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.

Even if that is 2% (which we have no idea of knowing due to the refusal of testing children without the big three symptoms), considering the size of all those secondary schools, that’s a minimum of 360 cases. In one small London Borough.

Seriously!?

Given the R rate being over 1.1 - that’s potentially thousands of new cases. So what’s driving it then?

@SmileEachDay

I wonder why!?

It’s because noble is ummm baying for schools to close, probably permanently, so she can gulp gin in her garden on full pay. The disappointment is making her spiky.

No cases in my secondary school (around 1000 pupils). It is an independent school and all teaching staff worked flat out online during lockdown 1. Teaching staff definitely not keen to go back to online teaching - it wasn’t easy at all. This government is very unlikely to close schools and go online with no exam pressure. If they are forced to close schools again there will be huge performance pressure top down and additional pressure on teaching staff. Plus “blended learning” is more work for most teachers - if they have to meet same targets. In our school (lots of staff) ecv teachers are working from home mostly, supporting ecv pupils/ecv families and boarders stuck abroad. Also in some classes all pupils are wearing masks (either due to vulnerable pupils or staff). I don’t see why our school should close, it is safe and doing well. If we have an outbreak we will move online overnight anyway. Some might say it is unfair that some schools are doing better etc.. but the aim has to be to keep normality for as many pupils and teaching staff/whole communities as possible.

how dare you!

I don’t even like gin.

Hey, it’s my tribute act against! Hello tribute act!

Your tribute act needs to learn how to use paragraphs

NobleElephant

Interesting that your school is doing so much better with more mask wearing and fewer pupils (which presumably is the case if ecv teachers, students and families are at home).

If only the state sector would follow suit.....

I don’t know the figures for school isolations in Hull but here in Liverpool our infections were at one point higher than Hull and we had nowhere near than many people isolating from school

Some schools had no cases

Hence why I said earlier it’s down to shit tracking from school

The disruption is due to schools not putting measures in place and not tracking enough to minimise kids being sent home

They’ll be cases - that’s inevitable - but if your child is constantly being sent home then everyone of their immediate contacts must be getting ill!

I don’t consider myself massively lucky - i live centre liverpool and don’t know anyone who’s kids have had more than one isolation and we’ve been probably one of the worst hit places

But our schools - most of them - are hot on tracking

70 kids isolating in one year is disgraceful regardless of options groups etc

As with everything about this year, it’s not a one size fits all. My DCs need school, they struggled in the first lockdown. Their school & nursery have been working so hard to keep the children safe. There has only been 1 case in our school which resulted in a bubble closure. All parents are following the isolation rules even if means taking time off work and it has been working in our school, just like all of the other schools in the area.

If anything there needs to be more discretion given to schools and local authorities to manage the high risk schools and areas. Unfortunately giving parents a choice is a difficult situation as you will find lots of already high risk and vulnerable children being kept home when they need to be in the safety of school so their well-being can be monitored.

GINOGINELLI: 70 kids isolating in one year is disgraceful regardless of options groups etc

You are absolutely right that this is disgraceful. We are in the middle of a pandemic, schools are clearly a major contributor to covid transmission and yet the government is trying to pretend that everything is all right by keeping schools open regardless of the disruption caused by interrupted teaching and learning.

Despite trying their best, schools are ultimately responsible for safeguarding their students. That is what they are desperately trying to do, but are being castigated for it. Schools have spent thousands erecting fences, security doors etc, but when they are safeguarding against covid, apparently it is unacceptable...

@MissEliza

To prove schools are driving the spread of Covid, there needs to be evidence of clusters of infections with a school setting at the centre.

That would be the "outbreaks" described in the weekly surveillance reports. Random cases don't make it into that report, there needs to be at least two cases which are linked only by the establishment and can't be linked elsewhere. These are your "clusters" and last week there were 336 of them in schools, second only to care home clusters,

@SmileEachDay

I wonder why!?

It’s because noble is ummm baying for schools to close, probably permanently, so she can gulp gin in her garden on full pay. The disappointment is making her spiky.

😂😂😂😂

"Figures released by the Department for Education in response to a question from Wirral West MP Margaret Greenwood show 39% of secondary school pupils in Knowsley - 2,247 children - were absent on October 15.

This was the highest secondary school absence rate recorded in the country, ahead of Calderdale on 36% and Liverpool on 33%.
"

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/merseyside-borough-highest-country-covid-19194496

1 in 3 kids out of secondary school doesn't sound great? I'm not sure the strict tracking was that effective.

How have you nothing better to do than google🙈 you’ve been on here all day

Clearly you’re off all week unlike the rest of us

70 kids isolating in one year is disgraceful regardless of options groups etc

?? But we have roughly 120 kids in a year group in my school. Y10 bubble has just gone down again, with first one student testing positive and then a second with symptoms/positive test. Of course all 120 are having to isolate. They are in a bubble which means that they've all mixed with this kid at some point - whether in a Maths class, or a History class or just in their form room, area or toilet.

PHE have told the school the whole year group bubble needs to isolate to prevent spread. What the hell is the school supposed to do? They can't separate the students any more than they have done, and it's been a nightmare setting up separate zones/toilets/entrances/classrooms to make sure that no bubbles mix. Schools are overcrowded and lack free spaces.

And whilst I don’t teach maths even I know 1/3 is better than 7/10

How have you nothing better to do than talk bollocks and get narky when picked up on it?

Thank you noble for your perseverance in the face of all the quibblers. The truth will out, but it would be nice if it came out with the minimum of unnecessary deaths.

Fred

My dd is year 10 and has 10 classes inc 4 options

Even with 3 cases last month in her year the year didn’t go home

Phe act on the info they’re given so don’t blame phe

If your school can’t narrow it down then that’s their issue not phe

Schools were told ages ago that secondary bubbles are not the entire year group

I can't imagine a teacher in a classroom with a visualiser, white board, ipads and associated technology who wasn't up to speed with using them.

Blimey. Do you think these are common in classrooms??

I've seen them more often than not and we're in an area with some of the worst funding in the country - when I went to a school in a different authority I couldn't believe how much stuff they had, they were even allowed to print in colour!

(He prides himself on being a teacher who could do the job even if the internet shut down.... some would really struggle!!).

Yes, that's a great skill he has there.

@Ginogineli

And whilst I don’t teach maths even I know 1/3 is better than 7/10

Depends what it's a 1/3 of - if it's cheesecake, yes! Pavlova, not so much

Ginogineli

Are you currently teaching in a state school?

I can assure you we have none of those things in my school and nor does DH's private school!

gino we had 70 year 11s sent home. But we have 400 in a year group so you can't generalise.

Whole year groups tend go isolate here at secondary as kids go to various lessons throughout couple days plus they don't always know exactly who is with who at break or lunch as lets face it the ternagers when outside don't stay 2m away plus many of them walk to school together , better to send them all home than just guess who was close