“Schools are Safe” says Borris...

[Aponcetasticchristmastoall]

He’s popped his head up with the above...

No explanations, no counter arguments on SAGE’s finding or NEU’s report...

Just send your children to school I’m quite sure they are safe...

He is a bloody joke!!!

Wizz, if you truly respected your head and staff you would think about the risks to them, by them being forced back in.

Of course, you may be lucky, and use a rural school in an Area with smaller class sizes, proper opening windows and lots of space..

This is along the same lines of "I've been shaking hands with coronavirus patients". Laughable if it wasn't so serious.

(Please can we stop with the "Arbeit Macht Frei" references though, awful as this situation it is not comparable to the Holocaust and I for one, find this offensive).

@Unsure33

Schools are safe for pupils or have been up to now . It is the teachers that are at risk .

But with the new variant I fear this will change because it will spread quicker and we don’t know how it will affect the immune system of children .

But Boris did say in an earlier interview it’s not the children that are at risk from the illness but the fact they catch it and take it back to households . But he wanted to balance that out with education and mental health as well . Hence why he wanted schools to remain open.

I am sure you will pick and chose what you want to hear . But also posters on here are terrified of losing their jobs if they have to look after their children at home or how it will affect the children being stuck at home .

This is a massive dilemma and the figures of infection and death over the next week or so may lead to schools closing , who knows .

This is easily solved. If they stopped the fines and let parents who can take their children out of school do so then there would be less children at the school and more space

What is the definition of safe for pupils? Children appear to be just as likely to catch the virus as adults, so why do adults have to SD but not pupils.

In scouts last term DS had to wear a mask and be 2m apart from any other person in the room. What special magic is there in the classroom that means no mask and no SD are required?

I think he's realised that they probably should be closing but it's too late to announce it today for tomorrow . The higher level of restrictions talk is a build up to closing them the week after .

In scouts last term DS had to wear a mask and be 2m apart from any other person in the room. What special magic is there in the classroom that means no mask and no SD are required?

A very good point. Right now scouts and girlguiding can't actually meet in tier 4 areas, even with the above measures in place. Yet schools can return.

The 'schools are safe' mantra really pisses me off. Trying telling that to the family of a DC or teacher who got Covid at school and took it home with them to infect their wider family.

The bubble concept is an illusion - DC have siblings in other bubbles, DC do sports outside school, some DC need to take public transport or school buses with DC from other bubbles, some DC live with ECV parents, grandparents or siblings.

Schools are open because for most DC it's the least bad option, but they certainly aren't safe.

But the damage will be done by then @shinynewapple2021

Schools are perfectly safe at weekends.

He is telling them to open tomorrow so he doesn't have to take responsibility. They will close within two weeks and it will be blamed on teachers, parents and children for mixing with each other.

More of the country/all of the country will be in Tier 4 by then which will help him to blame us all.

Meanwhile he will hope that we all continue to turn against each other instead of him.

I'm inner city tier 3 and have been for as long as tiers have been in place and please don't cast aspersions on how much I care.

I work in primary and have DC in secondary and at university. If schools are safe, why is uni online and secondary closed?

So if I send my child to school tomorrow,howwill I know that her peers in the class did not mix with lots of family members over Xmas?
We were all at home since 19th of December, never went out.
Now she will be with another 29 kids plus teachers who did God knows what in last two weeks.
Where I live lots of people were mixing as our street was completely empty as people left to visit their families ( no cars etc)
I’m CEV so I’m so worried.
Same is my DH, he works with a people who absolutely don’t give shit about COVID- they party, mixing with others as much younger tHan DH.
This is so mad..

We all know that schools are one of the main drivers of Covid spread. That's why now that most schools have been closed for two weeks numbers are plummetting.

Oh, wait a minute ...

And, no, spread within the community from those who originally caught it from a school pupil or teacher does not indicate that it is spreading in the schools. It isn't, because they are closed, at least until tomorrow.

@middleager

It really should sit alongside:

"War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength."

I was thinking they could paint it on a barn door...

Oh and we are tier 4, about 40miles from London but schools open.

