Is a change beginning to happen regarding schools?

[Covidfears]

I’ve been noticing more articles lately in the mainstream press about the difficulties in schools (which will come as no surprise to most people). There’s also been some research which has basically confirmed that schools are driving infections. So, along with it looking like this lockdown has been a waste of time (due to schools being kept open to continue the spread) and people in power calling for Hull schools to be closed do we think that schools will be closing early for Christmas?

Is there any chance that blended learning or rotas will be coming in after the Christmas holidays?

We are a vulnerable family with children in primary school and the risk that sending them every day with no safety measures poses to our family is causing me huge amounts of stress.

I can't believe that compulsory mask wearing is less popular than the current situation!

I don't think it is. I think people would do it if the DfE said to. What is lacking is leadership that follows the science or cares.

I've been amazed with friends in the US that in their state everyone wears a mask everywhere in public and their 5 year old all day in school. Everyone just accepts it as necessary and something you do for society, like hand washing or being polite. I'd have thought there would be more resistance in their state, but there hasn't been. They've had good leadership (their rates are low and have risen a small amount but still remained low since kids went back to school).

@canigooutyet

TheSunIsStillShining Students are having 2 hour lunch breaks? Or am I reading that wrong?

Yes. They have a big break from 12.30 to 14.15 (almost 2 hours). How is it in state schools? They also have a 10 mins break in the AM and PM slots. They are in school from 8.30 to 4.15 though. I have no idea how normal or special this is.

Ah private school. All the difference.
The rich /everyone else divide has never been bigger.

Lunch break is 25-40minutes in all the state schools I know of. No time for clubs at lunch. After school clubs are currently not allowed in the guidance.

My sons secondary gave them the choice back in September. Nearly every pupil showed up with a mask and the school provide ones for those who want to wear one, but for whatever reason don't have one.

absolutely agree about the gap between private and state at the moment. Gap is just getting bigger and bigger. It's shameful.

@SansaSnark
The other annoying thing is that during secondary school rebuild they had a huge heated tent acting as a lunch place/breakout for 16-18 year olds. It was there for 3 years. They tore it down last year as the building works finished.
They have enough space on the grounds to erect multiple of these.
So even schools who could do things are not doing because Dfe says it's fine.... and this is the point where I give up on common sense and logic. There are Msc level (so originally non teacher) science people all across the school, surely the biology/chemistry department people must see that this is utter nonsense...

I think they are getting 45 minutes still, the size of the rooms vs pupils has always meant lunch times were staggered.
15 minute break in the morning.
9 - 3:15
Voluntary aided school

@aleC4

It's a bit harsh to say you're sending your dc to school with 'no safety measures'. Is that really the case? Have your dc's school not followed any covid guidelines. I work in an infant school on a campus with a junior school and a secondary school. We are all implementing stringent measures to keep children safe while also allowing them to have a sliver of normality. We haven not had even one positive case, neither have the junior school and we've had one ta isolating due to track and trace. The secondary school have had about 5/6 cases I believe but no whole year groups have been sent home. This is in a tier two area where cases where very high a couple of weeks ago and we border a tier three hotspot. If you believe your dc's school have no safety measures in place they are not following guidelines. Please raise these with the headteacher if you believe the school is unsafe. Schools have a duty of care to keep children safe. It would be a disaster for so many children of schools had to close again.

Neither had we until 2 weeks before half term.

Until mid October we could say the same.

Following all the guidelines for an infant school:
Where possible keeping a distance. Not being anywhere near other adults. Having windows open. Anti bac used constantly. Regular hand washing. Regular cleaning of surfaces and equipment. Year group bubbles (3 classes) only mixing outside at playtimes, otherwise separated.

I was being super careful as CV so, if nothing else, it was in my own best interests to do so. I still caught Covid - almost certainly from school, most likely from a child who was probably not showing symptoms. This has been determined after conversations with the hospital consultant and also T&T information.

Over 5 weeks (inc half term) every single has since been affected. All 9 classes have been out for 2 weeks. 11+ staff have tested positive. Others have had to SI, Several parents have tested positive. A handful of children who were tested are positive. Most children haven't been tested due to not having the right symptoms.

___

What are the safety measures your school have in place to stop Covid from getting in and transmitting in your school?

@canigooutyet

In addition to their MH it will also be agonising for those with conditions like arthritis sitting in cold rooms all day.

I am not a child but a school adult with arthritis. The cold weather always leads to increased pain.

