Primary schools back sooner than expected?

[deeplybaffled]

It’s hard to know what to believe, but PHE now seem to be suggesting that primary schools can safely return after half term - which seems to contradict all other recent reports and government comments
focussing around Easter!

Has there ever been a time in this that nationally cases have been as low as 5000?

I meant 5000 confirmed new cases a day so around 1/4 of yesterday. They were around that in mid September and quite a bit less in the summer. I don't think it's impossible for them to drop by that much if everybody really sticks to the rules although time will tell.

I sincerely hope so, although I fully appreciate the need for them being closed this time round I can definitely see my boys struggling mentally compared with last year. They've become slightly withdrawn into themselves after getting back to normalish last term, this lockdown has really been a knock to them!! Lets hope the government fully engage with headteachers to organise this in the safest way possible with teacher safety in mind.

All this ‘our kids have suffered enough’ and ‘our kids have been sacrificed’ just makes me laugh. Get a grip. The overwhelming majority of kids are fine. They’re learning from home not being sent down the mines ffs

I just don't understand what has happened to people's empathy. On both sides. People who are struggling in lockdown told to get a grip and people who are struggling to feel safe when we are not in lockdown also told to get a grip.

Are people really so narrow minded and emotionally unintelligent that they can't think outside the specific box they live in? As it happens I'm enjoying home school and my DS is happy, despite living in a flat with no outdoor space. That doesn't mean that I don't realise for many others in the same situation they will be really struggling.

I actually want schools open. But schools aren't just made up of teachers.

Factory workers supply materials that schools get through.
bus drivers drive the children to school (as do taxi drivers)
cleaners often work in several different venues
caters might be on site, or might be in more factory like conditions and supply lots of schools pre-prepared meals
delivery drivers bring all the paper, milk, fruit and veg, catering supplies
caretakers will have external work teams (eg our roof leaked and needed to be fixed so we needed scaffolders and roofers on site)
TAs, and Admin often have second jobs in retail, care etc as their jobs are low paid.

I'm not suggesting that all of this is a reason to keep schools closed or not. It has to be about community transmission. But I do think focusing on risks to teachers is only a very small part of what a school is.

Actually just found that data.

Last June/July there were 500-1500 cases daily.

I've not taken any figures before then as we didn't have adequate testing and that's when lockdown 1 started to end.

August was 1500-2000 daily.

September was 2500-4000 daily and by end up to 6000 daily.

October started at 6000 and ended with 21-25k daily. (This was when they'd talked about firebreak and a 2 week half term but it was decided not to).

November remained between 20-30k a day and ended on approx 15k daily.

December started approx 15k and ended on 50-60k. The cases really started taking off from end of second week.

These figures show how fine the balance is. I also think firebreaks would be such a good thing for 1-2 weeks with remote learning if ever needed rather than let it go out of control again like last October with a then month lockdown with schools open which didn't really have much effect. Cases at end of December weren't much lower than they are now.

@Belladonna12

Has there ever been a time in this that nationally cases have been as low as 5000?

I meant 5000 confirmed new cases a day so around 1/4 of yesterday. They were around that in mid September and quite a bit less in the summer. I don't think it's impossible for them to drop by that much if everybody really sticks to the rules although time will tell.

I realised you meant a day and they seemed so low compared to what we've seen lately I didn't realise they'd gone so low iyswim?

I think we've become so use to such high numbers we've forgotten how low we got them.

on this thread there are too many imo using their personal experiences to dictate the pros and cons, so having fine time at home ed = keep them shut, having crap time = send them back immediately. therefore the answer must be somewhere in between surely....its obviously an increased risk but so is young kids mh and development. I think the gov knows they can't keep them at home for ages as people are seriously discontent and this will be a political as well as scientific decison, whenever the decision finally gets taken

Do we remember last term. When people were calling for the schools to shut a week early to help with the Christmas spread. But no not one day of education could be missed. Even though the government said they could close one day early our school stayed open until the 18th. Because every day mattered 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Can’t we see the madness here? Lurching from one extreme to the other.

I agree firebreaks would be a good idea. Anything to have a plan to get children back ASAP.

I think they should be in from the beginning of March. That’s over a month away. So lots more time for cases to go down and vaccinate the vulnerable. They would have had another 2 months off by this point. When apparently they couldn’t possibly miss one day in December...

Those who want to keep kids at home do so.

Then we have a break for Easter.

Tell you what, why don't you come up with a way that ensures schools are safer so we can improve the mental health of all children and ensure that the children with vulnerabilities to covid can also be in school? You want people who struggle to understand the difficulties some children are facing at the moment, don't use disability as a means to combat that. My disabled child is at risk if he returns to school.

I completely agree with this, but sadly think CV/CEV children will always be dismissed with comments like: "can't make the majority suffer for the needs of the minority" (I've heard that one quite few times).
For some reason, the same logic does not seem to apply to 'typical' children suffering with mental health issues - they are still in the minority, yet their needs trump everyone else's.
I'm not belittling the importance of children's mental health. What I believe is that we need to value the mental health of all children, not just those who aren't more vulnerable to Covid. That means putting measures in place to make schools safer (and this has to involve smaller class sizes - the 'measures' previously in place such as increased hand washing and cleaning of surfaces simply aren't sufficient). This is not achieved by simply demanding: open schools fully now.

