Secondary schools are fucked, BOFFINS ADMIT

[noblegiraffe]

Latest ONS random sampling data shows that secondary school children in Y7-11 are now the age group with the highest infection rate in England, overtaking sixth form and university students.

In Wales "Schoolchildren are more likely to catch and spread coronavirus than previously thought, experts have warned... It was also discovered that while children were far more likely to be asymptomatic and not become seriously unwell, they were more likely to be the first positive case in any household."

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/schoolchildren-more-likely-catch-spread-19275959?fbclid=IwAR0kpoikv0D_nkwHx3lVyQX_cyDj6Ycy1d6gE3aRx6syxUKzFQsYzMDSqPw

English boffins are a bit slower on the uptake though
"SAGE’s report found that prevalence of Covid-19 in school-age children had “risen significantly” in the first wave, and that the rise in prevalence was “first visible around the time that schools reopened”.

However, it said that while this “may be indicative of a potential role for school opening, causation, including the extent to which transmission is occurring in schools, is unproven and difficult to establish”.

schoolsweek.co.uk/child-infection-rate-rise-began-when-schools-reopened-but-direct-link-unproven-says-sage/

It must indeed be difficult to establish whether there's transmission in a high risk environment where kids are packed in like sardines with no mitigation measures. A real head-scratcher. Especially if you spent the whole summer insisting that it would be fine because the kids are facing forward.

What do we want? Well, one of the major teaching unions has called on the government to:

1. Demonstrate that they are following the scientific evidence and advice.
2. Strengthen the guidance to schools and colleges on ensuring COVID-safe and COVID-secure working practices.
3. Secure the updating and publication of health and safety risk assessments and equality impact assessments by school and college employers.
4. Publish weekly data on positive cases of COVID-19 infections of school/college staff and pupils by local government area
5. Ramp up inspection and enforcement measures in schools and colleges, including more comprehensive use of spot checks and visits by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
6. Take swift action to protect public health in the event of an outbreak.
7. Protect vulnerable teachers and support staff and pupils.
8. Strengthen the guidance to insist on effective social distancing in schools/colleges.
9. Establish a national plan for remote education/blended and distance learning.

10. Provide significant additional financial support for schools and colleges urgently to ensure the safety of staff and pupils, including extra funding for cleaning, personal protective equipment (PPE) and supply teachers

www.nasuwt.org.uk/article-listing/plan-to-keep-schools-safe-during-pandemic.html

Oh OP I knew this would be you yadayada...yeah that's why I chose the same thread title as before etc etc.

Why do we need another thread blah blah: it's because secondary school kids are now infected at the highest rates in the country. This has implications for lockdown. How effective will it be if the most infected subset of the population are mixing freely? And it's also the first hint from scientists that they might have been wrong about exactly how safe schools are. There's also a strong suggestion that kids are bringing the virus home from school which parents should be aware of.

It's also causing chaos in schools, but there's another thread about that.

Sorry, haven't rtft. Wasn't there a study on mental health repeated during lockdown that showed a reduction in reporting of mental health issues in secondary schools?
I do some voluntary work with Guides and whilst some of the girls have struggled with becoming quite withdrawn and anxious, quite a few of them (my DD included) have found being out of the school environment very good for their mental well-being.
I think it will take some careful study after this is over to tease these two threads out. There's much to learn.

There's certainly been a suspicion, Sansa, that if the disruption to education that has been seen in the North had actually happened in the South East, then the government would have actually acted by now.

I just can't get my head around how many thousands of kids are currently at home not in school, in quarantine that is worse than the original lockdown as you're not even allowed out of the house, and the willingness to totally ignore this as 'schools are open'. When it happened to uni students it was a scandal.

The big risk in schools is teachers meeting at coffee breaks and lunches in staffrooms and not socially distancing

And yet in every school I know of this simply isn't happening.

I was eating my lunch alone in my room every day as I wasn't on a specific tear group bubble. I was able to use the kettle to make a drink, but had to wipe it afterwards and drink elsewhere.

Our staff are not sat together in staff rooms and haven't been since March.

Even our weekly staff meetings are done over zoom with is sat in separate classrooms.

The only people I get within 2m of at school are the children.

Most of the time I don't even have another adult in the same room. When they did come in it was from a distance and usually with a mask on.

I'm clinically vulnerable so was being extra cautious. Therefore I know for sure I wasn't having close contact with any school adult at all. Outside of school the only adult I had close contact with was Dh. I shop online and on the odd time I've been out it's not been close contact.

Why are HSE and others and anyone on here wanging on about students social distancing? How the actual hell does anyone think that this is in any way possible? And I just just mean in classrooms where they are obviously just as crammed in as possible...But in moving around school, going to the canteen, moving to other classrooms, using the loos, queuing for the bus to get home...In order for them to have 2m between each of them each of these transition times would take an absolute aeon. It's. Just. Not. Possible.

Hope you are feeling much better, Aragog

But some places are closing them. Despite having a shit president quite a lot of schools in the US are doing online learning.

It doesn’t seem to be heresy to suggest this in other countries as it is here.

