Government denial over schools issues will cause deaths this Christmas

[noblegiraffe]

I just can't get my head around how utterly crazy the government Christmas policy is.

Secondary school kids are the most infected subset of the population with it now estimated that more than 1 in 50 of them are positive. As they are children, most of them will never be tested as they either are asymptomatic, or will display different symptoms to the main three that are required to trigger a test (councils are overruling this in some parts of England and asking parents to use a more sensible list of symptoms).

Schools mostly break up on 18th December, 5 days before the Christmas relaxation period begins and people start taking advantage of this to mix with other households indoors, in poorly ventilated small rooms, which as scientists warn, is a terrible idea. twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1331931594400149506?s=21

Closing schools a week earlier (or moving online) would give 2 weeks out of school before Christmas day, which would reduce the infection rate in school children significantly (we saw a dip in the infection rate just in one week over half term) and make it safer for them to mix with other households, particularly if people took advantage of those two weeks to significantly reduce their contacts and other risks.

Some schools took it upon themselves to protect their own communities by changing the term dates to close a week earlier. The DfE has overruled this and forced them to stay open.
schoolsweek.co.uk/overruled-dfes-sweeping-coronavirus-powers-force-trust-into-early-christmas-holiday-u-turn/

Because of the tier system, if families don't get together at Christmas during the relaxation period, when their children pose a much higher risk, they will not be able to see their families properly for Christmas at all. Essentially Christmas is being funnelled into a time period which is insanely risky due to it coming shortly after children mixing freely in unsafe schools with significant numbers of undiscovered infections.

I know the DfE have been reading this board. I understand why you want schools open, but lying to people about the risks as you have is dangerous and immoral. Transparency is needed so that people can make their own informed risk assessments, not propaganda about 'safe schools' and 'saving Christmas'.

noble was the same thing said about Oct half term?

I don't really like commenting on high schools as I don't have kids in high school and do understand the problem is bigger in high schools. I don't know the solution.

But should we really be lumping all education together?

But for me it is more important that my son sees extended family that attends school. Therefore I may keep him out of school until the Spring.

And closing them early would have consequences.

If people wish to take the risk of seeing their relatives, they are free to do so. Schools should not close on this basis, however.

@noblegiraffe

Some will. We shouldn’t close all on the basis that some won’t.

That’s not the argument being made. The argument for closing schools early is to mitigate the impact of the government’s terrible Christmas policy.

The ever increasing fuckedness of secondary schools is down to another terrible government policy of denying there’s an issue in schools.

If schools weren’t fucked, then there’d be no need to shut them early.

Are you saying fully closed? Or online

Online for primary is pointless in most cases

Post Christmas online for one week secondary makes more sense, maybe exam years in.

@WhyNotMe40

I'm a secondary teacher and I was a bit embarrassed by the work we were told to set. We had absolutely no say - we were not allowed to cover new content, and it could not be paper based due to lack of resources in some homes, AND it had to be doable on a phone. So decisions were made at SLT then departmental level. However for every class I emailed out "supporting" YouTube links, oak Academy lessons, knowledge organisers, BBC Bitesize links etc, and was checking my email every hour every weekday (even though I only work 2 days a week) in school hours. And this was around home schooling my 8yo and 6yo and trying to contain my loose cannon whirlwind 3yo. - there is no way I could have done live lessons, but I did my best.

Similar situation (without the 6 and 8 year old.)

I do and did worry we talked ourselves out of jobs.

noble was the same thing said about Oct half term?

What same thing? I’m not sure what you’re talking about?

I totally agree. Schools need to close early to allow for household mixing anything else is utter madness. It’s awful how badly school staff and students are being let down. I’ve kept my child at home since September because I just don’t feel the current guidelines provide enough protection. I’ve just about manage to hang onto my child’s place in an over subscribed school without being fined but it won’t be long before we hit crunch point. I’m so saddened by the government’s refusal to acknowledge the risks posed by schools being open in their current format, the government could do so much better!

Online for primary is pointless in most cases

You know my focus is secondary. They’re the fucked ones.

Well we only had about 20% engagement with the work, so I don't think I'll be out of a job to be replaced by online learning any day soon!

@noblegiraffe

Online for primary is pointless in most cases

You know my focus is secondary. They’re the fucked ones.

Yours is. But I’m pretty sure other posters are arguing for primary too. If not then great, can’t bothered scrolling to check.

Secondary only I’d still do post-Christmas week if you want to impact January /Feb numbers in schools.

Schools need to close early to allow for household mixing anything else is utter madness

Household mixing is the madness and the govt policy to allow it.

You may be in a position to homeschool long term. Many of us are not.

@Bettydot

I totally agree. Schools need to close early to allow for household mixing anything else is utter madness. It’s awful how badly school staff and students are being let down. I’ve kept my child at home since September because I just don’t feel the current guidelines provide enough protection. I’ve just about manage to hang onto my child’s place in an over subscribed school without being fined but it won’t be long before we hit crunch point. I’m so saddened by the government’s refusal to acknowledge the risks posed by schools being open in their current format, the government could do so much better!

Honestly if you can then you do you as they say.

Don’t make it blanket as others are not in same position.

If people wish to take the risk of seeing their relatives, they are free to do so

Because of the fucking idiot government. They are not free to do so at any other time.

The Christmas policy can’t be undone. We shouldn’t just look helplessly at the train heading for the end of the tracks hoping that the passengers will ignore the message that the train is just fine.

It smacks of Rees-Mogg saying that Grenfell residents should have used their common sense.

Some are definitely arguing for primary - the row last week was centred around primary schools. Plus, to be honest, I’m not convinced year 7s should routinely be left alone. The odd day is different, but if it can be avoided, it really should.