Ultimately I think you'll all get what you want, the govt will bow to pressure from Us for Them etc and open primary schools fully after half term with no additional measures in place. Great for all of you, rubbish for CV/CEV children and their families, who will have an awful choice to make.

....or maybe tje extended closure really coz the gov cba to pay those on zero hours to self isolate?

@MarshaBradyo

I’m sure they’ll find mirth in a whole array of child issues.

Nothing about this situation is remotely amusing to me - I'm not sure how you managed to deduce that from my posts 🤷‍♀️.

I was simply pointing out that saying school buildings are safe UNTIL there are people mixing in the said buildings does not make sense! 🤔

On a different note, young people trying to find work or businesses trying to stay afloat must be so angry with them constantly failing to make schools safe. If (when!) they fling open the doors without mitigation it will prolong the misery for so many other groups. Groups that have in some cases spent fortunes and borrowed money to make their business safe to operate, only to get closed anyway as school kids become the most infested sector of the population again and spread it around.

Carpe this post which you agreed with so much you put it in caps. The ‘makes me laugh’. So I linked article outlining huge decline in child mh.

LucyLockdown
All this ‘our kids have suffered enough’ and ‘our kids have been sacrificed’ just makes me laugh. Get a grip. The overwhelming majority of kids are fine. They’re learning from home not being sent down the mines ffs.

THIS!

I realised you meant a day and they seemed so low compared to what we've seen lately I didn't realise they'd gone so low iyswim?

Yes, they were low before and they could become low again quite quickly as long as people stay away from other households etc. I just hope that they learn from last time and keep them low until everyone is vaccinated.

@Frodont

Not as stupid as people going on holiday at Easter, which a lot of dds friends are doing.

Where do they think they are going to go??!

If our area is anything to go by, the primary schools will be shut more than open due to staff self-isolating anyway. Both my DCs have had a week off for this reason (one before Christmas, one after). And we are below average infection rates.
If the teachers were all vaccinated AND it was only primary, I can see this working. But as I say, with the classrooms only open half the time due to lots of self-isolation.
Half days to allow for more social distancing (my DD is Y2 and can just about manage to sit at her part of the table, though not so much in the playground) would be more sensible.

Tricky decision for the Government. Open them too soon and the virus will rebound potentially messing up the whole summer term.

But if they don't massive amounts of flack, large time for children to miss on site education, but potentially a much more settled summer term and allows for many more people vaccinated in community.

Rock versus hard Place.

@Belladonna12 hence my point about paying people to self isolate when they get pinged by the app. a lot of people aren't doing this as they can't afford to. it wouldn't be for ever just until the vaccine is rolled out. that way life would be safer rates would go down and we could concentrate on making schools open more safely

Tell you what, why don't you come up with a way that ensures schools are safer so we can improve the mental health of all children and ensure that the children with vulnerabilities to covid can also be in school? You want people who struggle to understand the difficulties some children are facing at the moment, don't use disability as a means to combat that. My disabled child is at risk if he returns to school.

If they are CEV have you talked to their hospital consultant about whether they should be vaccinated?

I have very mixed feelings on this. Homeschooling my 7 year old is hell on earth. On one level I want her back in school.
My middle one is missing out on education and therapy too as doesn't respond well to Teams. However safety is important too. Dh is ECV and I an on the borders of CV.

[quote Stovetopespresso]@Belladonna12 hence my point about paying people to self isolate when they get pinged by the app. a lot of people aren't doing this as they can't afford to. it wouldn't be for ever just until the vaccine is rolled out. that way life would be safer rates would go down and we could concentrate on making schools open more safely[/quote]
Yes, they could at least trial it for a short time.

I'm hoping the vaccination program goes so fast that it gets through priority groups, goes onto school staff, shop workers, cleaners, police, security... all people facing jobs and with a following wind things open up safely in April.

If they are CEV have you talked to their hospital consultant about whether they should be vaccinated?

No vaccine approved for under 16s. Apparently trial are about to start for the Pfizer vaccine in 12-15 year olds. So nothing even in the pipeline for CEV/CV under 12s.

@Belladonna12

Tell you what, why don't you come up with a way that ensures schools are safer so we can improve the mental health of all children and ensure that the children with vulnerabilities to covid can also be in school? You want people who struggle to understand the difficulties some children are facing at the moment, don't use disability as a means to combat that. My disabled child is at risk if he returns to school.

If they are CEV have you talked to their hospital consultant about whether they should be vaccinated?

The vaccine isn't licenced for children? Or can exceptions be made for ECV children.

i think this would be a terrible idea. We have come this far, yes it's awful but the alternative is we already know far worse. We need to power on just a bit longer until schools are not just able to reopen, but to do so safely.
Summer really demonstrated the error in lifting restrictions so soon, and it was a huge mistake reopening schools in September. We are now paying the price for this in addition to all the nonsense surrounding Christmas... Primary children have the weakest grasp of social distancing, we know transmissions are still high and little known about new variants other than the fact it effects the youngest hardest.
This is a no brainer surely?

People seem to forget that there is also union involvement to take into consideration and I cannot see movement towards opening the schools in February, in light of current figures, being supported.

I think by Easter, the natural decline of winter illnesses, will mean that it is possible to open.

I actually think that the lockdown, start up, lockdown learning rhythm will go on for much longer than anyone anticipates. Just because schools go back - lockdown is likely to happen again.