To ask if your child’s teacher has tested positive what action did you take?

[Reesewithaspoon]

D’s (15) has just been informed that his form teacher has tested positive over the weekend.
Just had an email to confirm which states that the teacher, a student teacher and only 3 students (have no idea why just 3) have been asked to self isolate so the rest (including my son) are to stay in school.
This is the first time with either of my dc that we have had this (both in secondary school) so not sure of the protocol, do they not self isolate the whole class?
Ds suffers from terrible anxiety and we have had lots of problems over the last 3 years. However, after counselling and medication we have been back on track for a while but he is constantly texting me this morning in a complete state saying he has been very close to this teacher last week.
I also care for my mum who is clinically vulnerable so am quite concerned.
Has anyone been in this position? Did your child still continue to go to school even when their teacher had tested positive?
Im not sure what to do for the best.

@GhostTypeEevee

Why don't we just make all teachers sleep at the school so they don't have any contact with anyone ever.

Good idea.

Maybe they could keep some of the kids and sort out cutlery usage, toilet training, headlice checks, bedtime reading and toothbrushing whilst they’re at it.

The Daily Mail seem to blame teachers for not having cracked most of those things!

Better tell my SIL how selfish she is turning up to teach her class while she is still living with my DB (who is selfish enough to be working with covid patients). And my selfish niece should presumably not be going to school either.

Did you never consider that you should have kept your child off school if the risk was too high?

You know when you’re a child and you think your teachers just live at school and couldn’t possibly have lives of their own so you’re perplexed seeing them at Tesco or wherever? Most of us grew out of that when we were about 5. Why don’t you isolate from your child if you’re so worried?

Grrr! Not happy.

The teacher probably did it on purpose.

For context, if a teacher lives with someone who is ECV, they have to go to work.

27Reesewithaspoon

I’m so annoyed that a teacher who’s partner works every day with Covid patients is allowed to work directly with kids.

Wow what a comment. What would have happened if we had refused to teach doctors and nurses children in lockdown???

I'm sure that when you calm down, OP, you will realise how exceptionally unreasonable you have been.

Dozens and dozens of children in your son's school will be the children of nurses and doctors and carers. They deserve an education too.

Dozens of your son's peers and teachers will be clinically vulnerable or live with someone who is. They still have to go to school/work.

It's sick, and it's unfair just how dangerous schools are, to be honest, but theme's the breaks. People want schools open. At ALL costs.

I’m so annoyed that a teacher who’s partner works every day with Covid patients is allowed to work directly with kids

So what do you propose happens to such teachers?

The OP is clearly very late to appreciate the risk from schools, especially secondaries. It would have been more prudent for her to either isolate herself with her mother and away from her son, or to arrange alternative care for her mother whilst continuing to live with her son. But like many others, OP didn't see the writing on the wall about schools until it slapped her on the face, and it's particularly unpleasant to blame teachers, who are the least protected group in society, for her own failure to think through a plan B here.

@CaledoniaCatalan

So you don't want to be separated from your mother but you expect the teacher to live separately from their family. I'm sorry but I agree with the previous poster, that is extremely selfish

Quoting this as it sums it all up so well. How self-centred and irrational can you get, OP?

@Smallwhiterat

You know when you’re a child and you think your teachers just live at school and couldn’t possibly have lives of their own so you’re perplexed seeing them at Tesco or wherever? Most of us grew out of that when we were about 5. Why don’t you isolate from your child if you’re so worried?

So so so so funny when kids see you in the shops and cannot deal with it at all.

But yeah again OP absolutely ridiculous post. Hopefully you've realised this by now .

Never surprised anymore about the ingenuity some will put in to finding new ways to bash teachers .

OP, I'm a teacher in an international school, which my dc attend. We are all on our 3rd day of isolating at home because dd2 developed possible symptoms on Saturday. Not allowed back until we get her test results, assuming they are negative.

