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

Elephant schools bosses are the government. They can't just do their own thing. They rely on state funding and are public services. Do you think the nhs could just do it's own thing and ignore the government?

a local council head stating rising numbers are down to people not wearing masks

Yeah, people like CHILDREN in crowded SCHOOLS.

This pandemic has been an education in how people in positions of responsibility will twist their brains and words into pretzels rather than admit inconvenient and obvious truths.

We are relatively lucky that our head is someone who has worked in our school for 20 years and has a genuine commitment to the community of students and staff. She sort of fell into the position of head due to someone walking out unexpectedly and being given the role of 'acting head' just before covid crisis kicked off. She has managed well enough, and times are fucked up and difficult enough, that the governors have agreed to her becoming the permanent head.

In normal times we'd have had some ambitious young sociopath high flyer flown in for two years as a career stepping stone.

Not all heads would be putting the safety of students and staff first even if they did have the freedom to do as they pleased which clearly they don't.

Honeybadger, our risk assessment says that we will follow the isolation measures for close contacts. I think that is part of what is making me so annoyed. Making up their own rules, pretending that they know best and then having a risk assessment with lies on it.

And just for the record again I don't want schools to have to close!

I'm a single parent of a 13yo boy who has about as much motivation for learning as a slug and it would be a hell of a battle to get him to engage in home learning again. I would also see my workload expand even more on top of having to deal with him.

I just want some honest, logical, rational strategies. For example, stop pretending the only people who were in close contact with a positive case are the people who sat directly next to them in Science. For another example the mobile testing units we were told would come to schools when there were cases in order to check how widespread the outbreak was. For another example some kind of sanctions for parents knowingly sending their children into school when they are infected or waiting for results.

ChloeCrocodile

I've experienced exactly the same thing. Close contact with 2 cases but the school is adamant no isolation needed.

I think teachers have to call their bluff on that nonsense and call eg. their GP or 111 and say I have been in close contact with a positive case do I need to isolate? And then inform school (not ask) that you have been advised that you need to isolate for x amount of days with cover attached. Some heads are being complete arses over this it seems but schools are not a separate state that get to pass their own laws.

It's much like how school always want to deal with it 'in house' if there is a violent incident where I'm afraid if my son was seriously assaulted in school I would be calling the police because it's a legal matter.

Honey the best head I worked for was a deputy head who had been at the school for many years who stepped up in the same way and instigated significant and positive changes, born of longstanding and intimate knowledge of the school and local community. (He also played golf with someone high up in the LEA, which was rumoured to be helpful.)

Yeah you'd think it would be more common for someone with a long standing commitment and proven level of care for the school would become head but sadly not.

It is definitely the best choice in my opinion though. Ambitious flown in ones are just about making their mark and using the school as a stepping stone.

From another thread (Neurotrashwarrior from the data thread)
hope it shows.

www.mumsnet.com/uploads/talk/202011/large-729368-image1

I'll post these for ease.

See also the last sentence in this extract (from the Guardian live blog).

Oh look, what a shock. Schools do have a rising number of covid cases. Most common places to catch coronovirus -

Supermarket - 18.3%
Secondary school - 12.7%
Primary school - 10.1%
Hospital - 3.6%
Care home - 2.8%
College - 2.4%
Warehouse - 2.2%
Nursery preschool - 1.8%
Pub or bar - 1.6%
Hospitality - 1.5%
University - 1.4%
Manufacture engineering - 1.4%
Household fewer than five - 1.2%
General practice - 1.1%
Gym - 1.1%
Restaurant or cafe - 1.0%

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-supermarkets-most-common-exposure-setting-for-catching-coronavirus-in-england-latest-data-shows-12136418

Another batch of positive covid cases in daughter's school today.

@TheHoneyBadger

I think teachers have to call their bluff on that nonsense and call eg. their GP or 111 and say I have been in close contact with a positive case do I need to isolate? And then inform school (not ask) that you have been advised that you need to isolate for x amount of days with cover attached. Some heads are being complete arses over this it seems but schools are not a separate state that get to pass their own laws.

It's much like how school always want to deal with it 'in house' if there is a violent incident where I'm afraid if my son was seriously assaulted in school I would be calling the police because it's a legal matter.

I agree with this but I don't know if I would be brave enough to do it when it came down to it.

@OverTheRainbowLiesOz I've just commented on this on Facebook. Clearly people will have likely have been in a supermarket more recently, given the frequency we shop. Schools are clearly the number 1 place aren't they? Masked by a big click bait headline to make anxious people more worried about being out at Tesco and ignoring the real fact which is that no one dances, kisses, shouts, sings, does PE or drama in the supermarket.

I quoted from this thread, correlation is not causation, and felt all brainy

Not intending to derail, but I was baffled that the supermarket figures are so high - admittedly I do shop in the evening but I am easily able to distance. But looking at the figures does it actually mean that the virus was transmitted in the supermarket or that people with the virus just happened to have visited a supermarket - which would put a different slant on the numbers as obviously the supermarket is one of the few places everyone can actually still go to, so obviously it will be a common location.

@MrsFezziwig

Also; because of lockdown that’s the main place most people are going to.

I can’t imagine supermarkets being higher risk than pubs; but when that data was taken pubs etc were all closed

Presumably parents may have only been to the supermarket, but caught it from kids in school possibly even asymptomatic ones. But will have answered supermarket as the onky place they've been..

I read it as being that of everyone that tested positive, 18% had been in a supermarket, 12% in school etc the two days before their positive test.,

It doesn't take into account schools where kids aren't allowed their phones on, schools where kids have been advised to turn off t&t due to thin walls (local school to us alerted kids who'd been in the floor above a positive case?), and the fact that we behave completely incomparably in schools that we do in supermarkets. Therefore you may well have been there but you're a) significantly less likely to have caught it there and b) significantly less likely to have spread it there in the highly contagious, presymptomatic days

@PineappleUpsideDownCake that is a very very valid point

Have any teachers in your school been told to self isolate for teaching kids who then test positive?

I’ve taught 16 kids this weeks alone and haven’t been told to not come into school and isolate.

Have any teachers in your school been told to self isolate for teaching kids who then test positive?

No. Perhaps the powers that be think teachers are also protected by the magical golden pixie dust.

Ive had kids on the front row test positive, and told I don't need to isolate as I obviously stayed 2m away

That headline from Sky is so messed up. Firstly schools have been split into subcategories (together they're higher than supermarkets), could they not have split supermarkets into categories too eg superstores vs the local stores?
Also what % of the population has visited a supermarket in the last month vs what % of the population has visited a school? Surely the former is much higher, showing the likelihood of catching it in school is proportionally much higher than any where else if you're unfortunate enough to have to go in to one.
Ggrrr