So Gav says schools could stay shut beyond half term.....

[Coldwinterahead1]

I'm guessing after Easter. What does everyone else think?

My primary dd is getting 3 zoom sessions a day and so far they haven't been great. She is being taught maths by her usual teacher for one hour using interactive questions where they answer on whiteboards and then complete the work that has been set. After a break she has an English lesson - again, lots of of interaction and work on whiteboards. Afternoon there is a short session of music, PE or a story time session.

How haven't they been 'great? What are you hoping for?

I think it will be primaries back after half term on some sort of rota, then secondaries back after Easter. Teachers and support staff with underlying conditions will get bumped up the queue for vaccinations.

@FreshFreesias

I’m amazed parents put up with it.

What, you mean as opposed to insisting all members of a school community should just suck up the risk on parents' behalf?

The govt won’t give a stuff about rampant spreading in schools if the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and the ECV aren’t dying. It’ll be business as usual, whatever the unions say. Schools will reopen as soon as the hospitals stop filling up.

This closure has nothing at all to do with safety in schools. It's purely a result of the government's incompetence in not putting any better mitigations in place thereby sending case rated in the school population soaring with the consequences you'd expect in the community.

We will be on this seesaw for a very long time to come until there is recognition and acceptance that we have to put sensible limits on numbers in any setting for the foreseeable future.

I think it will be phased after half term. Eg, reception, year 1 and year 6 back. Other years back after Easter.
Depends what state the NHS is in at half term I guess.

The govt won’t give a stuff about rampant spreading in schools if the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and the ECV aren’t dying. It’ll be business as usual, whatever the unions say. Schools will reopen as soon as the hospitals stop filling up.

Case numbers won’t matter no, once hospitalisation is lower.

It's a disgrace. The schools are still not getting any additional funds to actually make the buildings safer so I can't see it getting any better any time soon.

This needs to be shouted so loudly to our hard of hearing government.

I hope reception to Y3 go back at half term and the rest staggered till easter, and secondary after easter.

Sort of all hinges on death figures going down and vaccinations going up...

I think maybe just exam years after Easter so they can get whatever mini exams/ assessments they need to do done, then the rest of the years after may half term I think realistically.

Our school say they are hoping for Easter ...... hoping..... that's all....scary!

@ImAllOut

borntobequiet I am not trying to downplay the figures, but it's not 1500 excess deaths per day. There werre 85,000 excess deaths in 2020, which averages out at roughly 300 excess per day which, as I said before is still obviously awful for families grieving. We can never know for sure how many of those 1500 people today would've died from other causes though, we can only work on averages.

My issue is that it is irresponsible for the media to continuously report these death figures with no context when people are suffering from high levels of anxiety. I am not saying the deaths don't matter. Don't be so hyperbolic.

I didn’t say it was 1500 excess deaths per day. I pointed out that that was the sense of what you were saying, which is still unclear, despite your explanation. Many millions of deaths take place daily to which we give little thought, but it doesn’t mean that 1500 deaths in a day formally attributable to a current pandemic shouldn’t be alarming - especially when that number could possibly have been reduced by the authorities making different and better choices.
I’m not sure why you think hyperbolic is a suitable adjective to describe either me or what I said, but each to their own.

The govt won’t give a stuff about rampant spreading in schools if the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and the ECV aren’t dying. It’ll be business as usual

And? Isn’t this a good thing? Or do you think we should do everything to prevent anyone from ever catching this virus?

@ButterflySmith

I think it be Easter... or later before the children return.

My primary dd is getting 3 zoom sessions a day and so far they haven't been great. She is being taught maths by her usual teacher for one hour using interactive questions where they answer on whiteboards and then complete the work that has been set. After a break she has an English lesson - again, lots of of interaction and work on whiteboards. Afternoon there is a short session of music, PE or a story time session.

A full timetable of lessons would be horrendous - this works perfectly for us at the moment.

How have the lessons not been great, @ButterflySmith?

My guess is teachers will be vaccinated first in Phase 2, along with police etc. Once they are vaccinated schools will go back. I think Easter or May.

Schools haven't closed to stop teachers getting covid, so vaccinating teachers won't re-open them. They've closed because they are huge vectors of transmission and the infection rate in school kids that they bring home to their families when schools are open is insane.

For schools to re-open it's not enough to vaccinate teachers. Something needs to be done about lowering the infection rate first to the point where re-opening them isn't just mad, and then putting in place extra
mitigation measures to what there has been to ensure we don't just see a repeat of what happened before Christmas.

Either that, or wait until enough people have been vaccinated that rampant covid in schools won't be a problem and then re-open as is.

Obviously I'd prefer the first option.

@SophieDahling

The govt won’t give a stuff about rampant spreading in schools if the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and the ECV aren’t dying. It’ll be business as usual

And? Isn’t this a good thing? Or do you think we should do everything to prevent anyone from ever catching this virus?

This! Schools have never ever been virus free zones so if that's the aim before Schools go back then we are in for a very very long ride! Im not disputing schools need to be virus safer in general long term but short term we need to accept the risks and protocols that have always been there. Covid will teach us all valuable lessons about transmission but we cant learn from them and implement change drastically overnight.

"but short term we need to accept the risks and protocols that have always been there."

Who is the "we" you are referring to there? I'm guessing you mean that teachers need to accept the risks, not you?

I'm pretty sure I haven't been teaching in a pandemic where the NHS is at breaking point and everything has closed down to stop the spread before so I don't think previous virus 'risks and protocols' really cut it here.

we cant learn from them and implement change drastically overnight
Schools are getting lots of practice at this sort of thing courtesy of the DfE making announcements the evening before drastic changes, so we (we?) probably can nowadays.

@CallmeAngelina

"but short term we need to accept the risks and protocols that have always been there."

Who is the "we" you are referring to there? I'm guessing you mean that teachers need to accept the risks, not you?

Are parents not accepting any risks sending their children in for them and their children? Were parents pupils teachers risk free from any virus before all this?

@borntobequiet

we cant learn from them and implement change drastically overnight Schools are getting lots of practice at this sort of thing courtesy of the DfE making announcements the evening before drastic changes, so we (we?) probably can nowadays.

Didnt realise we could build bigger class rooms and have better ventilation systems to every single school overnight! You know the things that will help long term to reduce any virus transmission

Oh right. So when you say ‘we’ must take risks. You mean school staff must take risks for your benefit. Gotcha.

It’s the adults that get sick you know.

Didnt realise we could build bigger class rooms and have better ventilation systems to every single school overnight! You know the things that will help long term to reduce any virus transmission

Interesting that you are talking about long term virus spread instead of short term covid spread. Why is that? The specific risk here is covid, and there's lots that could be done to restrict the spread in the short term.

My attempts at sarcasm are falling flat. Time for bed.

Plan for Easter return. Anything earlier is a bonus