When people go on about nativity and play in last week I assume they mean primary.

Exam year need all the time they can get.

I fancy trying again:

My area (just outside greater Manchester) hit rates of about 500 per 100000 in October, we’re now white on the map so very few cases. It has one large secondary and five primaries - there’s been a smattering of year groups out throughout the schools, mostly before half term, but they’ve been largely open. Here at least it’s clear the lockdown has worked - it was adults spreading covid, not so much the kids... They’re not large modern buildings either, just standard schools. Half term was a week, cases started to fall before (probably due to tier2) and continued afterwards. Similar can be seen starting to happen in some areas of greater Manchester itself, with schools open. Any answers to that one? (Ps, my DH is a teacher, I don’t wish bad things on teachers).

Giraffe, I do think you need to calm down a bit, tbh.

The government can’t keep people “locked up” (slightly dramatic phrase, but you know what I mean) indefinitely. There is absolutely no way people would comply over Christmas. They aren’t daft: they know this.

Hence the ‘new rules’. It’s not dissimilar to schools in some ways: we don’t set ourselves up to fail with rules that aren’t enforceable and won’t get peoples cooperation.

So. You CAN do x y and z. It doesn’t mean you have to.

But if you do make the decision to see grandparents, or whoever, that action might have consequences. And that’s OK. But my child, and other peoples families, should not be adversely impacted because of that decision someone else made.

Yes, I agree they do marsha

Mine were horribly behind.

@noblegiraffe

I just can't get my head around how utterly crazy the government Christmas policy is.

Secondary school kids are the most infected subset of the population with it now estimated that more than 1 in 50 of them are positive. As they are children, most of them will never be tested as they either are asymptomatic, or will display different symptoms to the main three that are required to trigger a test (councils are overruling this in some parts of England and asking parents to use a more sensible list of symptoms).

Schools mostly break up on 18th December, 5 days before the Christmas relaxation period begins and people start taking advantage of this to mix with other households indoors, in poorly ventilated small rooms, which as scientists warn, is a terrible idea. twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1331931594400149506?s=21

Closing schools a week earlier (or moving online) would give 2 weeks out of school before Christmas day, which would reduce the infection rate in school children significantly (we saw a dip in the infection rate just in one week over half term) and make it safer for them to mix with other households, particularly if people took advantage of those two weeks to significantly reduce their contacts and other risks.

Some schools took it upon themselves to protect their own communities by changing the term dates to close a week earlier. The DfE has overruled this and forced them to stay open.
schoolsweek.co.uk/overruled-dfes-sweeping-coronavirus-powers-force-trust-into-early-christmas-holiday-u-turn/

Because of the tier system, if families don't get together at Christmas during the relaxation period, when their children pose a much higher risk, they will not be able to see their families properly for Christmas at all. Essentially Christmas is being funnelled into a time period which is insanely risky due to it coming shortly after children mixing freely in unsafe schools with significant numbers of undiscovered infections.

I know the DfE have been reading this board. I understand why you want schools open, but lying to people about the risks as you have is dangerous and immoral. Transparency is needed so that people can make their own informed risk assessments, not propaganda about 'safe schools' and 'saving Christmas'.

Can I just get this right. You think that the chance for families to get together for a roast dinner trumps children’s right to an education and to mix with their peers? Yes it is high risk but it is the Xmas relaxation which is the idiotic policy. If you are so concerned then don’t mix. The virus can’t spread to other people if you don’t mix, it’s about time that we start to take responsibility for our own health instead of behaving like sheep. Our children have missed out on so much this year and I for one don’t want them sent home to sit in their bedrooms isolated and lonely for any longer than is necessary.

You think that the chance for families to get together for a roast dinner trumps children’s right to an education and to mix with their peers? Yes it is high risk but it is the Xmas relaxation which is the idiotic policy

No, you have not got it right at all.

We agree the government policy is idiotic and will kill people.

I think that people are unaware of how big the issues are in secondary schools due to a lying government and complicit media.

I suspect, therefore, that risky decisions will be made in the absence of the full facts and this will lead to people dying.

I think this is a bad thing.

I’ve been trying to communicate the risks in schools for a while now, to a quite resistant audience.

The government, as in my final paragraph, need to be honest about the risks so that people can make informed decisions.

The government are stopping schools (who know what is going on) from mitigating the risks by closing early and are also lying about the risks. This is a terrible combination.

You could just skip Christmas this year and not mix with vulnerable parents !

It’s your own choice if you risk it!

The virus can’t spread to other people if you don’t mix, it’s about time that we start to take responsibility for our own health instead of behaving like sheep.

The problem is as teaching staff and we can't take responsibility for our own health. We have to work with countless children where families send their children to school while dad is waiting test results, children are mixing with multiple households. Children being given calpol and sent in. This is why schools are not safe. We are in 3 different schools in my household all have multiple Covid cases daily. I am just waiting for the inevitable sadly.

You could just skip Christmas this year and not mix with vulnerable parents

That saves my parents. What about the rest?

ICT access should not be an issue, the government had months to provide funding to get that sorted.

Do we really need to cover the shit show that is the DfEs tech provision for schools?

The same arrangements that are made when teachers are unwell, or need time off for compassionate leave, or are pregnant

Usually external cover/supply. Can't get decent ones for love nor money and we have no money. Plus what supply teacher would want to do supply a week before Xmas and risk having to isolate?

I think we are aware of the risks, by now. That isn’t to say that transmission in schools hasn’t been downplayed, but if you have someone in your family who is really that vulnerable then I think most people would be cautious, or at least get tested, before mixing.

If they choose not to do that then that is still their decision. People have the right to make decisions we personally don’t agree with.

One that needed money, Herc