I was doing Parents' Evening yesterday, over Zoom from home, & apologised to each parent & explained why it was beyond my control that I wasn't teaching their kids f2f.

They mostly knew already, as I have a ds in that particular year group & obviously he chats to his mates online - so the parents have all put 2 & 2 together based on 'hmmm Ms Purpureus isn't in school you say dc? What's that - you're in Maths with Corvusboy & he's not in either? He's isolating because his sister is waiting on test results? Ah ok'.

Every. Single. Bloody. Parent was lovely. Lots of them have had cases in their own families & they were at pains to tell to empathise with me about it being worrying, thank me for teaching their kids online & well, generally act like decent humans.

I get you're worried, OP. I think you should absolutely be supported to have your kid at home if you are concerned that they've been infected by the teacher, & you want to ensure they don't transmit it further.

I also get that you're really concerned about DM.

But seriously, the U.K. is appalling the international teaching community with its cavalier attitude to students' & teachers' health. Please don't blame the teacher - there is NO mechanism in place to avoid these sort of situations, & there's certainly no slack to magic up a teacher 2:0 if she'd decided to quit because her dh is a HCP. The system is broken, & it's breaking kids & teachers alike. Be pissed off about that, by all means!

@Reesewithaspoon I’m so annoyed that a teacher who’s partner works every day with Covid patients is allowed to work directly with kids.

Hmmm...maybe in some way comparable to how teachers' families feel about their family members spending every day, unmasked, with thirty odd students at a time?

OP keeping your son at home to isolate won't protect your mother. You need to isolate the boy from you and your mum instead, if you think he might be infected.
I suspect you won't want to do that though.

You could email the head wishing the teacher well. Or was that not what you meant?

@Reesewithaspoon

I’m so annoyed that a teacher who’s partner works every day with Covid patients is allowed to work directly with kids.

You are taking the biscuit. If you are worried then take your child out of school to isolate.

As your dc are both in secondary if you have a partner could you move in with your mother if she lives in a different house. Then you are limiting the exposure to her. It sounds as if rates are rising maybe in your area if this is the first time any of them has had to self isolate. That might give you some reassurance.

@Reesewithaspoon

I’m so annoyed that a teacher who’s partner works every day with Covid patients is allowed to work directly with kids.

Why. Schools are Covid secure and transmission doesn’t happen in school.

How on earth can you work out where a teacher caught covid? Ffs. It could just have easily been from one of the pupils in her class. Give it a break. Wish the teacher well and hang on for a few weeks. The regulations surrounding schools just don’t keep staff safe at all.

Your suggestion that the teacher should basically separate from her husband so that she is a lower risk is utterly mad! Teachers are following guidance set out by the government and their employers. Schools are not isolating more children on the basis of advice from PHE who are presumably following govment guidance to not send home a whole class. The teacher may walk around the room. The guidance we have been given is to not spend more than a few minutes talking to individual students and to try and remain at least 1m away at the time.

"Why. Schools are Covid secure and transmission doesn’t happen in school."

As a teacher I'm annoyed that parents who are in contact with Covid patients send their kids to school

@Tyzz yes high school in a London borough.

Wow.

If you are seriously that concerned then why aren't you home schooling your son and isolating from your vulnerable mother?

Suggesting that a teacher and healthcare worker, who put their own health on the line every day to support others, should separate and make their lives much harder than they already are is beyond ridiculous.

Nice to know you appreciate your child’s teachers.
Teachers are more at risk from the kids than the other way round. I’ve caught covid from students I teach. I’m not going round blaming them or suggesting they isolate from people who may have transmitted it to them. Can you imagine if I did? It’s an impossible situation that simply can’t be helped. I think you need to remember that all people who work in and attend schools are at higher risk

@Reesewithaspoon

I’m so annoyed that a teacher who’s partner works every day with Covid patients is allowed to work directly with kids.

Don't be bloody stupid for goodness sake. We can't just get rif of teachers who happen to live with someone that works on a Covid ward. It is not anyone's fault, just one of those things.