Why are some schools being hit worse than others?

[DumplingsAndStew]

I am NOT looking for a fight, or to apportion blame to anyone, just looking for discussion.

Our high school of 1000+ has had 3 pupils and 1 member of staff (unconnected) positive in total. This was all around a similar time, a good few weeks ago.

I'd imagine the issues that schools have implementing safety procedures should be fairly similar across the UK. The number of kids socialising outside of school would - I think - be comparable from one school to another.

Why are some schools seeing more positive cases, and more transmission between pupils than others?

@RememberSelfCompassion

Lots of older schools the windows were painted shut. Not sure if it was unintentional or just how they did it then

With modern schools many dont open fully so that children can't jump out 🙄

I honestly don't know what to say about that.

My kids school have year 11 out for the third time now, while year 12 havent been out at all yet. I think all the other years have been out at least once. The school are doing really well with the Teams lessons when the whole year is out, but it is harder to support individuals that are isolating when the rest of the year is in.
This is an inner city comp with a lot of kids in a small space and very limited outside space. We are currently tier 3. Many kids come in on public transport. All of these are going to add to the risk. They have done well with keeping year groups separate from each other, but it is really hard for everyone.

[quote DumplingsAndStew]@middleager

Six periods of isolation? Thats awful - how many close contacts can one person have? For so many to test positive is terrible.

I hope the quality of remote learning is shit hot, at least.[/quote]
The school has ways sent whole classes back (options) so often half a year group.
However, there are currency six known cases in year 10 alone, so they have an issue.

Unfortunately, in his mid Sept and early Octoberisolations, home learning was a mixed bag. We had two days of nothing coming through at one point, but it has improved now though since Ofsted guidelines were introduced.

It’s been fairly quiet in DDs school but in another local secondary half the teaching staff had it, school had to close.I imagine there is a super spreading member of staff and they are still having contact. It’s an old building (well mid 70s) they are desperate to replace.

We live in what was originally a tier 1 area, dragged up to tier 2 by other local areas. We're certainly not in a deprived area, but it's ripped through all the local schools in the last month. One known transmission secondary school pupil to parent teacher, to child in class to parents at home. Every transmission was within an environment where people are not being careful, is your homes where you live and relax or schools which are overcrowded, no masks, less hygiene amongst younger ones. It's around, constantly looking for a host. Obviously it won't help if there's a high population density, although, we're all capable of social distancing when out in the streets/shops.

We're sure we had plenty of cases earlier in the year, lots of children in with a hacking cough, many going home the last week with temperatures, not feeling well.

There is huge variation in the measures schools have introduced, and when.

Our larger than average secondary reluctantly introduced masks in corridors and opted to get rid of bubbles after half-term, just as cases were sky rocketing and we went into lockdown. They had also tried to reintroduce after school clubs and were surprised when this was advised against.

We came out in Tier 3 (and will likely remain there this wk) and there are cases across multiple year groups. They are still doing the absolute bare minimum, and their RA is a flimsy three page document that wouldn't pass muster in any other professional setting.

Many other schools have been much more proactive IMO.

Similar to what @WinstonWolf said. Our secondary has it pretty well under control now - although there are still isolated cases. Back in October they had to close for a week as it had got out of control in all but two year groups. Funnily enough, back in October there was no requirement for the kids to wear masks and some after school clubs had started up. Since then they have tightened up the rules.

@Theotherrudolph

Luck. Geography/location in the country. Size. School building, facilities, budget, intake, demographics, local community rates, rural/urban, testing availability....

This

Definitely more luck than anything else, like you say teenagers behave the same regardless of wherever they live , I can't imagine any school not implementing any safety measures just maybe its easier for some to implement them better than others due to the building, amount of students, urban/rural. No one is doing anything wrong or better than others im sure all schools are doing the best with the circumstances they've got. It would be naive of some parents who haven't had many cases to think that that Will continue to be the case all the time, it will come to all schools eventually.

It's a virus and they don't spread evenly (for lots of the reasons listed). Weather, super spreading events, ventilation, number of cases in surrounding area - all have an effect. Its like a huge web of connections but sometimes there are breaks that stop the spread (prevention measures, face masks, people with immunity)

Then sometimes a tipping point is reached and R goes above 1 and you start to get exponential growth.

I would guess different measures in different schools and different rates of local infections that make their way to the schools.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

Luck. And community case level.

This. The school DH works at has terrible ventilation, an unsuitable Victorian building, they don't seem to have implemented measures that are any better than anyone else's and the attitude of DH and his colleagues has been, erm, different to that I've seen on MN in terms of concern about getting it - DH says mask wearing among teachers in communal areas is patchy, and they gave up on social distancing in his department immediately when it became apparent it meant only one of them could use the department office at once. Despite this, they've had four cases in students, each one isolated, and none in teachers (probably hence the complacency). The school is in an area that's had reasonably low rates, it's very, very non-deprived, and I think this, and sheer luck, are the only explanations; it seems so unfair to assume that schools that haven't been so lucky must be doing something 'wrong'.

My daughter goes to a small, specialist private school (there are approx 20-40 kids in each year group. Covid is rife, so amny staff and student have gone down with it and some have been quite poorly.

My son left a 150 kids per year state school to attend a large FE college. His friends still at the high school report that they have had to self isolate several times but that the several cases they have had have mostly been contained. The college has had hardly any cases.

This is despite daughter's school being in a Tier 2 area and son's ex school/current college in Tier 3.

