Secondary schools are totally stuffed, WELL-RESPECTED SCIENTISTS ADMIT

[noblegiraffe]

I don't normally get asked for an encore, more usually 'urgh, not another bloody thread', but per a request we have a follow-up to the resoundingly popular:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4078722-Secondary-schools-are-fucked-BOFFINS-ADMIT

Feedback has been received and acted upon re the title so hopefully that will temper the urge to complain.

Quick round-up of where we were at:

1. the infection rate is now highest in secondary school pupils in Y7-11, higher than uni students and sixth formers. They're not catching it at the pub...

2. The government/ONS put out misleading figures to suggest that teachers weren't at higher risk than NHS frontline workers, where actually looking at the data, they may well be. They fudged this by calling the largest group of teachers, who are at higher risk than frontline NHS staff 'teachers of an unknown type' and pretended they were irrelevant.

3. The DfE have changed the format of their attendance statistics report to remove the reference to how many hundreds of thousands of kids are currently isolating due to exposure to covid at school.

4. Boffins are cool

New info: The Guardian reports that teachers are being instructed to ignore app notifications to self-isolate by the school helpline and this might be a bad thing. They can't help themselves though, and have a lovely photo of a socially distanced classroom of lies at the top of the story.

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/16/union-says-teachers-in-england-being-told-to-pause-covid-app-in-school

@IloveJKRowling

It just goes to show... I know lots of teachers who tell me how crowded it is, and I believe them, but my idea of 'very crowded' is not 'jammed in together like a rock concert' crowded. I was envisaging sort of a crowded aisle in a shop. Where there's still space to move.

A picture is so much more effective than words - which is why it is positively evil that the newspapers are practising such shoddy journalism. I mean I knew it wasn't like the socially distanced classes of / corridors with 6 pupils that they're showing but yes - I am shocked.

I haven't been in a secondary school other than a tour for a while. During tours the kids are in classes & I've been shocked by how crowded the classrooms are but I've not seen a corridor 'in action' like this since my own days at school. My school was not like that. (It was quite a long time ago...)

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/absolutely-shocking-scots-school-pupils-22546355

There's pictures of school corridors in Scotland in this article. I've seen similar on twitter.

My school isn't quite this bad, bar one corridor, as kids are mostly told to transit outside, and this is (semi) enforced. However, when they are queuing up for lessons, and other students are trying to get past, there is no possibility of social distancing, and students are literally forced to touch each other at times.

Where possible, students go into rooms as quickly as possible, but in science doors must be locked for safety reasons, and if I am held up e.g. after lunch duty, my class have to wait in a narrow corridor and effectively cause an obstruction.

BTW before half term, we had designated "zones" for students, so this problem was largely avoided (or at least it was only students in their own bubble they were touching), but a lot of staff hated this and students couldn't access specialist classrooms, so we went back to moving around the school.

We do have staggered finishes, breaks and lunches, so it's only lesson changeover when the corridors get really rammed. I have been deliberately letting my classes out 2/3 minutes early to try and reduce congestion.

I'm on the fence about mass testing the whole year group when the first positive case is found, I'm sure a few more either asymptomatic or non main 3 symptoms cases will be flushed out. My concern is how much it would affect compliance with self isolating for those who had a negative test. It seem pretty poorly understood that a neg result doesn't reduce the 14 days.

Although since it seems compliance is so low anyway it might still be a better option.

LBC we're going to cover state secondary schools and Covid versus less isolating in private schools on Nick Ferrari's show... looks like it's been dropped as a topic....

Were

Our school is like the one in Scotland. Packed corridors.

D notice?

