How can schools successfully reopen? What the UK can learn from other countries

[herecomesthsun]

Very interesting thread, in the Telegraph, looking at what other countires are doing to make schools safe, here.

www.telegraph.co.uk/education-and-careers/2021/02/14/can-schools-successfully-reopen-uk-can-learn-countries/

The implication is that the UK can adopt some of these measures for schools reopening to be more successful.

For example, in France, some measures discussed that are not currently in use in the UK include:

"-Students must adhere to the one-metre social distancing measures in their classrooms and two metres when in the canteen with pupils from other classes

-Wearing a face mask is mandatory for adults and pupils from the first grade

• Facilities must be cleaned and aired for at least 10 minutes every three hours

When looking at how other advanced nations have navigated school closures, France has one of the lowest closed school rates. Children and teachers in French schools are also no longer allowed to wear fabric face masks, but must instead wear “category 1” surgical masks which offer a higher level of protection."

and so on.

I think it's very encouraging that this is at least being discussed, and in one of the more right wing papers. Let's hope there are government plans to put more measures in place.

We could have all been done in a day or 2, all school staff. But schools might be vital but the people who work in them certainly aren't.
Get ready for the return of the in/out of last term. Staff will get sick and we will run out of them again. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

It is a little puzzling to me why teachers in the UK haven't been prioritized for the vaccine

That's because schools are magically covid safe. Hadn't you realised that by now after all the propeganda dodgy research?

Apparently youth workers (even those who are only operating from zoom) count for vaccines (according to one I know) so teachers should.

@IloveJKRowling

Sorry if already posted but this is pathetic:

"the government plans a PR campaign to build up parents’ confidence in school safety ahead of reopening next month"

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/17/masks-compulsory-for-englands-secondary-school-pupils

HEY! DfE! Stop fucking spending money on PR trying to tell us that schools are safe and give it to actual schools to make them safer.

Enough of us parents have GCSE biology and don't believe the lies that an airborne virus will stop spreading if kids are sitting in cramped, crowded classrooms for hours with no ventilation, no social distancing and no masks.

I am ANGRY they're spending money on PR for fucks sake when they should be spending it on safety.

We did actually live through November and December you know. You can't deny reality.

Hear hear.

Masks in corridors?!?!... WE'VE BEEN DOING THIS SINCE NOVEMBER!!!

Exactly. Schools are apparently VITAL whenever the government talk about them, but seemingly not vital enough to have invested a single minute or penny in opening them any differently than the Autumn when it was a complete shitstorm!

And there’s the crux of the matter.

I’m not sure how many times people (and not just teachers) have pointed out that just ‘opening up schools more fully’ will not solve everything in one go and in fact cause more issues that needn’t be there.

The problem is that people are getting sick and tired of hearing it over and over again which I understand but if we and other experts were listened to, right from the start, we wouldn’t have to keep repeating ourselves, would we?

It’s not just teachers who have been complaining about their workplaces and quite rightly so. Other progressions have even balloted to strike or at least threatened to (bus drivers, baggage handlers, those in food supply and health care professionals to name a few) and have not had the ‘pipe down’ narrative thrown at them, so I think it’s a valid point to make that an underlying disdain of teaching staff and support staff may well be at play here.

It’s not hard. Listen and implement those suggested solutions by professionals should be the very minimum that the government need to be doing. Those £1k bonuses must be put to good use, eh!?

Amid speculation about when and how schools would reopen to all pupils, it emerged that masks will be compulsory outside classroom bubbles in secondary schools where social distancing is not possible. Previously it has been left to the discretion of head teachers

That’s just not true though! Oh, dear-lies lies lies, Guardian, I expected better.

I'm baffled as to why the DoE haven't put measures in place to make schools more safe. They've had weeks.

If I was the parent of a school age child I would want to know why the government want my child to go into a place where Covid is spreading faster than anywhere else.

If I was a teacher I would want to be able to refuse to teach children not wearing masks or social distancing.

It's ok folks. Frost is taking over from Gove to deal with the EU

So maybe Gove is going to replace Gav now

This thread is much more representative of all the parents I know in RL compared to some others. I think most I know would be happy with rotas/masks in classrooms/sensible mitigation of some sort to allow many children back for at least some of the time.

