no social distancing, in poorly ventilated rooms and corridors and cloakrooms.

I don’t think parents standing close to one another for a few minutes, even half an hour, is going to come anywhere close to that in terms of overall risk.

I do think many parents, myself included, rely on that ten minutes of conversation with a fellow adult to get through the afternoon and evening ahead. And even more so now everything sociable is going away again for a month.

@SilenceOfThePrams Yep. Seems a tiny risk in comparison to even an hour of stuffy classroom with 30kids all close to each other! Never mind a day.

Yes the parents do hang around and chat we are squashed onto pavements. We often stand facing outwards rather than towards each other and we do all wear masks.

Generally also only mixing with parents of children in our class(es). Of the cases where the parent has had covid the other parent and children haven’t got it in isolation living with that parent so I don’t see how us chatting on the pavement will cause spreading?

In many school, like ours, it is physically impossible to socially distance entirely. There is one small stretch of pavement on a country lane which is about 1 and a half cars wide. Teachers want to hand children directly to parents, and because of the staggering lots have to hang around from one class to the next.

School can't do anything about it, but it isn't the parents being feckless either.

Out of about 200 adults i think only 3 (inc me) are wearing masks

Parents wear masks for our school drop off/pick up and there are social distancing measures in place. I’ve managed not to get within 2m of anyone since they started back in august.
We’ve had 1 isolated case in the parent community and none amongst pupils so must be working ok.

I pick one of my grandchildren up from Primary school and there is plenty of space outside the gates to keep an effective distance. This is obviously not going to be the same for every school so you can't generalise. A school on a country lane or a city street won't have the same amount of space.

I think there are actually more people picking kids up from the secondary school to avoid the buses but they are in cars creating traffic carnage. Especially the 4x4 yesterday which managed to get wedged across a narrow road preventing the bus from getting in or anybody else from getting out.

I should add that we have had no cases at all however.

Main issue seems to be secondary rather than primary most secondary pupils take themselves don't they or at least just dropped off out the car not parents walking them into school

Parents mixing isn't an issue at secondary where the rates are much higher than primary.

The elephant in the room is the lack of mitigation measures which has enabled the virus to spread very quickly particularly among older school children.