The logistical issue with closing primary schools...

[Jourdain11]

Just want to say at the start that, in saying this, I do not in any way mean to undermine teachers' and school staffs' right to work in a safe environment. But there is a big logistical issue with the closure of primary schools, assuming that childcare arrangements would also be knocked out.

In the spring, a huge number of people were either wfh or furloughed. That is no longer the case to the same extent. Since the rules/guidance now is to "work from home unless you cannot do your job at home", there are many, many more people who are expected to go into work, at least on a part-time schedule.

Which creates a huge issue in terms of primary-aged children doing remote learning from home. Either you end up with a pretty large number of "key worker" or "unable to learn from home" children going into school (which creates issues for staff in terms of providing in-school staffing and online provision simultaneously, and also slightly defeats the point of the entire exercise); or you have thousands of parents having to resign their jobs, take unpaid leave, beg for time off or whatever (which is clearly very far from ideal). Or you end up with parents simply saying, "I pay taxes for my children to be educated in school and it is their right to receive this education" and sending them in anyway.

Seems the only way around this would be either to have a "short, sharp" shutdown with a (for example) 2-week timelimit, which might be more manageable for both parents and school staff. Or to stay open and increase hygiene measures in PSs, or at least strive to make them equal across all schools.

Thoughts?

@SeaglassSolstice

Are there statistics clearly showing that primary school children are responsible for the big rise in cases though? Surely it is due to so many more factors? I find talk of blanket closures frustrating. Our large primary only had to send one year group home for the last week, no other bubbles affected all term. Why should my DC yet again have to miss out on being at school if there isn't clear evidence primary school children are spreading it (which I have yet to see).

Yes, behind secondary. The slides this week tell the story, 35 in particular. Primary also suggests further onwards transmission.

ONS data picks up random cases including aysymptomatic.

I wonder if you can split primary years in to those more able to learn independently? So for example Y4-6 are remote learning and y3 and under are in school. Once they can read, they can manage some independent learning more easily. My youngest in Y4 just had 10 days of tracker leaning and it was actually ok. I could get some work done unlike in the first lockdown. Obviously not a feasible long term solution but could work temporarily.

My friends are childless and run a pub. Their business has been closed down time and time again and being in Wales is closed now...because everything was closed to allow schools to remain open.

They are struggling to make ends meet right now, so what op, is the answer for them?
Is it ok for their livelihoods to be impacted then?

Hospitality have made huge changes to the way they run to be Covid secure...and restaurants for instance, are arguably safer than schools right now - but anyone who works in hospitality are losing their work, their jobs and their income, to allow children to keep going to school and so that those parents can keep working.

Keeping schools open has not worked, in fact it’s done the complete opposite. I suspect cases will come down a bit over Christmas as schools are closed and children will therefore go back in a staggered way, by January 18th. But by half term, we will be in a terrible position yet again and my friends pub will have to continue to stay closed.

It’s hard, no it’s fucking awful. But one sector of the public cannot keep propping up the other sectors...that’s not fair. And equally, the health and well-being of school staff and pupils cannot be disregarded, to prop up working parents. This virus has killed over 2 million people world wide. It’s not a case of ‘well you just have to get on with it’.

It’s complicated isn’t it. I don’t have children and part of me thinks they should shut the schools for a short time to try and break the spread. BUT I know it’s a nightmare for parents to try and juggle work, childcare and education. On a personal level I’ve had to support my colleagues with children all year while they had to take time off with their kids or change hours etc. I don’t envy them and my employer was very supportive in giving all parents additional paid parental leave, but it meant those without school ages children had to pick up that slack. It’s not as simple as furloughing people for care reasons if jobs still need to be done.

So I guess I’m basically saying whatever they do life will be difficult for someone (in varying levels of course). I’m glad it’s not me having to make the decisions.

I do think teachers have been treated like crap through all this though.

Move secondaries online. Use secondary school buildings to allow smaller primary classes. One week with teacher, one with TA. Work together in council areas to have one lot of decent online teaching per year group, accessible to all schools in the area. Allow people to keep their kids at home if they want to, without fines. Proper PPE for teachers if they want it. Stop testing primary aged children. Keep them home if symptomatic.

