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.

My daughters are at a small school in a previously low incidence area. Masks worn at all times indoors, plenty of social distancing measures. School have kept us informed. First cases cropped up over half term. I think we did well to get that far but I'm expecting rolling bubble closures from now till Christmas. My daughters aren't particularly worried, I think probably because we don't personally know anyone at high risk and the only person we know to have died or been hospitalised was in their 90s with dementia in a care home in another part of the country.

Other people in their class are worried though but I think that is partly the fear this government has installed which I think is disproportionate for most people.

Remember Boris visiting schools with a few random kids in view, when the rest of the class were crammed up the other end of the room, out of camera-shot?.

O yes the one where the child called him an arsehole.

@noblegiraffe

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.

Yes, I have a friend from the PGCE who is teaching in Manchester. Within the first week after the Summer holidays, they had positive cases and were sending children home. Some year groups have been off 3 times. Her school is nominally still "open" but the number of kids actually attending regularly is tiny. Some schools in the local area are fully closed due to lack of staff.

I also have a friend who teaches in Nottingham. His school have done two partial closures due to lack of staff, alongside all the isolating going on.

If this was happening in London/the SE, I do think we'd have seen a different response.

And yes, I think it is worst than the first lockdown in many ways. I think the uncertainty is really difficult for a lot of kids. The received wisdom is that students like consistency and routine. They are getting none of that at the moment.

Both my children, in different schools, have already had year groups close for ten days. One is home now. The primary school is better because it has smaller class sizes in his year-22. It's got quite a big outside space and they are using it well. It's still by no means 'covid secure' in any way other than the sense it's used in schools. The school are doing their best, but if it was an adult workplace it would be closed.
Ds1's secondary school. Again doing its best-having made ridiculously inadequate provision during lockdown 1. Nevertheless continuous news of bubbles being closed, and there is no way the kids are social distancing properly, because the school building and timetable makes it impossible.
My kids are coping ok-ds1 definitely needed to be back in school. I just wish they would call off the exams. There is no way those at schools where they have been closed regularly are going to be on an even keel with others...

I think the uncertainty is really difficult for a lot of kids

And adults. We've just had a bunch of Y11s sent home meaning they'll be out for their mocks. What are we supposed to do now? Decisions will need to be made, quickly, and acted upon. It's constant firefighting. Everyone is going into school wondering what will be facing them today and you think you've got it sussed, then something totally new happens again.

Parents are also on constant tenterhooks wondering when their kid will be sent home and how long for. I've had the 'there's been a positive case in your kid's class' message with the accompanying stomach-plummet and then blessed relief when there was no need to isolate. So much upheaval for everyone involved in schools at the moment.

My kids are coping ok-ds1 definitely needed to be back in school. I just wish they would call off the exams. There is no way those at schools where they have been closed regularly are going to be on an even keel with others..

Yes, and if anything is damaging teen mental health right now, I think it is the stress and uncertainty around exams.

And adults

Yes, this is totally true- being in school is really stressful right now, and it's not (for me) about the fear of personally getting ill, but it is the constant change and uncertainty.

I agree it is super difficult for parents as well. I know someone who's a single parent with two primary aged kids. The youngest has to isolate for two weeks. The school are pressuring her to get the oldest in (with threats of fines) but she has no-one who can consistently do the school run for her, and the youngest is far too young to be left alone for 20 minutes during the school run and is not meant to leave the house.

All she does is fuel the antagonism with her endless threads between the two groups.

I've been thinking about this. How is it fuelling antagonism between parents and teachers to want safer working conditions in schools? That implies that parents don't want safer schools which would be bonkers.

Do you not want safer schools, @NaughtipussMaximus?

School should come and pick the child up if they are pressuring her. We wouldn't be doing that.

I spent ages last weekend sorting out 4 week's worth of home learning for a child whose parent is ECV. The child should be in school, and the party line is that we should be persuading her to come in, and that I don't have to provide work for her... but the private opinion is that we should do anything we can to help.

The pressure that the government has put on ECV families to put themselves in a demonstrably unsafe environment after months of telling them it wasn't even safe for them to leave the house is unforgivable.

Yes, and it is super stressful for the students as well.

I have a few students with ECV parents and the stress they are under must be immense.

One of them has been off all week, and I do wonder if she will come back before the end of lockdown. Part of me hopes not.

Absolutely unforgivable.

Sansa - that is happening all over the place. Siblings missing education because their sibling's bubble has popped - and how is a parent supposed to get one child to school whilst leaving another one at home alone (primary aged)? ANother thing the government clearly hadn't even considered. So one sibling bubble popping, followed separately by the other's mean both lose 4 weeks of learning.

