Secondary schools are stuffed, GOVERNMENT ADMITS

[noblegiraffe]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55265098

Mass testing for secondary school pupils in worst affected areas.

*’ Manchester? Leicester? Hull? Liverpool? Birmingham? Nothing to see here, move along...

London? HELP! Let's test the lot of them.....

The double standards are appalling.’*

This

Essentially they don’t want to put London into tier 3 because of the effect on the economy. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Midlands here, we really really need to close the schools...parents wont support it but infections are increasing so fast even with the lockdown. No one at the school gates is socially distancing, kids are playing in the park in large numbers / different bubbles. It's hard to watch. Just close them.

As a mancunian this makes me FURIOUS 😠😠
We've had the most awful few months. Starts going up in London... Quick!! We need to do something!

Joining with lividness.

Look at the graphs here; all sorts of craziness and the tiniest uptick and London gets speshial tweatment.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/942966/WeeklyyCOVID-19anddInfluenzaSurveillanceeGraphsW50.pdf

@fluffyboy

Plus - about this town where not a single case in the secondaries or college found in mass testing - there were some cases a few weeks ago. A few years sent home etc. But the testing showed that the measures taken had worked.

You know that the policy changed and they're heavily discouraged by the DfE from sending year groups home?

I agree that that would certainly have been more effective than current measures.

@sashagabadon. I'm sorry, of course this is London centric. 7 London Boroughs have rising covid rates and we have a crisis. Leicester, Manchester, Preston, Blackburn, Pendle and Hull, not an eyelid fluttered. To those saying London is the economic power house. Here is your reason why. It is always prioritised over the rest of the UK.
Schools need more support but it is essential they stay open. Children learn better at school on the whole although there will be those who thrive at home.
Any large organisation has the potential to be a place where viruses are spread. Covid rates fell across the country last month during lockdown even with schools open. The key is to limit social interactions,. Open pubs, restaurants etc. as well as school and the rates rise. The cases we've had at school have nearly all been through parents catching it and passing onto the children.

Meanwhile, a tearful Angela Merkel has just closed schools and put Germany into a hard lockdown as measures are not enough.
www.ft.com/content/b9965e2a-2564-48ff-9e90-81e146d3365c

Parents are just not in the same mindset as March
This.
So will not gain traction - bust flush. Parents (and most teachers outside a Mumsnet bubble) get that the whole thing is PR and will refuse testing. How about just channelling (remaining) energy into planning and teaching good lessons up to the end of term instead of bearing the tired old drum? No, thought not - rabble-rousing far more exciting than the day job.

What about the teachers are they testing them too - probably not as they dont seem to care about the risk they are placing them and their families under

So, Medway and swale now have rolling rates similar to what most northern towns had for weeks and months, around 5/600.

Two / three weeks ago there were areas near me reaching 700 per 100,000

Most of London seems to be really low.

Feck off.

Look at this graph.

Remember all the headlines about how supermarkets were the riskiest place for transmission?

Do you think they'll update their headlines for schools? Particularly seeing as the proportion of the population who attend school is much smaller than the proportion that go to the shops?

This isn't just a London issue.

Also look at teaching and education in occupations.

Yep-am bloody livid about all this.

I wonder how many families will get a phone call home next week (or the week after) saying their child has been a contact of a positive case at school and they need to isolate for the entire Christmas holiday?

How can we be so sure? We have numerous clusters of kids self-isolating because parents are positive. But it's always 5 or 6 kids per class who all sit near one another. So are the parents coincidentally all positive because of their workplace/drunken pub antics (in tier 3? ) or just maybe have the kids asymptomatically or mildly symptomatically (lots of tummy aches in the preceding week in the same children) given it to their parents?

To be fair these tests have only be available n numbers for a very short time so they couldn’t have been testing anywhere weeks ago. They could and should have tackled Hull (which has now caused increased rates in neighbouring areas) and some of the other recent outbreaks

@BungleandGeorge

To be fair these tests have only be available n numbers for a very short time so they couldn’t have been testing anywhere weeks ago. They could and should have tackled Hull (which has now caused increased rates in neighbouring areas) and some of the other recent outbreaks

How did they do it at universities then? They were mass tested months ago.

@cantkeepawayforever

Honestly, I am SO angry.

Manchester? Leicester? Hull? Liverpool? Birmingham? Nothing to see here, move along...

London? HELP! Let's test the lot of them.....

The double standards are appalling.

I agree that this is shocking double standards.

I wish I could be angry. I'm just resigned to my school and my kids and myself being treated as expendable.

Why are social care ahead of education staff in the vaccine list? If you look at that bar chart, education staff are ahead of social care bods in infections. Is that because social care isn't really doing its job at the minute? We can't get social workers in to see children in school at all.

I get you are annoyed but can tell you of many schools shut down here too. Started off the odd year group, then the whole school not long after.We didn't have that many cases then it sky rocketed, our area is also on the list to go into tier 3. My best friend (teacher) has tested positive but luckily as the whole school was shut she could continue wfh. So don't think it is much different to up North, just maybe hitting us more now? No mass testing here either.

Far too late with this and if it's voluntary no parent in their right mind is going to get their kid tested, knowing that if they've got it they'll have to sacrifice their Christmas.

If people actually get tested, how many bubbles are going to be popped and how many families will lose out on Christmas? The fair thing to have done would have been to shut the secondary schools and revert to online learning to slow the spread and ensure that it wasn't passed on to elderly relatives over Christmas.

My elder son's school (y11) is next to one of the highest areas in the country, but luckily they recognised this and closed last week.

He has not and will not be mixing with anyone (tier 3) but I know for a fact that plenty of kids from other schools in this area are still mixing indoors and having sleepovers.

Attending school is not the only way of spreading in this age group. It's so frustrating.

Bristol has been fucked too. Teachers and parents have been posting about it on here. Obviously nothing in the national media.

Attending school is not the only way of spreading in this age group. It's so frustrating.

No, but the infection rate in that age group dropped significantly due to half term and kids being out of school. Mixing with a few kids on a sleepover isn't as many contacts as being stuffed in a classroom and crammed in corridors with them day in day out.

Schools were always going to be a challenge, at least they're dealing with it.

And presumably testing like this has not needed to be done in other areas as maybe it wasn't the secondary school age range that were having the highest infection rates in those areas. It's really quite simple when you actually think about it rather than just get hysterical