Following my absence I am hoping I can return to school next week (6 weeks out due to covid and complications) and this cold weather and open windows is going to be the next thing that affects me.

I have already spent a fortune investing in extra base layers, plus thermals inc vests and tights. I ahem fingerless gloves ready and hand warmers. I have ordered extra pain medication too. Fortunately I have been able to restart my stronger arthritis meds last week as well.

@PineappleUpsideDownCake

Ah private school. All the difference. The rich /everyone else divide has never been bigger.

In general I agree, but from covid pov there is no difference. At least with this school. They actually don't have enough room to SD kids in class or teachers to be 2m from them. They have way more equipment and clubs for sure, but in this it makes no difference. Eg. Chemistry room is quite big in terms of sq meters. But they have lab equipment, so the actually desks are not even 1 meter from each other either way. And each desk has 2 kids bumping elbows. I know because I can see it on the meets. Corridors are not that much bigger. The new secondary academy that opened 2 yrs ago in the neighbouring borough is actually airier and bigger.

The junior school (600 kids) is in a building that has corridors 1.2m wide. Crammed doesn't even cover it.

I think the point with state / private is that in my local experience, local secondary schools were not very fast at being available online. My secondary school kids had not one single live lesson during full lockdown, and now the school has some live lessons for kids self isolating but very few. Still many pupils have no laptop and have to do homework on phones. Private schools are offering more afterschool activities and wrap around care, and in state school at the moment there is nothing at all (most secondary schools from what I can make out) so mental health is suffering.

Private schools have generally fewer pupils per class. Locally, most private schools have 15 kids per class, and most secondary have between 25 and 35.

We haven not had even one positive case,

My DD's school could have said that yesterday. Today they have one positive case and eight staff self isolating with the wraparound care and two year groups closed.

I really hope not. My kids secondary school has over 2000 pupils and so far very few cases. They work remotely one day a week but it’s rubbish. Just set work and left to get on with it. Full time remote learning will be useless for them.

I think masks particularly for year 11 and above is a no brainer. They wear them on public transport, to go to the shops. Many have jobs in retail, or supermarkets, where they wear them for shifts, they wear masks for driving lessons, etc etc etc. I honestly don't see there being any resistance from older children to wearing masks.

I think year 11's, and sixth forms should remain open in any and all events. Sixth forms in schools, in particular, although not generally six form colleges, have much smaller classes, so SD is much easier, and if they all wear masks, the situation would improve immensely.

A further point on private v. state. I think provision of learning has mainly been better in private, although many states have also done well. But as pp said, don't assume they have more room or markedly smaller classes. Class size are often 25, and in many schools rooms are in old buildings, often converted old houses, with small classrooms and narrow corridors. Thank god our school knocked down and re-built the main building 5 years ago, it would have been a nightmare if it had been the original Georgian house with it's assorted 1970's blocks attached at random.

Aragog I feel for you and others who are going to have to face this regardless of age.
People really don't appreciate how incredibly painful these types of conditions can be. Never mind the 'fog' of some of the meds.

Teaching already has a poor retention history because of often shocking working practices. How many more will this force out?

You cannot continue to treat people with so little contempt before they quit or have a breakdown.

@QueenBlueberries
Our school has for core subjects around 25 kids per subject. For specific gcse (engineering, drama, history...) it is around 15. So I guess it differs between privates as well. My friend's kid in a Rugby state secondary actually has fewer pupils in most classes than my son.

If in England and your child has SI since the end of October should be receiving a proper amount of remote learning. The Government put out new requirements regarding this.

This does not necessarily mean live lessons, but should equate to what they would be learning if in school.

I work in an infant school and we provided a full remote learning curriculum covering all subject areas from Easter onwards. We also have full KW/vulnerable bubbles from march inwards including over the Easter and May holidays. We do so now in the case of class/bubble closures and also for individual SI. The offer for the three scenarios does vary due to the work load of the staff needing to provide it.

At present we offer...

School/Class/bubble closure: provided on our online learning platform and also saved as files to a dedicated Google drive -

• core subjects english, maths and phonics) daily via pre recorded voice over slideshows/video with accompanying activities and/or worksheet.
• access to our online reading book website, which also has maths and SPaG activities
• 1 (sometimes more) lesson per day for one of the foundation subjects, based on the topic covered in class at that time, using a mixture of teacher led slides/video, teacher and externally produced worksheets and activities, Bitesize, Oak Academy, etc

In the case of individual SI they are offered similar but via individual emails (though can upload and post to the learning platform) There is no pre recorded videos/voice overs for individual SI generally though as the teachers are in school teaching so have less time to do so.

