School closures coming in thick and fast!....

[november90]

It's all over fb that our local primary schools are closing tomorrow. My son is in nursery so I'm assuming that will follow suit. He will be so upset as he's been so excited about going back :(
We're in Lancashire. This happening anywhere else?

Oxfordshire, my childrens school closed. Mine open....

Is anyone else in a tier 3 area that has a primary not opening to all?

@Chunks1376

Anyone heard of any private nurseries closing?

Would like to know about this too. Nurseries barely mentioned in the media at all

It infuriates me that it's always last minute, a few where we live are starting to close now we're north west and not due back for a few days so I'll expect our email Wednesday night!!

Mostly closing primaries in my town. Thames valley.

We are near Carlisle and awaiting the inevitable school closure notice from DS's school.

Cases here are sky-rocketing - our day by day figures indicate that the per 100000 rate is well over 800 now and North Cumbria Integrated Care has declared a OPEL 4 alert.

Today, Cumbria County Council and the Director of Public Health for Cumbria wrote a joint letter to the DfE requesting a delayed restart for primary schools today and it was denied. CCC has now released a statement to say that no school will be punished if they choose to open only for key worker and vulnerable children. Many schools have already announced closures and I expect the rest will in the next 24 hours. DS is due to return on Tuesday, but despite DH and I both being key workers and unable to take leave, we will not be sending him to school, if possible.

My view may be somewhat clouded as my BiL is currently in ICU with covid pneumonia, he's only 45.

We are in Nottinghamshire and I have one in secondary who is obviously on remote learning
Until 18tj but my youngest is year 1 and had text at tea time saying looking forward to
Welcoming the children back tomorrow. I'm undecided about the whole thing to be honest. They've missed so much school during this pandemic and home learning has just not cut it in my opinion! My youngest has come on so much more since been back in school from sept than she learnt during the whole time remote learning. But I do think we should be in a proper national lockdown like the original not this ridiculous half arsed attempt with tiers. Several
Of my friends are keeping their children off. My youngest is desperate to get back to school bless her and see her friends so glad they are in and I think we have been lucky as in her primary has had no positive cases since they returned in September.

Bristol here. Primary school is part of a large MAT and have just announced on Facebook that they have an emergency inset now on Tuesday. They already had an inset planned for Monday. Apparently this is so they can make sure their systems are in place to keep everyone safe.

@SunshineOutdoors All the primaries in our Tier 3 LA (academies included) will be fully opening - as long as they can maintain staffing, presumably.

@CaveMum

Cambridgeshire here. School (Primary) sent a letter from the LEA round this afternoon saying schools will reopen tomorrow in line with Government guidance.

I'm also in Cambs, but we had an email this evening saying our primary will be shut to all except key workers' children and Y6. This was 2 days after an email reassuring us that they would definitely open!

I think the difference between today and 2 days ago is the NEU letter.
Cases are high and rising in Cambs so the health and safety risk can't be dismissed and if teachers do send in S44 letters and the school can't get enough staff then how can it open?

DM suggesting there may be a national lockdown soon www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9109023/PM-decide-Monday-plunge-England-lockdown.html

My child's school is closed in Sheffield.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

I think the difference between today and 2 days ago is the NEU letter. Cases are high and rising in Cambs so the health and safety risk can't be dismissed and if teachers do send in S44 letters and the school can't get enough staff then how can it open?

Agreed, my school in Cambs has a 'deadline' of 10am tomorrow (inset) for submitting the S44 so lots of schools won't even know is they have enough staff yet.

I had an email from my DC's school this evening to say closed to all except KW/V/Y6 even though we had a 'definitely open in line with Cambs LEA' email recently so they have obviously already has their tally up of NEU letter submissions.

Sorry, I wasn't clear Covoid: I'm fully supportive of the school closing if they feel that it's not safe for the staff or if they are worried that they won't have enough staff to operate! I'm just (mildly) hacked off that they went to the trouble of telling us 2 days ago that they were definitely going to remain open when it was quite likely that they'd need to (partially) close - it's the chopping and changing that makes it harder to plan for DH's and my work, rather than the decision whether or not to remain open. Does that make sense?

Actually, now you mention it, I've just checked and the HT's email today does mention "staffing levels" so it sounds as if they have had more S44 letters than anticipated. (I still think they shouldn't have sent the first email, though!)

West Midlands special secondary school here. I got email on 30th staying students welcomed back on 5th (4th inset day) and staff will be wearing full PPE. Staff and students are already wearing masks and vizors in school all of the time so not sure what else full PPE entails, maybe a plastic apron? Staff are to be having rapid flow tests twice a week though. No mention if students can have them.

I’m actually very annoyed. We live in a large town in the Midlands and my children’s school is in the area with the highest cases of Covid (just shy of 800) yet many of the other schools are closing, and our HT has emailed to say they will be open on Tuesday I hope she’s doing so because she thinks they will be forced to close tomorrow. I can’t understand the rational.

We aren’t sending ours in even if they do open. I just feel there is no rhyme or reason with which schools are closing and which aren’t.

It would be much better if the tier system was tiered by case numbers of Covid and likewise with schools being open / closed. If case amounts exceed x then schools move to remote and rota learning until transmission has lowered to y.

If there were some basic guidelines we would all know where we stood!

North East, tier 4, still open 🙄

I'm in the south east. At least a third of the 27 primaries in our town have decided not to open tomorrow. A load more have inset days tomorrow and have said they'll make a decision then.

Forgot to say, we're tier 4 and right next to one of the areas the government says should shut schools.

South warks (Tier 4) here and we had a studybugs message on Saturday to say they should be open - but I feel like things have moved on a lot since then. They have an inset day today so I’m guessing any decisions will be made and they’ll let us know. My friend is a governor so will be able to give me a wink if they’re closing before they send out the messages.

@KimchiLaLa my friends nursery called last night to say they are closed today. Less than 12 hours notice

Over 90 closed in Norfolk (Tier 4).

I really don't understand how the decisions are made. Our two boys' schools are closed - south east in tier4. But I see others in the same area are open!