Corridors aren’t bad here (sixth form college) as they’re wide and we don’t have bells so ends of lessons are staggered. However, students cluster in large crowds in the canteen despite everything being spread out for them. I went to grab some food at break once this year and the queue was shoulder to shoulder - obviously everyone over 16 as well so basically in a huge group of adults with no space between them - it was awful and I haven’t been back over there. They cluster around doorways so you’re always having to push through groups to get in and out of buildings and are allowed to congregate in empty classrooms at break and lunch - in our building we’re setting our own rules of no more than 6 in there but we have to enforce it ourselves which means spending every break and lunch monitoring rooms and sending students outside.

Out corridors are tiny. You can lift your feet off the floor and be carried along in the crowd.

How are these crowded corridors not a fire risk (aside from the obvious covid concerns)? Imagine if there were an actual fire when everyone's crammed together like that? And there's a panic?

I know quite a few friends with autistic kids who can't cope with secondary school. I'm beginning to see why - and have huge sympathy - I'd struggle with that environment I think. I've always actively avoided situations where there are lots of random strangers pressed up against me e.g. tube in rush hour.

COME ON JOURNALISTS - you are FAILING FAILING FAILING here - what you're doing is actively allowing the government to get away with lying in a way which will ultimately cost lives!

@ChloeDecker, I apologize - yes you are correct in thinking that I confused this thread for one which was insisting that schools should close (I did not read the first one and generally avoid all Corona threads as so many of them are dangerously inaccurate).

@IloveJKRowling

Out corridors are tiny. You can lift your feet off the floor and be carried along in the crowd.

How are these crowded corridors not a fire risk (aside from the obvious covid concerns)? Imagine if there were an actual fire when everyone's crammed together like that? And there's a panic?

I know quite a few friends with autistic kids who can't cope with secondary school. I'm beginning to see why - and have huge sympathy - I'd struggle with that environment I think. I've always actively avoided situations where there are lots of random strangers pressed up against me e.g. tube in rush hour.

COME ON JOURNALISTS - you are FAILING FAILING FAILING here - what you're doing is actively allowing the government to get away with lying in a way which will ultimately cost lives!

The problem is old schools which have had to serve a steadily increasing population without extra funding. Many schools are now very overcrowded.

WRT fire risk, some schools probably are a fire risk, although obviously additional fire exits, fire doors etc do help. Also, during a fire you don't have classes queuing up in the corridors waiting to enter a room.

But some school corridors are definitely a risk and can be very difficult for children with sensory needs/anxiety. We have a few who get to leave class 5 minutes early to avoid the worst of the crush.

When l speak to new y7, it’s always the corridors they are scared of. Some of them are really tiny, and 6th form and y11 are huge and take up lots of space.

Yup. Schools dropped on NF LBC show... now J O'Brien talking about climate change. Oh well. COME ON JOURNALISTS!!!

@monkeytennis97

LBC we're going to cover state secondary schools and Covid versus less isolating in private schools on Nick Ferrari's show... looks like it's been dropped as a topic....

Wtf. What is actually going on?! Over half a million kids out of school dropped as a topic? Did they say why?

I hope Emoji’s DS gets back to her.

I’m going to bully him in a minute😁

He works from home. He’s saving to buy a house.

I will have a word shortly.

It’s in the pipeline......

Argh I hate waiting!

I know!!! But he’s right!

Don’t worry. He lives at home. He was in London, but left when lockdown happened. And now he works from his old bedroom.

He loves his mum so will deffo do it! And l will make sure he does.😁

Not all Millennials are ‘snowflakes’!

And he DID turn down an interview at The Daily Mail when he was a rookie, even though he was desperate for a job.

So he hates the government too

In fact he had to stay at work on election night. To report on an election was his biggest ambition.

He was broken at the end of it😡😥

I think local news seem to be more on it than national. Nobody is putting the full picture together.

www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/kids-school-coronavirus-crisis-escalates-4705505

@noblegiraffe no... not mentioned again

Not where I am . No coverage at all. No one reads our local press, that said.

TBH I am glad Ferrari didn't get his paws on the topic. JO'B would be better.

@noblegiraffe have sent you a PM.