@IAmAMalenkyBitPoogly

This is along the same lines of "I've been shaking hands with coronavirus patients". Laughable if it wasn't so serious.

(Please can we stop with the "Arbeit Macht Frei" references though, awful as this situation it is not comparable to the Holocaust and I for one, find this offensive).

That was me. Sorry you find this offensive. I didn’t do it to compare the Tory party to the nazi party. I compared both the current societal lack of critical thinking and the current era of compelled speech with what happened 100 years ago. I find this all frightening especially coupled with the rise of nationalism - we should have remembered the common market was set up to avert wars. What is happening currently in our history is scary because of where it could lead us rather than a belief of where we are. Hope that makes sense.

Yes @Sickofthiscrapp we spent a lot of time keeping children from breathing all over each other, only to see them getting picked up by another child’s parent, in a car with no mask. Sleepovers are regular talked about too.

How can schools be regarded as 'safe'?What does Boris mean by this and how could we make other places, where people gather in large groups, equally safe?

Is it the lack of social distancing or lack of mask-wearing that does it? Or the large groups sitting close together for large periods of time?

I live in Scotland and what I don’t understand is why we have been told since before Christmas schools have to close for an extra week - potentially longer. (My local authority area anyway - not sure if it’s the same all over Scotland).

Children go back on the 11th but online only (except at risk children and those of hospital workers etc same as when in full lock down last year). Proposed time back physically in school is 18th of January but may be reviewed and online learning extended if needed. I suspect this is highly likely at this point.

We were told this the week before Christmas and it’s given us time to prepare for the likelihood of schools closing and arranging childcare etc. People have been moaning of course but a lot are happy (myself included).

So the question is why have we had school return delayed, and prepared for the strong possibility of online school when England hasn’t? Granted I live in a higher infection rate area (in comparison to the rest of Scotland) but it’s still a much lower number than a lot of areas in England.
This data was available back in December. There where obviously charts and data showing what the projected cases would be come January after Christmas and new year as well as the new strain. I’m guessing Scotland looked at the data and prepared for worst case scenario but Boris and co looked at their data and went with the best case scenario.

It's the presence of learning objectives that makes schools safe.

I've been saying since this started that the bubbles at school are next to useless. I have a friend who has 3 children at our primary in different years. Surely that's just popping the bubble as soon as they mix at home. The teachers may be in a bubble but the other members of staff, admin, SLT, Senco, all have to see kids and teachers from different bubbles. I'm pretty sure the head doesn't sit on his own all day. Whose bubble is he in.

I know 4 people who were infected as childcare support for their grandchildren where this was there only source of infection. Two of them were my parents. They were so bloody lucky as they are both 70 and survived. The other two weren't so lucky. Both had no underlying conditions and were 76 and 61.

I'm certain that the majority of kids will not be super poorly if they catch Covid but it's who they come in contact with, school staff and family. My brother in law is a NQT and has an underlying condition. It's all just so worrying.

A big thing that can be done is at least give people a choice. I can quite easily work from home and homeschool as I don't have to work during the day. The more kids out of school the better the social distancing will be at school. However I think it will be so much better for them all to close for a period to get the vaccine rolled out.

Now she will be with another 29 kids plus teachers who did God knows what in last two weeks.

And this is the point isn't it? We have no idea what other people got up to over Christmas or continue to get up to behind closed doors. We can be cautious and follow the advice, but once our DC is in a classroom with others that control is taken out of our hands.

The district south of us has primaries closed, but they are open here. There are DC who live in that area that go to my DC's schools. At DS1's secondary (due to reopen on 18th Jan), about half the DC live in north London and will be coming to school on buses and trains ...

They have to provide evidence schools are safe. They'll weasel out of that too. It won't make any difference.

I've been saying since this started that the bubbles at school are next to useless. I have a friend who has 3 children at our primary in different years. Surely that's just popping the bubble as soon as they mix at home.

I have a friend who has twins who are in different classes at school. Twin 1 was sent home to self-isolate for two separate 14-day periods because he'd been in contact with a confirmed case. Twin 2 never had to isolate, because he supposedly hadn't!!!

Bodgit Johnson says things he would like to believe are true. It doesn't mean they are!