In all teaching staff monitor the platform and give some feedback in simple terms - our children are very young so don't need lengthy feedback in the way older teens might. We do not provide live lessons are they have been deemed inappropriate (and not wanted by our parents) for our school community and catchment.

Unfortunately during lockdown 1 the Government gave no support or guidelines. They simply suspended the curriculum, which actually meant schools didn't need to provide anything.

They also said they would provide a national curriculum of remote learning via Oak Academy and Bitesize. This took a while to be implemented fully. However, even now, that it is up and running fully it isn't really enough. Parents don't like it as it isn't 'their school' providing it. It also doesn't cover all of KS4 subject areas iirr, and no KS5.

On MN there is a belief with many that live lessons are the golden measure. Reality is that in a lot of cases this simply isn't the case, especially for younger children. They can work for older children if the technology is in place for both schools and pupils.

Oh and FWIW - I add this to any of these kind of threads now to ensure people don't try to make out that I want schools closed - I much prefer schools being open.

My only agenda is to have safer schools.
What we currently have in many schools, following government guidelines, is not a Covid safe environment for anyone, let alone anyone who is CV or CEV.

Private schools and well any school that continued to teach the curriculum during lockdown 1 were not only helping to make the gap bigger, they were going against government guidelines.

Ire shouldn't be placed at the schools were your children weren't learning, but the ones that continued to teach.

If any work was set then it would have been beneficial for pupils who were struggling in certain areas - mainly Math and English to continue with these at home. However, these don't have to come from school as they are a part of the daily life.

I don’t think schools will close but I do think they might move to online learning once the government realises the current lockdown didn’t work.

I think there are some things they should do while we’re learning to live with covid. If a child gets covid, all the classes they are in should isolate, and the teachers of those classes, and everyone on the bus they travel on, and anyone they spend lunchtime with.

They should make it illegal not to isolate when a household member has symptoms or is positive.They should ask households with a positive case to get tested after day 7 (to pick up all the asymptomatic cases).

They should allow schools to refuse to admit a child with symptoms until they’ve seen a negative test.

They should include vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach ache in the symptoms list.

And they should pick some schools and do mass testing and publish the statistics from that. Actually they should make local councils publish the covid statistics for schools - how many cases in each school, each week.

I think that would help.

It will be interesting to see where the blame of the spread lies after lockdown has ended.

Will we still be lied to and told it's the kids after school socialising that is to blame? All those under age drinkers tut tut

@sophandbridge

We haven not had even one positive case,

My DD's school could have said that yesterday. Today they have one positive case and eight staff self isolating with the wraparound care and two year groups closed.

how the bloody hell has that happened? that one positive case obviously hasn't distanced themselves from other staff then?

I don’t know a single person, teacher or parent, across 4 different schools who wants schools to close/move to blended learning etc, yet on Mumsnet there are so many threads about this. It is a minority view. Luckily our government understands that being in school is very important for children’s mental health and as far as Covid is concerned and children/teenagers’ risks on a population level, the argument is definitely in favour of keeping schools open and continuing as normally as possible. If you don’t want to send your kids to school deregister them and if you don’t want to teach, resign. Simple. Stop trying to use social media to influence others. It isn’t in the best interests of the young to stay home at all. They have suffered enough during this pandemic. As regards the “Extremely clinically vulnerable” (As confirmed by their own GPs) teaching staff and pupils - I know a few, they are all being supported and working from home. All 4 of my kids schools are doing this.

@canigooutyet - what absolute nonsense. It is in society’s best interests for as many kids as possible to be taught and keep progressing and learning, during lockdown 1 and now. It isn’t a race to the bottom. Good schools were teaching even the key worker kids, in some cases 1 to 1, and rightly so. 2 of my closest friends were frontline doctors and their state primary went all out teaching and supporting their 3 sons during lockdown 1. Even encouraged the older one to complete all his 11 plus bond books in school as he was sitting his 11 plus. This is our future work force we are talking about who will need to get us out of the pandemic financial mess.

We're being told that if schools close, the standard of home learning will be much better than previously. Teachers often say how hard it was trying to do home learning when they had their own DC off school as well, but wouldn't that be the same if they shut again? How would teachers manage to juggle both this time?