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

X-post Endoplasmic, but your link was better!

Tweet from the NASUWT chief today "We are receiving reports from members that indicate that local public health teams are advising schools to limit self-isolation to pupils sitting immediately next to a child who has tested positive, rather than applying the requirement to members of the child’s ‘bubble’ or group."

Where the hell have you been since September?! Why is this only being brought up now??

At Christmas we'll get 'we're hearing reports that kids are not 2m apart in classrooms'.

Well todays my teens school (Surrey) has sent the 6th form home for 2 weeks to do remote learning due to so many cases, sent year 10 home as there are so many staff shortages and they feel this the the year group that is best to remote learn. DD has no subject teachers for maths, french, RE or english language and she is in year 11.

Agree noble the unions have lacked guts, teeth or the wherewithal to protect their members.

Better IS late than never, but in this case being so late will cause untold disease and potentially death. The idea that being more than 2m magically protects you in an indoor, unventilated environment without masks is just a lie - a big old fat lie. It was NEVER meant to be applied in this way.

Here's a scientific paper about it www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3223

• the table halfway down shows that all UK state classrooms are in the bright red high risk lower right hand corner.

Duration of exposure matters. 2m might be protective for a short period but is unlikely to be for the amounts of time children and teachers are in classrooms, particularly if they're unventilated and high occupancy.

@noblegiraffe
how the hell can you keep so calm - in general?
I've just lost in on another topic. And after hitting post you came to mind that you'd probably wouldn't have lost your shit at that idiot :) It helped as it made me smile though....

Today I received an email from my Head teacher about the other secondary schools in borough.
There are 14 secondary schools in total in my borough. This is a London Borough.

• School 1 have about a third of each year group isolating with the exception of Year 8

· School 2 have Year 13 isolating and have had to postpone their mock exams · School 3 have Year 12 at home due to staff shortages and the rest of the year groups operating on a rota system · School 4 have Year 7 and Year 12 at home · School 5 have Year 9 and Year 12 at home, in part due to staff shortages · School 6 have some of Year 13 isolating · School 7 has closed temporarily · School 8 has 4 year groups at home · School 9 have multiple classes of Year 10 and some Year 13 at home

None of these are my school, which takes it up to School 10 and we have one class isolating and 9 staff at home including me.

This situation is getting very worrying. This borough has also gone from one of the bottom 5 to one of the top 8 boroughs in London for the biggest increase in positive cases.

We need help from the government to help these pupils at home as schools are fast running out of money from their own Sept budgets and staff are struggling.

The government’s inaction on this is a scandal.

I don't think it's zoe but the covid people? Sent an email asking for us to respond and help them get a clearer picture of what's happening in schools?

Meanwhile I am sitting in classrooms with kids coughing because they simply will not get tested.

Ah TheSun you get used to spotting Us4Them after a while. Infuriating before you cotton on though.

@Piggywaspushed

Meanwhile I am sitting in classrooms with kids coughing because they simply will not get tested.

Don’t they get sent home?

I had a class today explain to me exactly why the sending home per the seating plan thing is nonsense and not working. If a bunch of teens can figure it out, why is it so beyond the public health people?

Piggy why can't you send them to the designated place to get sent home?

I thought a problem with posting pics of dc in crowed rooms was safeguard concerns? That's why they post and use staged, agreed pics? Given with consent?

2m is better than us. Literally only allowed to ask kids sitting immediately next to a positive to isolate. HT says hands are tied even though they know how ridiculous it is.

If you drew a 2.5m radius circle from the centre in most of our classes only the people sat in the corners would be outside of it.

I have a year 10 who keeps coughing, but he claims it's not a persistent cough and he says he never coughs more than 3 times in 24 hours. I don't have any evidence that he does, because he's only ever coughed twice in my lesson. But my TA is refusing to sit anywhere near him because he's coughing (I really don't blame her).

noble my year 11 explained why it's ridiculous as well. They are possibly angling to be sent home as well, but they made very sensible and mathematically/scientifically sounds points.

One of mine even referred to those studies of restaurants etc. They’re not daft.

A lot of my Y11s definitely get it better than the government appear to.

We are sending home kids with coughs, but we are getting a lot of parents phoning up with very vague, unspecified "illness" or "heavy colds". I strongly suspect this is to avoid being asked to get a test before they return to school.

Some of the younger students have admitted they had a cough/temp but did not get tested. Apparently, we can't send them home unless we see actual symptoms.

Scotland also seems to be having issues with their secondary schools. What a surprise.

Another secondary school has had to close in Cornwall due to staff having to self isolate: www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/fourth-cornwall-school-closes-due-4713970

And another school has sent a large group of children home: www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/thirty-children-self-isolating-after-4713102

I would urge people who think "everything is fine" to check their local news websites- there are lots of schools having issues, even in areas you wouldn't expect.

What interests me is how wildly under-reported issues in schools are, even in the local press.

Local paper claims to have an up-to-date list of schools with classes closed for Covid19...which despite being 40+ schools long, omits every school that I currently know to have classes isolating....

I wonder if some schools are deliberately keeping it out of the press. Do schools have to give permission for stories like this, I wonder?

Interestingly my friend's secondary school is "not closed" but is "shut to all year groups" for 2 weeks.

They have had a very large number of cases but Public Health England have not closed it. They had to limp on with over 40 teachers off.

It's not schools themselves who make the decision to close but the government (Public Health England).

I wonder how many other secondary schools are not closed but also not open?

Makes the government statistics look better than they actually are...

@SansaSnark

I wonder if some schools are deliberately keeping it out of the press. Do schools have to give permission for stories like this, I wonder?

I think this is true. As for some reason parents on here say things like 'my school is doing well / doing it right / doing things properly' when [for reasons of pure luck or general infection level level in the community] Covid has not yet been detected in that school, i can see that schools want to avoid what they see as 'reputational damage' if they have to 'confess' to having cases.

My year 10 have pointed out they would get a much better education if we just moved online and I could teach them all online instead of this half in half out hokey cokey.
They also said they are fed up of reading newspaper articles/newsfeed comments that 'it's so important for them to see their friends'. They would like to tell the world that at 15 they are not snowflakes, can understand why we need to not see friends for a bit and would cope better than old people with it because they all use their phones/social media anyway.
Oh, and they would also like to tell BJ that lockdown is pointless without closing schools (except to FSM/vulnerable) or at the very least a rota to enable blended learning.

I think this is true. As for some reason parents on here say things like 'my school is doing well / doing it right / doing things properly' when [for reasons of pure luck or general infection level level in the community] Covid has not yet been detected in that school, i can see that schools want to avoid what they see as 'reputational damage' if they have to 'confess' to having cases.

Yes- I think schools who are keeping cases very quiet do have something to answer for.

Schools that tell parents everything though end up with panicked parents demanding school closure and heads with their hands tied because it’s not their decision.