Not an issue at all. Employers have generally got on board with people WFH. I do loads of Teams calls with all sorts of clients, the vast majority or people are WFH and those who aren’t are choosing to work in offices. Sure there are jobs which can’t be done from home, but not in any different number than there was in March. If closing schools will help us get over this last hurdle until the vaccine has taken hold then so be it.

@GrumblyMumblyisnotJumbly

This is about the third thread i’ve put this on but why can’t primaries stay open and temporarily have half the class in AM / half PM to ensure continuity in core teaching while social distancing can actually be achieved. Totally appreciate this doesn’t help those who work out the home but surely better than full closure and helps those expected to wfh while being beneficial to children’s education & wellbeing. That way you replicate the conditions in school from May where bubbles were tighter and smaller (albeit with better weather).

If it was a 2week emergency closure would nurseries / childminders will be expected to close as well? If schooling/colleges are closed surely these settings would need to close too?

So staff have 15 children in AM for 3 hours and 15 children PM for 3 hours - I really don't think that is going to make that much difference to my chances of catching Covid, compared to during the last three months. Nobody in my bubble, or indeed my school, was tested positive last term. How do you think teachers can provide online learning whilst also teaching full days in school?

But it’s not possible to work from home and effectively supervise children’s school work. Older primary children might be able to get on with it unsupervised, but certainly not KS1. Mandating home working isn’t a solution (to this problem, at least).

1. Employers have to be flexible

I don't agree. All this gov has been doing is putting responsibility on parents, employers, people. They need to step up.

• Any employer who cannot do without a specific person should be able to declare them as key workers (with consent from worker obv.)
• all employees who need to be home (not wfh) because of children should be getting their salary as per usual FROM GOV!
• Employers should be compensated for loss of business if employee absence effects them.

People are expected to isolate/stay at home/... without any mitigation measures. Furlough is great, for those who have it. I've been made redundant. instead of a 50k+ salary I can now go on uc - £94 per week. How is this incentives me to stay home? All it does -in theory- is make me go out and try to find a job as soon as possible.

We need to stop the virus circulating in such numbers. The way to do this is to reduce the number of potential transmissions. Ergo: like it or not, we do need to shut schools. They are the only environment where the virus is left unchecked and actually propagated.

I think everyone is going to be sure the sector that should close to allow other sectors to open is the one that personally affects them least.

Stop testing primary aged children

Why?

The issue is not with people wfh, it is with people wfh while caring for young children. Pre-Covid, the vast majority of employers who allowed flexible working prohibited this because it is bad for both the employer and the employee. Children don't have a "pause" or an "off" button and can't simply be switched off during working hours, as many seem to think.

"Stop testing primary aged children"

I don't think expecting primary age children to stay indoors at home for 10 days every time they get a temperature is reasonable.

@MintyMabel

Not an issue at all. Employers have generally got on board with people WFH. I do loads of Teams calls with all sorts of clients, the vast majority or people are WFH and those who aren’t are choosing to work in offices. Sure there are jobs which can’t be done from home, but not in any different number than there was in March. If closing schools will help us get over this last hurdle until the vaccine has taken hold then so be it.

Of course it's an issue! If you're a teacher, you can't wfh. If you're a shop worker, a barista, a refuse collector, someone who works in healthcare, some who works in an office role where security/data sensitivity issues preclude home working. I have many, many friends and colleagues who are not able to work from home, and not always for the most obvious reasons either!

... meanwhile, all we really need is a 2- 3 week "total lockdown" to break the transmission cycle. (Yes I am thinking military style as they did in China. )
After that, we need to be very careful/ vigilant who and how people are allowed to enter the country.

That would bring the numbers right down... it would protect the NHS and keep children in education thereafter.

Probably unpopular and politically impossible, but most virologist would secretly agree...

I wouldn't say the vast majority of people are working from home. Not one person in my family can work from home - I'm in manufacturing, my mum is NHS, my stepdad is military, then there is a TA, a supermarket manager, an outreach worker, a GP receptionist. My exh (DS's dad) is a train driver. I only know one person working from home.

I can WFH. Part of my job is answering the phone to the general public. For those of you saying those WFH can look after their children I would LOVE for you to tell me how I can teach my 3 year old to be patient enough to wait for me to finish a phone call before asking me for something! WFH would be no issue with an older primary school pupil but with young ones it is impossible.

