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'.

There is an absolutely vast difference between a sixth form bubble bursting and the blanket closure of several primaries judas

It baffles me posters needs this pointing out.

sandy same. My teen DS has seen plenty of his mates this year. But he would benefit from seeing his grandparents, they help him with homework and do chilled things like crosswords. He gets more attention with them too as a lot of my time is taken up with his challenging sister, work and housework. Missing a few days of school to see them would probably be cancelled out by some quality study and homework time.

It isn’t going to help a child’s mental health if his mother loses her job and their home is repossessed, it isn’t going to help a child’s mental health if he has no internet access and is completely cut off from his friends, it isn’t going to help a child’s mental health to fall further behind and underachieve. Poverty is the biggest challenge to mental health out there. I think we’d all be wise to bear that in mind.

It’s frustrating that you’re all yelling at each other and not at the government.

It would not be the school’s fault (and welcometonowhere I’m not insinuating you personally think it would be) if a parent lost their job because their young child was unavoidably unable to go to school.

It is not a school’s fault that the child does not have internet access.

It is not the school’s fault that a child is living in poverty.

Where on earth is the government’s responsibility here? Why are there no funding packages to support parents self isolating/with self isolating children? Other countries have managed enhanced sick pay. Why is the government not cracking down on businesses who try to sack workers who have to (as per the government’s own rules) take time off with their self isolating children?

Why did the government not only underfund laptop allowance so not all children in need could receive a laptop, but then slash that allocation even lower in November?

Why are the government so content with the levels of child poverty they have created? So content, in fact, that they slashed Sure Start, local council budgets and more?

There is so much more that the government could do to make schools safer (as outlined on many of Noble’s threads).

But they don’t.

There is so much more that they could do to support employees who have to self isolate, or who have to take time off as their children have to self isolate.

But they don’t.

Why not? Why aren’t your children worth more?

@TaxTheRatFarms
Exactly.

Experimenting with kids on this scale (or any) should be a crime anyway.

@Welcometonowhere

There is an absolutely vast difference between a sixth form bubble bursting and the blanket closure of several primaries judas

It baffles me posters needs this pointing out.

I hope that last bit wasn’t directed at me. I was neither addressing you or referring to primary schools

Update to my earlier post: My Y12 has just arrived home (doesn’t have to be in if there’s no lesson). And yes, they will be in (probably, hopefully) til end of term, but only one of their A Level subject teachers will be in to teach because the others are now having to also self isolate. 🤷‍♀️

@dividedwefall

Have we got any evidence the DFE is downplaying statistics in schools?

Yes. For example, using fiddled data to suggest that teacher risk of infection is less than it is.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-schools-urgent-warning-over-misleading-teacher-covid-data

The government also made lots of reference to PHE data about schools being safe, referring to a period in lockdown when schools were only part open and socially distanced. The headlines about parents only being 8% more likely to catch covid if they had a secondary child related to data before schools went back in September.
The DfE have a video on their social media about schools which include scenes shot in a classroom where children are wearing masks. Their own guidance says that this should be avoided. They also had a facebook post in October about smaller class sizes being a safety feature in schools, when schools do not have smaller class sizes.

Lies, spin and propaganda feature quite heavily in their messaging.

Personal responsibility is absolutely the key to this. That doesn't mean schools closing, or choosing to close, unless there is a big problem. That way a two tier system lies, where private schools and schools in better areas stay open.

Councils shouldn't be allowed to fine parents who choose to home school while this is going on though. Every single parent should have the right to remove their child to suit their own personal risk assessment and circumstances. Unfortunately many on this thread advocate a blanket closure again, which is not the way to go.

Judas but while sixth form, 11s and 8s are out. 7s, 9s and 10s are not.

Obviously it is crap for the year groups affected but I’m not remotely convinced making it crap for everybody is the answer.

I am very much in favour of more secure and better paid jobs tax but I also do think we need to acknowledge recessions make securing and keeping jobs harder. One thing I do hope comes out of this mess is improved attitudes to time off work. We shall see.

Looking at our staff figures we are now at around 70% of the teaching staff. Office staff and management not similarly affected with the notable exception of the first aider. No wonder it feels fraught.

