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.

"What about the loss of life expectancy that disadvantaged DC suffer from school closures?"

Were you worried about the fortunes of such children before Covid? And what did you do about it? What are you doing about it now?

I've had kids flinching in lessons when other students have cleared their throats
They are scared and anxious and jumpy. Can't learn if you don't feel safe
And yet we do not permit them to wear masks on lessons due to the DfE guidance

This is something I really don't understand. The DfE gives guidance but we're human beings with free will to wear what we want to.

Most of the children I teach don't want to wear their masks in the classroom but some do so they wear them. Who am I to stop them?!

It's impossible for me to teach effectively and keep any distance from the children but I'm not in a bubble with them (mostly primary age children but on a secondary style curriculum) so I don't wear a mask during teaching time but put it on for the rest of the lesson when I'm sitting among the children. I don't believe there's any point following official guidance not to when all it does is increase my chances of being sent home to isolate if/when we get a case.

My county's school closures. Period.

www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/schools/emergency-school-closures

Third time is a charm!

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/entire-school-closed-after-coronavirus-4694768.amp

@Madridsun

What makes you think that children/teenagers can't spread it?

In your last post you say that DC can be infected by adults... so if they are infected, they can spread it too can't they?.... they do not stay 2 metres away from their classmates at all times and even if they did, what about toilet hygeine etc

And why would blended learning or something similar put those kids at risk?
The school would still be open to students, just less because those who can are doing it at home with timetables lessons in school.
Staff aren’t stupid and know what students need the space because of home life.

Schools did this, just on a smaller scale with reduced timetabling, later start times etc before CV came along.

Give the schools and local authority power to put their own secure plans into place instead of unworkable guidelines that aren’t fit for purpose.

I don’t want schools to close. What I want is for them to have a proper education. To have some stability and for them to feel safe.

I’ve had CV. Hasn’t stopped mine having his anxiety reach epic proportions when it comes to going to school. He’s sleep is disturbed. His appetite is erratic. I fucking hate having to put him through this. Everyday I ask myself is it really worth it? Fuck it I will home educate and save up so he can do the gcse privately. If they are still a thing that is Eother way his MH is going to be fucked.

I'm loving the fact that Madrid now has nothing to say when all these school closures are brought to his/her attention.

More on topic, I honestly don't know what the answer is to make secondary schools safer. But masks in classrooms, at least as an encouragement rather than a mandate, seems like a good option.

I don't know that I'm completely against blended learning in some cases, either. This is purely anecdotal I know but the school I work in has hugely suspect Covid measures (we sing, we do productions, the children roll around on top of each other/hug/fight, our bubbles are leaky as anything, our staff don't distance from the children, we have every extra curricular and wrap around activity going, we have external specialist staff coming in to teach groups of children from different bubbles, we have boarding and flexi boarding and so on) yet we have had ZERO Covid cases (so far - I know it will happen at some point).

However, we also have around 15 children to a class. And adults and KS3 wear masks around school and, increasingly commonly, in the classrooms.

Those two things may be a coincidence? But I wonder if it's the case that halving the number of children in the classroom is more important than all the other measures. Of course our classrooms are smaller than state school classrooms but I doubt they're half the size.

@StillGardening
Lots of things about this worry me, but what makes me sad is that we have some kids Who are genuinely terrified about taking it home. Those with one parent, or with family members with health conditions. They don’t feel safe in school either, and feel it’s inevitable they will catch it.

This is my DD, I'm a single parent who tested positive for Covid on Wednesday. Her test was negative.
I haven't been anywhere other than a pharmacy for a flu jab on Monday.

DD is beside herself with worry about me and she's only 11.

Who is calling for all schools to close, though, @MadridSun?

Ooooh but you said schools will NOT close. You were very wrong.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/coronavirus-cases-gloucestershire-schools-rising-4692657.amp

What's interesting on my county list, is that the schools closed completely, are for these most vulnerable/disadvantaged children.

Also I haven't seen anyone advocate for all schools to close so I am not sure how you have come to that conclusion. I certainly haven't.

And repeatedly posting what is effectively the same thread week after week after week does understandably cause people to think there is an agenda

Of course there is an agenda: schools open and school staff having as safe a working environment as possible.

I don’t get it. When teachers were out of school, people were baying for our blood, what about the importance of education, what about vulnerable young people, what about their mental health, what about their futures....? Now we’re back in school, not one teeny weeny fuck given about our safety, that of our families, vulnerable children and vulnerable family members who have no choice but to send their children into school. That we are now cleaners, expected to diagnose every illness, cover for sick colleagues, and play a very real game of Russian roulette every minute spent in a unventilated classroom is one thing, but ignoring the clear decline in our mental health and well being (when pre covid, all the surveys and research showed clearly the profession is in free fall) and the impact that is having on our children’s education is quite another. Our leader (ha!), Gavin Williamson, is entirely absent. We’re not striking because we desperately want to be there for the kids we teach, but you have not one clue as to the toll that is taking. Resignations are positively de rigeur, and I work in an excellent private school. Lord only knows what is happening in the state sector.

And the best you can do, supposedly as a concerned parent who wants all those vulnerable children protected, is pick at our professionalism when we try and bring the situation to your attention. As a parent, you should be out on the streets demanding better for your children. Instead, all you are doing is kicking those of us who are not only down, but are all but dead, burnt out in the ashes of our education system. Vaccine or no vaccine, this is one profession that is not going to rise like a Phoenix. And parents will only have themselves to blame.

The key driver of transmission in schools though is not the DC at all.

Evidence?

The key driver of transmission in schools though is not the DC at all. It is staff and parents gathering in social settings like staff rooms and departmental bases without social distancing.

That's not what the boffins are saying. They're saying that a child is most likely to be the first case in a household. You're out of date.

"The key driver of transmission in schools though is not the DC at all. It is staff and parents gathering in social settings like staff rooms and departmental bases without social distancing."

Where is your source for this nonsense? Please don't count Jenny Harries as a source. I suspect she has had even less contact with real life schools than you have.

[quote MadridSun]@herecomesthsun

Education plays a huge part in life chances and therefore life expectancy.

No government in the world can prevent all poverty. Particularly not when millions of parents become unable to work and pay taxes as a result of school closures.[/quote]
Early bereavement also plays a massive role in ruining life chances.

Something that happened to both my parents.

Not something I want for my kids, thanks.

Erm, austerity did quite a lot to promote poverty and also reduced life expectancy in this country. Not every government in the world actively pursued austerity, thank God.

We need safe schools and more choice, and we erm want that now!

"The key driver of transmission in schools though is not the DC at all. It is staff and parents gathering in social settings like staff rooms and departmental bases without social distancing."

Again. Madrid can you please provide evidence for this? These sweeping generalisations do nothing to strengthen your argument.

[quote MadridSun]@KittCat

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

Any risk that exists in schools comes from adults mixing socially before and after school, and at break and lunch times without social distancing or mask wearing.

Unfortunately this type of transmission can quickly lead to other staff and then DC becoming infected.

[/quote]
Bless...

Of course it's far more likely that in a class with a positive case that it is passed from child to teacher back to a child than between the two children who sit next to each other.

I don't know whether it's scary or rather sweet that someone has such trust in the government that they believe implicitly this against all logical thinking.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

The key driver of transmission in schools though is not the DC at all.

Evidence?

well SAGE are now saying secondary school kids take the virus home, so I think you're a bit out of date love