Can I just say to all the people who keep saying their school has had little or no cases. That's just luck up until now. My children's school had no cases for months, then suddenly one or two, then it exploded and was infested. Do you just want to wait until your child catches Covid or the teacher is in icu in an induced coma? Because that's where one of my children's young slim teacher is this Christmas.

@MessAllOver

The issue is not with people wfh, it is with people wfh while caring for young children. Pre-Covid, the vast majority of employers who allowed flexible working prohibited this because it is bad for both the employer and the employee. Children don't have a "pause" or an "off" button and can't simply be switched off during working hours, as many seem to think.

Thanks for highlighting this! I work from home full time but with 3 kids to homeschool you can't di either jobs well. I have to wait until the kids are in bed so I can get on with work and doing this for months on end is exhausting! I count myself lucky that I have the flexibility to work from home but we really need some clarity on what the plan is...

It just isn't feasable at all.
There are too many people that are keyworkers. It isn't just NHS workers. What about the children of teachers, food manufactureres or just people who cannot afford to lose 2 weeks wages or 2-3 weeks annual leave.
I think they should delay the start by a week as most areas are tier 3 now so not much mixing going on over the next couple of week so hopefully less exposure to be taking into school.
Still a nightmare for many people but I think more manageable.

This is about the third thread i’ve put this on but why can’t primaries stay open and temporarily have half the class in AM / half PM to ensure continuity in core teaching while social distancing can actually be achieved. Totally appreciate this doesn’t help those who work out the home but surely better than full closure and helps those expected to wfh while being beneficial to children’s education & wellbeing. That way you replicate the conditions in school from May where bubbles were tighter and smaller (albeit with better weather).

@Whatdidisay Because a full deep clean would need to be preformed of all classrooms and toilets before the afternoon children arrived or it would be pointless! A week on week off rota would be more practical.

Evidence would suggest that having smaller numbers, further apart, would help reduced likelihood of transmission keeping teachers and pupils safer www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html

Certainly in KS2 it would help allow teachers to control social distancing better.

Or you could have half the class in Monday/ Tues, deep clean Weds, other half class in Thurs/Fri? home learning for rest of class

Or week in for half the class / week home learning for the others (have the same materials switched each week)

It may be a small % of society but being a working parent with a primary school aged child I know so many in this cohort (e.g. speech therapists, charity workers, university workers) who were working from home while trying to home school children between March- July.

I don’t know what the answer is, but working in a primary school and having one child in primary and one in secondary, I think the government need to give more notice of what’s going to happen to allow parents and staff to plan accordingly. 6 pm on Jan 3rd or whatever is not helpful. They need to decide, and decide now.

amicissimma schools having greater autonomy to work with their unique staff/pupil profile would have been a much better idea from the start.

Unfortunately, the govt replaced the head of PHE just before the September start to make extra sure that this wouldn't happen.

If a school has no known cases, surely the point is that in a global pandemic that makes them an exception not the starting point for a piece of policy? My ds's secondary had very few cases in the autumn term, although the secondary down the road had scores and 50+ teachers self-isolating by the last week.

It's luck, random variance whatever you want to call it, but it makes no sense from a national public health or educational pov to say, at this point in time with a new variant known to spread particularly virulently through school aged children, to say we can assume whatever the profile was of the virus in the autumn term in a particular school will be the same in the spring.

Indeed, it's the 'explosive' nature of the clusters of infections that we've seen in primary school aged children that we need to try to avoid occurring in different schools (probably those so far unaffected as few people have any sort of immunity) in the spring.

@Jourdain11
Teachers CAN work from home though. It is highly inconvenient for primary school parents who have to supervise their children but lessons can be taught online. It isn’t ideal but it’s what vets, doctors and others have done. On the whole, most teachers don’t WANT to work from home as it’s bloody hard work but right now, I don’t think the government will care if there is a link (and unsurprisingly there seems to be) between schools staying open and community transmission. And as a PP said, many tax-payers who don’t have primary school children are tiring of propping up schools to the detriment of their livelihoods.

Teachers can't work from home if they have to go in for keyworker/SEN/vulnerable children. Teachers also can't simultaneously wfh and care for and supervise their primary school age kids!