Surely it is better to be more cautious to start with and then open up slowly and steadily keeping a close eye on the situation.

I'm baffled as to why the DoE haven't put measures in place to make schools more safe. They've had weeks

Weeks? Months, more like. Best part of a year in fact.

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum

It's ok folks. Frost is taking over from Gove to deal with the EU

So maybe Gove is going to replace Gav now

Oh no, please please please no!

I'm baffled as to why the DoE haven't put measures in place to make schools more safe.

Herd immunity strategy.

They can't prioritise teachers above the general public.
They'd be admitting schools aren't as safe as they have been making out.
They'd have to admit they've done nothing to make them even vaguely more safe.

Interestingly Abraxan that's pretty much what the high ups in the county are saying here.

Schools are safe for everyone except teachers who need to be vaccinated isn't a very clear message.

They've tried before. Schools are safe, it's just the people mixing in them that are a problem.

Schools are safe it's just the covid that comes home from it is an issue.

What they actually want to say is 'we don't care if kids get covid, we don't think it's a problem.'

That's more than we've already done in school, so if we carry on the same way, we should expect the same levels of transmission

Not quite. If we look at the infection rate graph from September, infection rates shot up in secondary after 3 weeks, but that would be when we then have a two week Easter closure so basically a quarantine.

I presumed this was what had caused the government to fix on the 8th March (given that they’re touting the fact that they’re working on data not dates) - in 3 weeks transmission shouldn’t have shot up so much that they can’t claw it back over Easter. If they can pull off a staged return that will easily get them into the summer term given the reduced rates in the community.

Can’t remember which study I’ve seen in the last couple of days which shows infections only rising in the age 5-9 group, or did I dream that?

They can't prioritise teachers above the general public.

The evidence from ONS seems to suggest that teachers are not at higher risk than the general population. In fact, people working in factories are amongst the highest risk groups.
Not to mention restaurant staff, taxi drivers etc.

Higher risk of what, Red?

Schools are safe? They've got to be joking.

Do they think we'll all have collective amnesia about December? When schoolchildren had the highest (and most rapidly rising) rates? Then they took it home and infected all their family over Xmas? Then we had the highest death rate we'd ever had and hospitals were overwhelmed?

They must think normal people are so stupid to even be trying a PR campaign as their response to the pandemic.

I suspect they're trying to convince non parent voters because all the parents I know saw what happened for themselves. Even if their schools were lucky, it was an isolation through contacts via a club, or the school next to theirs was closed.

Lessons to be learnt from other countries.

Have a competent Prime Minister (from New Zealand)
Have local test and trace (is that Taiwan)
Have face coverings worn by everyone (Germany)

probably more

masks will be compulsory outside classroom bubbles in secondary schools

WTF is a “classroom bubble” in a secondary school?

Higher risk of what, Red?

I think it was higher rate of death.

@Redtulipses

Higher risk of what, Red?

I think it was higher rate of death.

Why are you posting it as a fact when you're not sure?

Apologies. It is risk of death. Here's the article

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-55795608

But not higher rate of infection though Redtulipses

I know many will say that this means teachers should not worry and just get on with it but my personal worry as that this still means there may be localised school closures and a horrible experience of some pupils in and some pupils out and lots of issues that come with staff absence.

I don’t want to return to mass self isolation issues. My own DD had a month of that before Christmas alone. She’s not in school right now but I still get text messages of cases and last half term, her school had nursery, year 1 and year 5 out due to positive cases.

Covid19 is still there, in schools. The government could reduce the risk of this if they wanted to.

It’s the idea of disorganised and last minute isolation issues that worries me the most and causes the greatest barrier to schools fully opening.

It just needs to be acknowledged first.

@HipTightOnions

masks will be compulsory outside classroom bubbles in secondary schools

WTF is a “classroom bubble” in a secondary school?

Our secondary school bubbles are 300 pupils. A year group.

That's ignoring the fact that well over half the pupils come by buses and mix freely on those.