I thin it's purely down to the precautions that have been taken and enforcing things like mask wearing etc (easier at the college as they have been allowed blended learning, strict social distancing and strict mask enforcement).

The precautions thing is a bot of a red herring. Schools havent been allowed to take precautions like blended learning/smaller classes better spaced/masks in class/money for outdoor coverings or more staff...

@stairway

We’ve had hardly any children at my child’s secondary school test positive and none at my son’s primary school. However many staff have tested positive Including admin. I doubt they are getting it from students as community rates in our area are extremely low. However the staff are likely to commute in from high risk areas and have spread it between themselves. I daren't say this on the other threads as the teachers on there would go mad.

Or the students are asymptomatic and spreading it to their teachers.

Yup. We had a rapid test of all our years 11-+13. They found 10 students in yr 12 with covid in a friendship group. Completely asymptomatic....

Also theres many reasons a positive child might not be tested. Asymptomatic, symptoms are not those of the big 3 (sore throat/headache/sore tummy seem common) or parents not testing as "its just a cold/cough." It seems crazy to assume covid wouldn't spread in closed badly ventilated crwoded conditons really. Why assume it must be elsewhere!?

@RememberSelfCompassion

The precautions thing is a bot of a red herring. Schools havent been allowed to take precautions like blended learning/smaller classes better spaced/masks in class/money for outdoor coverings or more staff...

We have masks in class for certain years.

Mostly just luck I think.

My school (small primary, inner city, very mixed catchment) has (so far frantically touching wood!) had no cases at all. Other very similar local schools have had loads.

DH’s school - large secondary - was the last secondary in the area to get any cases despite probably having the fewest mitigations in place at that point.

There is a whole field of study that works on these very questions in a micro and macro environment. There isn’t one answer but social/economic factors are key. Poorer populations with bad housing/overcrowded homes/poor diet are disproportionately affected by disease, as it has always been.

This, and previous governments are responsible for the state of this country’s housing stock. We need a huge investment in social housing and regeneration of the infrastructure around them.

I was pondering this based on my DDs school Vs another local school. Our school One case all term. Other school... Multiple cases, bubble closures etc. The schools are less than a mile apart, similar size, similar demographic.. if anything other school is less deprived (DDs school has a large proportion of Eastern European families)

Biggest difference between the two... Buildings. DDs school was extended a few years ago. All classrooms having running water, large windows and skylights, and doors to the large playground. Plus a field. Seperate playgrounds for lower and upper school.
Other school is still in the original Church school building that was opened a couple of hundred years ago. Three floors, narrow corridors, tiny school hall (they usually use the Church), tiny playground. Poor ventilation. Cramped toilets. To enable any distancing, parents had to be completely banned from the site... The teachers collect th from Church yard.

I'm wondering if modern school buildings help.

Where I teach most children live in high rise tower block style flats where it’s hard to socially distance from different families. They share laundry rooms, lifts, hallways- none of which is built for socially distance, often their parent have more high risk public facing roles as well.

It's only slightly luck.

It's the same as all other groups where spreading is more prevalent vs other. Socio economic issues are at work. It seems clear that schools are not necessarily super spreader environments (counter intuitively) but the children within those schools will be coming from different types of communities. In our school in a middle class suburb etc, families are generally not overcrowded, parents are largely working from home etc etc. Quite often extended family are either quite far away and therefore not being visited or local and have been incorporated into smaller support bubbles. In other schools, the children are likely to be coming from households where the parents are working away from home, where there is less social distancing due to more people living at home/ need to support wider group of people etc.Perhaps children are less supervised outside of school hours so more likely to be spreading between them etc.

The worst thing for me about this virus is the clear sign of how people from poorer communities are so much more badly affected. Just another example of how low income families are more likely to suffer disproportionally

Mostly luck. If nobody brings it into school it can't spread.

My school has had zero cases among children, teachers or support staff all term.

In our last staff meeting of term the head congratulated us and said, 'I'm sure there is luck involved but it's also down to all of you following our excellent covid practices so well.' I almost spat my drink out all over the computer screen and was very glad my camera and mic were off. Because our so called Covid practices are shit!

Hand sanitiser is everywhere. But half the children avoid it and pretend to use it whenever they think they can get away with it.

Our windows open and we can override the safety catches to open them wide but we were told that if the classroom gets too cold we can close them if we like.

We have a one way system but the children (and staff in far too many cases) ignore it at least half the time.

Our 'bubbles' consist of 2 year groups each (Oh, except in the dining hall when it's 3 year groups and during enrichment activities when it's 4 year groups and in the boarding house when it's 6 year groups ...)

We have had three whole school gatherings (outside) this term and several smaller but cross bubble gatherings.

Our older children and staff wear masks in communal areas but we're rarely in communal areas and most remove them in the classroom.

Our children (even the older ones) do all practical subjects almost as normal, including group work and singing. We were hot on adaptations in Sept (i taught outside for the first month, for example) but it slipped badly as time went on and we had no cases.

We even had a short staff Christmas 'gathering' at the end of term

There is no way our lack of cases is down to anything but luck. All term I have been reading about cold, lonely, miserable overworked staff whose schools are still overrun with cases. While we carried on our memory way having a nearly normal term with no consequences whatsoever. Just luck.

Our primary school took a bad hit when they went bk in September infact 2 days in an it was all the teachers who had it (how all of them caught it in 2 days i don't no) resulting in full school closure for 2 weeks been absolutely fine since 🙂 sons high school has had 3 cases 1 teacher 2 pupils since September with over 700 pupils there so not doing to bad.