If you think there have been no cases in your child's school, you're probably wrong

[CloseSchoolsProtecttheNHS]

Contrary to what most people think, they don't tell the whole school community if they have a positive case. They tell close contacts and some schools even encourage them to keep it quiet to avoid panic. Where it's an isolated case and no close contacts (because of absence on the day when symptoms started, for example), they usually tell noone and the family of the positive case often choose to keep quiet rather than be stigmatised as having broken the rules and caught it (I know you don't have to break the rules to catch it but that's the stigma).

Unless you have a particularly small school, you may well not realise that it's been identified in your school. My child had to isolate as a close contact of 3 positive cases and another parent of a child in another class said to me (during the time he was isolating) that they were so impressed there had been no cases in the school - yet 11 kids in our class had since tested positive!

On top of that, children don't usually show the main three symptoms. As soon as I hear about people saying how the only case in their school has been a teacher, I immediately know that it's probably spreading in their school without them being aware. Families talk about how they have no idea where they caught it as they don't go anywhere, except their child is in school 'but he's been fine so it hasn't come from school'.

This is true. Case in my dd class was never revealed to anyone as it occurred during hols and dc and family self isolated before returning,
I was surprised finding out 6 weeks later.

@lovemylot1

This is true. Case in my dd class was never revealed to anyone as it occurred during hols and dc and family self isolated before returning, I was surprised finding out 6 weeks later.

Not being told about one positive test by one school in the school holidays when presumably no one needed to isolate does not equal schools don't tell everyone about positive cases that the OP is trying to suggest

There's no logic to that at all

Our school tells everyone. We've had one case in y5 the day they broke up for Christmas, my daughter is in reception and we got told about it.

Our school tells parents about every positive case exactly to avoid gossip and speculation (although, as it's secondary school the students tend to know exactly who has tested positive within about 5 nano-seconds).

They send an email that goes something along the lines of "We have been notified today that a student in Year 9 has tested positive for Covid 19. All students identified as direct contacts have been advised separately to self-isolate". No data breech there.

OMG surely that just fuels it? When just our class found out there were cases, we were all trying to get our kids to talk to the other kids to find out who was 'case 0' - mainly so that we could find out how much time our kid had spent with the contagion!

Transparency reduces the drivers for unofficial gossip mills. We get what year, what class, number (has always been a single case) and action taken (bubble sent home and remote learning until x date).

Happened three times last term. Tier 4 London school with 400-odd kids and a THRIVING gossip mill about all sorts of issues. But not this, because we have the basic facts.

Just because your school is crap at this, don’t assume that all are. (My school is shit at other things, like remote learning, but pretty good at this.)

We get a ParentMail letting us know that someone has come up positive and that close contacts have been notified.

Even had 1 day where a school staff member who has to go into multiple classrooms for set up got notified they were a close contact just after arriving for school and putting registers in all the rooms. They closed the school for the day to do a deep clean then were back up and running the next day.

@CloseSchoolsProtecttheNHS

I'm not generalising, I said 'probably'.

It's far more widespread than some people think. Really bored of the 'No cases in our school except two teachers' kind of comment.

"probably" - FFS

And this is how fake news starts

The vast majority of cases among school age children won’t be detected, so no one can be sure there have been no cases. Many won’t have symptoms, of those that do have symptoms they often won’t be one of the three that people use in deciding to test, of those who do have one of those three some won’t test or will get false negatives.

The school i work in advised parents of the one (known) case

My sons at a 6th form college, they told parents of the 2/3 (known) cases they had as well

(This was in the last few weeks of the term, may well have rocketed over Christmas)

As I suspected - a real mix of telling and not telling (as well as the inevitable not knowing).

As for what's the point? I think it's important that people are aware that not knowing about cases doesn't mean there aren't any. It might help them to understand when the schools close.

@CloseSchoolsProtecttheNHS

As I suspected - a real mix of telling and not telling (as well as the inevitable not knowing).

As for what's the point? I think it's important that people are aware that not knowing about cases doesn't mean there aren't any. It might help them to understand when the schools close.

Literally two people agreed with you, and one of those the child wasn't even in school because it was in the holidays and had nothing to do with school.

Everyone else said they had been kept well informed.

You really are clutching at straws with this one.

True for our school.
Only one case was reported to parents, because there had been a parental rumour.

Subsequently, no e-mails to parents, just updates on how good everyone has been, parents wearing masks at child-collection time, and 'keep up the good work' type of exhortations.

In reality our cases have slowly been rising, it's small but every day we have 6 or 7 off for COVID reasons. All kept quiet. The school is private and families come from many different counties so it's all very worrying....

DDs school has surprisingly had 2 cases. Were in a T4 area, their policy is to send out a letter within 24 hours of notification of someone testing positive.
However, thats not to say that everyone who's had it has indeed been tested, upto 1/3 people are asymptomatic or have very very mild symptoms which are excused away, or that parents are even confirming with the school the results. I know when DD tested she wasn't asked school information.

I don't want schools open right now, but let's not scapegoat them. DDs school have done all they can as I'm sure most others have too, they keep copies of the children's seating plans, so if a child tests positive, all children who have been in close contact with that child can be notified and isolate/ test

Our school emails to tell us about cases in the primary and secondary school, even if you only have dc in one of the schools. We're T4, and have had one case in primary, and about 9 cases in the secondary school.

OP in making blanket statements about what is or isn't happening, regarding communication, in schools to which you have no connection, you're probably wrong.

I accept that there will be asymptomatic spread in schools, as there will be anywhere else in the community, and nobody will know about it because it's symptomatic. The rest of your original post is simply wrong.

An 'a' missing there in my second 'asymptomatic'.

By "they" you mean YOUR school. This has come up in so many threads it is now boring. Different schools act differently. Just accept it. Many, many posters confirm they receive daily, weekly, monthly communications of cases, regardless of class or year group. I suggest you request the same from your own school.

@CloseSchoolsProtecttheNHS

As I suspected - a real mix of telling and not telling (as well as the inevitable not knowing).

As for what's the point? I think it's important that people are aware that not knowing about cases doesn't mean there aren't any. It might help them to understand when the schools close.

No mix at all. You are wrong. Accept reality and stop peddling nonsense.

I've been informed of every positive case in all year groups in both schools

Including staff members

We know exactly what’s going on as the school notifies us of EVERY case and every possible case and then we are also told by the parents of the child through SM. So if anything we get too much information.

I figured this one out already. With 700ish kids in my children’s primary school with the highest rate of infection in this area there is no way they’ve not had one. They just haven’t publicised it