Personally I would not be surprised if the unions and some union rep teachers were encouraging/forcing schools to send home whole year group bubbles instead of just close contacts.

Sending home 250 year 9s instead of 5 or 6 close contacts of one case is certainly a way to inflate absence figures to help advocate for school closure.

The government and PHE guidance is clear that only close contacts should be sent home to isolate.

Looking at our staff figures we are now at around 70% of the teaching staff.

The DfE have been asked why they have stopped reporting teacher absence figures. Just another way to hide the problem.

Unions or reps have no say whatsoever in who gets sent home.

Schools follow PHE guidance as you say.

'Close contacts' is a moveable feast of a phrase!

Completely agree with OP

Personally I would not be surprised if the unions and some union rep teachers were encouraging/forcing schools to send home whole year group bubbles instead of just close contacts

You clearly have no idea of how these decisions are made then.

Starryfire the problem with only sending home close contacts is it doesn't stop the spread, then you have to send the whole year home anyway.

That is quite retro in a '70s sort of way though StarryFire.

The idea that unions have any input about decision making in schools.

Bless.

There is so much more that the government could do to make schools safer (as outlined on many of Noble’s threads)
Indeed. I mentioned before on another of Nobles threads, our affiliated school’s head has written a piece in the local paper about how he has spent GBP20,000.00 (probably more than that now) on trying to make his school safer for everyone. This is from normal budget and he has no idea how he’s going to make that up again. The money has gone on extra cleaning staff/hours, cleaning materials, maintenance for the building where windows needed to be fixed so they could reliably be opened but also on hiring marquees so the enormous sixth form could have enough areas to go to study/lunch ad have room to socially distance. He really wants his school to stay open. He’d also like it to be safe, and he’d really, really like that GBP20k funded.

Personally, I'd be surprised if you had any idea about how school operate StarryFire.

The unions have absolutely no input to school decisions - nor do teachers. Our Head is sending home exactly who PHE tell him he must do. Every time we have a case they are contacted and they make the decision.

The problem with this kind of ignorance from parents/general public is that it spreads misinformation about schools that far too many people then repeat like Chinese whispers.

Ha yeah
The unions are not part of those decisions. It was Public Health who finally closed our two year groups.

Today we have just over a third of staff off and out of our ten person dept only two have not tested positive so far.

Our mocks are a shit show as so many pupils are having to sit them at home.

Had the tiers plan for schools been enacted we could have had more regular contact with more pupils. We could have had fewer positive tests ans more meaningful learning.

@StarryFire

Personally I would not be surprised if the unions and some union rep teachers were encouraging/forcing schools to send home whole year group bubbles instead of just close contacts.

Sending home 250 year 9s instead of 5 or 6 close contacts of one case is certainly a way to inflate absence figures to help advocate for school closure.

The government and PHE guidance is clear that only close contacts should be sent home to isolate.

Yes, that'll be why every Head Teacher phones PHE whenever a positive case is reported in, and they are told by them exactly who to send home.

But don't let that stand in the way of scare-mongering and misinformation.

I really love the argument that anyone taking this seriously should just homeschool. But what if we think that this will have an end in sight and we actually like the school we are in?
I'm not alone with my struggle to keep ourselves healthy, thus not sending kid into school, but also not deregistering him as we want to keep the school place.

‘Personally I would not be surprised if the unions and some union rep teachers were encouraging/forcing schools to send home whole year group bubbles instead of just close contacts.

Sending home 250 year 9s instead of 5 or 6 close contacts of one case is certainly a way to inflate absence figures to help advocate for school closure.

The government and PHE guidance is clear that only close contacts should be sent home to isolate.’

If only the Union had this power. Unions have NO power do do anything. How can you make statements like this without knowing that unions have virtually no power in this country?

In my daughters secondary school, currently only Years 10, 11 and 13 are permitted to attend school because of the rate of infections among the other year groups!

The misinformation about unions has been going on for months on MN.

People still say that they decided to close schools, not to open them to all year groups in the summer and are trying to get schools closed again.

The teaching unions have so little power that they haven't even been able to ensure that their members have a safe working environment, in line with covid mitigation measures in every other work place.