@noblegiraffe

The pressure that the government has put on ECV families to put themselves in a demonstrably unsafe environment after months of telling them it wasn't even safe for them to leave the house is unforgivable.

This. It's disgusting.

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.

Yes, this. I have a lot of friends who are uni lecturers and after their university management promising lots of face to face all of them are now 100% online. In fact, in one case the students were surveyed and they chose it.

And yet, teachers have to teach in unsafe conditions. With even ECV kids and parents not being given a choice.

Masks from age 6 in France, Italy and Spain (France tried our way, saw it fail dramatically but at least have the common decency and care for its citizens enough to do SOMETHING).

Thanks to noble, piggy and aragog (and all the other teachers) for continuing to speak up while there is a huge concerted effort to silence them.

aragog I hope you get fully better very soon. I am glad your GP is supporting you in signing you off.

It's was so bleeding obvious what was going to happen in schools, it's actually mind boggling that some people can't/refuse to see it. The psychology of it all is fascinating. How's peoples' minds twist and rationalise things to suit their own agenda.

I would love to have a mind that is oblivious to reality. It must be nice.

The school are doing their best, but if it was an adult workplace it would be closed.

Just a gentle reminder that a school is indeed an adult workplace.

@Aragog

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.

Me too, so much. I have no clinical conditions but with a BMI of 33, I know full well that there are Mumsnetters who would be only too keen to blame my weight (and therefore me) if I fare badly with Covid.

Sadly, my eyes have been opened this year, not only to the lack of compassion of so many, but the depth of their hostility and vitriol. I can't find enjoyment in anything any more, knowing that I'm valued so little by society.

@Jeremyironseverything

It's was so bleeding obvious what was going to happen in schools, it's actually mind boggling that some people can't/refuse to see it. The psychology of it all is fascinating. How's peoples' minds twist and rationalise things to suit their own agenda.

I would love to have a mind that is oblivious to reality. It must be nice.

Yup.

@Piggywaspushed

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.

My post implies there are two vociferous groups in this particular debate who will not be brought together by giraffe’s threads. Obviously there will also be fence-sitters.

@noblegiraffe

All she does is fuel the antagonism with her endless threads between the two groups.

I've been thinking about this. How is it fuelling antagonism between parents and teachers to want safer working conditions in schools? That implies that parents don't want safer schools which would be bonkers.

Do you not want safer schools, @NaughtipussMaximus?

Wow. Nice strawman there, giraffe! Yet you object when people ask whether you want kids to be educated?!

I want schools to be safer. I don’t believe that it’s what you want.

I'm not interested in trying to bring teachers together with Us4Them who are just an appalling group of people with no empathy or common sense, Naughtipuss

As far as I can see, they're the 'vociferous group' who oppose safer schools.

Yet you object when people ask whether you want kids to be educated?!

I do what now?

I want schools to be safer. I don’t believe that it’s what you want.

Based on what? My many threads calling for safer schools??

vs the same parents still concerned for their children’s mental health and education.

I'm in both camps.

The mental health of the group of 6th formers at another school in our MAT is in tatters after 6 weeks of isolation. At least in lockdown they could go out. The staff are trying to deliver live lessons but the tech often fails. Staff then have to double plan every lesson, taking more time and adding to their workload.

None of nobles comments are a straw man.

Safer schools would be better for all.

I don't think she has ever called for schools to be closed.

I work in a school in Melbourne and masks are compulsory for all students over 12 in lessons (and everywhere else outside your home) despite having zero cases for 15 days now. There's a chance this requirement will be lifted outdoors in a week but unlikely it will be lifted indoors. The response every time a journalist asks about it is it's an effective and low cost response so it stays. I find it baffling they are not required in England.

I do wonder if the posters who get so upset at teenagers having to cope with school looking a bit different (masks in class, part time in person teaching etc) would benefit from reading some research on ACEs - adverse childhood experiences.
This is connected to what Ecosse/Madrid keeps coming out with in that children who experience a large number of adverse childhood experiences (traumas) without adequate support, are likely to do less well in life, and suffer poorer health.
The research also points out that one should not try to shield children from all adverse experiences - with the support of at least one influential adult ACEs build resilience for later life.
In other words masks and safety is NOT "fucking up" their lives as long as they have supportive adults.
If the teachers go off sick them those kids who do not have supportive adults at home will be the ones who suffer.
Those kids who do have supportive adults at home will actually build their resilience from this if they are not over protected and their feelings/experiences squashed/silenced.