It's not just the north, is it? Posted above was the list from Oxfordshire. I'm in the Midlands - every single secondary school in my area has had multiple closures of year groups. Many year 11s have had less time in school than out of since September. Why does no-one care?

I’d also like to say that keeping schools open is going to MASSIVELY impact the learning of children as more staff and pupils get sick or infected and have to isolate. The staffing structure in most schools can not cope with the amount of absences in some schools right now, imagine how it’s going to be in another week or two.

@Juststopswimming

I never said teachers weren't working tirelessly for vulnerable kids - but how can they do that if kids are learning remotely?!

All of our known vulnerable children were offered full time school from the start. Most were persuaded to take this up. The ones that didn't were contacted 1-2 times a week by phone, with both parents and child being spoken to including the use of video calls. They were, at times, visited at home too.

Schools often work tirelessly with vulnerable (and I don't mean Covid vulnerable) children and their families. Many have dedicated staff who spend all day every day doing just that.

It is definitely true that the suicide rate has recently increased. It is in the SAGE documents. Unfortunately suicide is the highest reason for death in young people anyway. The increased rate is said by SAGE not to be enough to be statistically significant and will, of course, have multiple and various factors.

I am sure it is not intentional but to appear to blame teachers for suicide is a rather manipulative. Suicides have actually increased since July.

I sadly have taught three young people who ahve killed themselves. All had left school recently. All were male. All of them had complex mental health issues. I attended the inquest of one (not something I'd like to repeat) and a lack of external mental health services and psychiatric support and inaction by medical teams were cited as the biggest cause for concern. Until we stop cutting MH services to the bone this problem won't improve.

Yes, what exactly is a “hardline” lockdown? If you mean shutting the schools again, just say that. Or do you mean shutting everything, all shops, all services, all utilities?

And giraffe has done nothing to change the consensus here or anywhere else. There are still the same cheerleaders from the staff room demanding impractical or poorly thought out solutions which in real terms mean shutting schools again, vs the same parents still concerned for their children’s mental health and education. All she does is fuel the antagonism with her endless threads between the two groups.

Hardline as in all but essential services including schools, colleges and universities closed. Travel bans both internally and externally.

Emergency services and food retailers would obviously need to remain open but with strict rules in place. Gear up for more home delivery.

No one wants the above, but can we live with the alternative? Piece meal, pointless partial lockdowns going forward.

Oh I'm very much aware it's not just the north, Dangling, but they were the first to really be hit. When I posted on here about the tens of thousands of kids missing school in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and the astonishment that it wasn't being reported on the national news, posters rushed to insist that it was merely a local issue and not of national interest at all.

Now that schools across the country are being badly affected, there are definitely more posts on here about the chaos. At some point it will have to be reported on.

The government and experts have been very clear that all schools are COVID secure.

And yet I still caught it - almost certainly from school and most likely from a symptom free young child.

I know my contacts. I know the measures I was taking - I'm clinically vulnerable so was being very careful. But I still got it - just been signed off for my sixth week as my Covid complications aren't yet stable enough for me to return.

I've been through my track and trace details carefully and it's quite clear where I had to have picked it up.

Do you actually know what Covid secure means for a school? The difference between Covid secure for many other workplaces and schools is huge. I see the work that dh's office has had to abide by compared to my school.

demanding impractical or poorly thought out solutions which in real terms mean shutting schools again

Well this is just bollocks.

Let's hope so.

I agree venice. FFS on our local news there was a cake shop allowed to remain open because it 'does takeaway'.

TBH I don't buy into 'COVID secure'. There's really no such thing. Just as we've never had 'AIDS secure' or flu secure. I accept I will catch COVID at some stage just as I accept I buy car insurance as I may be involved in a collision at some stage..

schools will not be closing at any time. Period

And yet all nine classes at my school have had to close at some point over the past five weeks.

naughtipuss your post implies a) no teachers are parents and b) teachers aren't concerned about children's education and mental health. I'd add physical health to the list of things I am very much concerned about.

Do you actually know what Covid secure means for a school?

As far as I can see, the only difference between my classroom pre-covid and in the middle of a pandemic is that I'm not allowed to move from the front and the window is open.

My nephew’s secondary school has closed for 2 weeks as has cases in all school years

I accept I will catch COVID at some stage just as I accept I buy car insurance as I may be involved in a collision at some stage..

But you will still wear a seatbelt and follow the highway code.

The co-morbidity thing also annoys me.

Had my Covid complication not been caught so soon I was at risk of heart attack or stroke.

Had that happened and the worst occurred I'd have been on of your statistics. Clinically vulnerable under 50yo woman.

BUT the reason why I'm clinically vulnerable is NOT something that would ordinarily shorten my life! There is no reason at all why I shouldn't live to a ripe old age.

Yet on paper had the worst happened after I caught Covid that's what it would have been classed as.

@noblegiraffe

Hope you are feeling much better, Aragog

Thank you, I'm getting there slowly. Though the gp isn't happy for me to return to work just yet. Thins need to be a bit more medically stable first.