Worried parents will drive down stats and play into the government's hands?

[DayBath]

So many of us on Mumsnet have decided to keep our primary school children home for a couple of weeks this term to see how things play out. My prediction is this will drive infections down, and the government won't compare infections to attendance stats and will use the temporarily lower figures to declare primary schools safe once again.

I really don't want to send my child in, but I really don't want to help the government doctor the figures to use in their endless spin doctoring.

What do you all think? If a significant proportion of children stay at home next week then do you think this will make primaries seem artificially safe?

In the nicest way, I think you are overthinking. You can only control your own decisions. You cannot control what the government might calculate as a consequence of your decisions. Which they might not because it’s a hypothetical scenario anyway. Do what you think is best.

I don't think it will be as many people as you think. There was lots of talk of this happening before in the pandemic but we only saw 1 or 2 students missing and then most were back after a couple of days.

Bear in mind that the children kept home are likely coming from the most covid safe households who are following the rules and taking precautions. Children whose parents are wanting to keep them home are less likely to be the person who brings a case of covid into a classroom.

I also think there's a lot of parents who will be uncomfortable or unable to keep children home and face the prospect of fines. It requires a particular set of circumstances to make it feasible to voluntarily take this course of action

Why don't you focus on keeping your DCs and yourself safe in the best way you know how.

Or is politicing more important to you !

I think it will be a lot less than you imagine, we only saw a handful of children kept off in our large primary

Even up until the last day of term we have been witnessing children going for play dates, sleepovers etc

It was so bad that we even issued a email saying that children would not be released to anyone except the parent (or usual childcare arrangements I.e childminder, grandparent etc) all that then happened was parents were coming to collect then saying buy to their child as they jumped into Poppy's car holding there sleeping bag shouting see you tomorrow mum.... sadly whilst schools are open this will keep happening, parents think well they are stuffed in one classroom all day with there mate so it doesn't matter they can see each other out of school

Oh and we have been in tier 4 since before Xmas

Bear in mind that the children kept home are likely coming from the most covid safe households who are following the rules and taking precautions. Children whose parents are wanting to keep them home are less likely to be the person who brings a case of covid into a classroom

I agree with this. We're keeping DC off, and I'm not overthinking about government stats, I don't think infections will go down from this, there will still be a lot of children in classes.

None of the parents in DD's class are keeping their children home. I think it will only be a relatively small number that do.

Yy nottty.

I think it will only be a small number who make that decision.
There were lots of people here threatening to do the same in September - it didn’t materialise.

The only people i have seen planning on keeping their kids off are on MN. Nobody I know in RL is so I doubt there will be large enough numbers to make a difference

@Mintjulia

Why don't you focus on keeping your DCs and yourself safe in the best way you know how.

Or is politicing more important to you !

I am thinking about keeping my children safe. If I'm correct then it will lead to a spike mid January when I was going to send them back. I'm trying to decide whether they would be at lower risk in the first couple of weeks when lots of other children are off, or later on in Jan.

I suggest your new years resolution should be breathing exercises to stay calm. Perhaps step away from Mumsnet for a while if you find yourself this quick to anger.

I'm keeping mine off. Really unsure about how to word this to the school. Not worried about stats as like pp said, the ones keeping children off are from the safer households and therefore less likely to bring covid to school.

Thanks for the replies everyone, good to hear your points.

But surely the infection rate going down is a good thing and should mean schools reopen... or would you rather your kids stayed home for months? I’d love that kind of privilege

@Panickingpavlova

Yy nottty.

Typo?

I think yes a typo, referring to nutty's post, if you scroll back up.

Ah right, got it

If the new strain infiltrates your area I’m not sure that a few people keeping their kids of school is going to make a massive difference. In the week ending 27 December cases still increased significantly in the area that my DCs go to school in despite the schools being closed for a week and the area being subject to tier 4 restrictions. In fact, their school went to remote learning for most of the students during the last week of term, so had been closed for over two weeks by 27 December!

You're being naive. A few Mumsnetters aren't going to drive or change the course of anything.

At the school I'm at we've had three cases amongst students since September and our attendance has been the highest in recent years. There's no reason to expect that to change as parents have confidence in our systems.

DD's school has been shut since early December but this new strain is now rampant in our area, amongst her friends, none of whom she's seen, and we are all ill with it now. When I see parents dragging their kids around shops and the kids are picking up and handling things, I think this is much more of an issue.

Primary school Governor here - tier 4 hotspot so our school with be closed except for early years provision.

We have had quite a few Covid cases in our school in the autumn term - but without exception all of those cases were infections acquired externally ie from another family member or setting ( and from failure to quarantine after trips) . Last term we didn’t have any instances of transmission within the school i.e from one child to another . This is in contrast to the secondary schools around here where there has been a fair bit of transmission within the school. We are in a area where the new variant has been the dominant strain since Nov which has hit the secondary schools around here hard. Our primary school was very badly hit in the first wave before schools were closed in that we were sending over 50 children a week home with Covid symptoms but crucially this was before Covid secure measures were put in place. .
Sending your child to primary school isn’t risk free - and obviously there is the new variant to consider too - but anecdotally ( from my experience being in a high Covid area) the risk to your child is greater outside of school than inside of school. If you are following ALL the social distancing rules then the risk to your family is much lower .

It amazes me how many kids I see leaving the schools in groups to go to the playground ( so mixing bubbles) or going in and out of peoples houses ( “well they are in the same bubble so what’s the harm” except the rest of that household isn’t in their bubble) or they’ve “got” to have a birthday party complete with birthday candles to blow out over the cake . In our open spaces sports training ( mixing schools!) still takes place with the parents standing shoulder to shoulder at the touch lines . It’s these sort of activities that are the risky ones since not “controlled” in the same way at all. If you are still doing that sort of thing or taking your child to the supermarket then frankly removing them from primary school doesn’t make sense. Given the fact that in early March we had so many kids being sent home with Covid symptoms I think it shows just how well the cleaning and distancing is working in our primary school although obviously people are also much more aware that they can’t send kids in with symptoms than then.

Saying all of this I totally understand the anxiety. The balance between staying safe and ensuring that our children get the education they deserve is a really tough one . Schools try to be sympathetic especially if a child lives with someone who is extremely vulnerable eg a parent having chemo. But have been instructed by the Dept of Education to remove persistent non attendees from their rolls so sometimes the matter is out of the schools hands. If you attend a popular school with a waiting list then this might mean your school place could be at risk.

If you do decide to remove your child please please please make sure they read with you daily . Reading really fell behind when schools were closed. Also if you choose to not be in school you cannot expect home learning to be delivered by the school unless you are officially self isolating or have exceptional home circumstances . So you will be on your own.

Finally I wouldn’t worry about the attendance statistics . Ours are actually really good for last term all things considering . The policy makers don’t seem to look at much logically . Locally we are mystified about how the hotspots have been “selected” - not much makes sense but that is another thread .

Having said all of the above I just wanted to add that this is a pretty stressful time for schools - so please also be understanding . If you get grief for not attending - schools are just acting on instructions . It is also pretty hard for teachers to juggle teaching kids who are in schools whilst making sure that kids who are self isolating at home also get an appropriate learning experience . Schools aren’t getting additional resources to manage this . And the staff are also anxious too.

You will be in a minority and your actions will have no affect on the figures.

Thank you @thisisconfusing you make some interesting points

@Thisisconfusing what counts as persistent non attendance? Is it weeks or months? Presumably there have to be warnings given?