School returning to normal. When?

[mrsnw]

Lots of positive news today regarding more easing of restrictions in may. Do you think the bubble system in schools disappear? Parents be allowed into the buildings etc.

Both senior and prep school are planning sports days with parents and the senior school is running the welcome day for new pupils ( a Sunday, parents and grandparents attend too) as normal.

Totally brilliant. Can't come a moment too soon.

We are already allowed in prep school on site to stand and wait for children at the end of the day and people are distancing a lot less.

Teacher here and I cannot wait to put my tables back into groups (currently in rows) go into the hall for whole school worships, go into other classrooms to talk to my colleagues, teach ICT in our suite as a whole class AND sit in the staff room again and talk to my friends and colleagues over a coffee and biscuit.

"Sanitise your hands please" is something I never want to say in my career again!

Totalbeach

“If that’s true it’ll never go back to normal as I can’t see many parents vaccinating their children against something that barely affects them.“

Hmm, not so sure. Ours are all (technically ) adults now so will make their own decisions. If the responsibility were still ours, we would vaccinate because viruses have the habit of mutating to affect groups that were previously unaffected. Eg: 1918 pandemic picked off the weak and frail (including soldiers who, whilst young, were seriously debilitated after for years of stress and poor duet) but came back with a vengeance in 1919 and sadly took many more young lives.

We’re very pleased that both of our children, youngest 28, will take up the vaccine as soon as they are invited.

18, not 28. Fat fingers 🙄

Diet, not duet. Obese fingers!

I think masks and social distancing (or bubbles which is the crap school version) need to stay as long as they do for the general population.

I agree with this.

Whilst there are restrictions for the general population, then the same should be applied to schools. Schools are also work places for adults. Whilst most children may not get covid too bad, there are unvaccinated adults in schools at the moment. There are also vulnerable students, and some may have vulnerable adults who aren't able to be vaccinated.

If the government believes masks, social distancing etc is required outside of schools for everyone else, than the same should apply within schools, even if they are eased within 'bubbles.'

Yes, this makes our job teaching more difficult and not quite as pleasant, but it the rules are needed elsewhere to keep people safe and healthy, then the same should apply within school grounds I'm afraid.

@allshutdown

Plus many older teenagers have been vaccinated. So treating them like biological hazardous waste is especially cruel.

The number of older teens vaccinated is very low in England, unless they are cev. Some cv ones may have also had their vaccines, but probably only one at most.

At present only those over 40y can have their vaccine via the national site, unless cev/cv or their go is ahead of the game.

At my school we have about half the teaching staff not yet vaccinated, only 2 are fully vaccinated.

I don't know any teens bar one who have had a vaccine yet.

Our youngest, 18, controlled asthma, has not been vaccinated and will probably have to wait at least another 8 weeks, whilst attending college with 3,000 others.
I hope older people will give him and his peers the same consideration and respect they gave to their generations for a year and continue with precautions until youngsters are protected by vaccination too.

@DenisetheMenace

Yes, lots of school staff and pupils are still unvaccinated and vulnerable. I hope your son is okay.

I would presume given the talk of vaccination of young people, schools won't go back to normal until after that has been rolled out. There is CEV children in schools as well and this will have been risk assessed for and therefore mitigations will need to remain in place to prevent covid spreading throughout schools where there is people still at very high risk who are currently unable to be vaccinated.

@DoYouRememberTheInnMiranda

I'm hoping our primary kids can do swimming lessons and stop finishing an hour early every Friday to make up for the missing PPA time swimming used to provide.

Are your kids not back swimming yet? Our local pool has started accepting school groups again, but hasn't yet opened to the public.

Lots is already back? We have books send home, after school activities are back on (but in year group bubbles if school organised), swimming is back, all other clubs are back.
The only things are that parents aren’t allowed into school (they were only allowed in special cases anyway before - why do parents need to be in school?), assemblies and plays are done via zoom, same for parent evening, and teachers are wearing masks.
This is a primary school.

ohnothisagain so much variation, we don’t have books sent home, no after school activities (just after school childcare thank god as a nearby school doesn’t even have that!), not allowed in school grounds, no assemblies or plays. Our private swimming lessons are back & our other out of school activity are on, no school swimming lessons.

@NicolaDunsire do they give any reasons why? Our school does plays per year group anyway, and just livestreams them instead of having people come in. Kids love it, parents love it. Same for assemblies, done for one year group (in turn) in the hall, the others call in from their classrooms. Works fine.
Our school has been awesome throughout, full zoom time table from week 1 of lockdown 1 in 2020, so they definitely are engaged!

[quote fudgefox]@DenisetheMenace

Yes, lots of school staff and pupils are still unvaccinated and vulnerable. I hope your son is okay.[/quote]
Yes I don't think we should do away with SD on 21st June unless every adult has been offered the vaccine by then (and really you need the three weeks too). No point rushing things for the sake of a few weeks.

Thank you, fudgefox and poppycat

It really does feel that the sacrifices so many young people have made for over a year (for our kids’ dad in our case, to be absolutely fair) have already been forgotten by older people who benefitted from their generosity of spirit.

It’s just a few more week’s of caution (just SD and mask wearing in crowded places), surely they deserve that in return?

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot you say that like it’s a good thing?? Cutting down lunchtime by 20 mins (as in my kids school) every day is NOT a good thing. It’s very much getting conned.
My kids now have to stuff their lunch down very quickly and find it hard to finish before they are told to shut their lunch boxes as they need to get out. Then they have 15 mins to play with friends and use the loo.
Not good enough and yes, my kids have certainly noticed and at the start of this change they talked about how horrible it was to have to eat so fast and why weren’t they getting time to play games. They are used to it now but they really shouldn’t have to be. Break times were put in that way over the many years they have been for a reason ffs not just some random time slot allocated

@DenisetheMenace

Our youngest, 18, controlled asthma, has not been vaccinated and will probably have to wait at least another 8 weeks, whilst attending college with 3,000 others. I hope older people will give him and his peers the same consideration and respect they gave to their generations for a year and continue with precautions until youngsters are protected by vaccination too.

People with controlled asthma are really no more at risk than people without controlled asthma!

“People with controlled asthma are really no more at risk than people without controlled asthma!“

That would completely reassure me, if I were the person with asthma. Not so easy when it’s your child, however old they are. Our asthma nurse has advised extreme caution since the beginning.

Sorry, addressed to OnTheBrink.

Why is it so hard for older people to just keep being cautious for a few more weeks until youngsters are vaccinated? Not much to ask after all they have lost this past year.

@DenisetheMenace

Sorry, addressed to OnTheBrink.

Why is it so hard for older people to just keep being cautious for a few more weeks until youngsters are vaccinated? Not much to ask after all they have lost this past year.

It’s looking like children with controlled asthma and even many previously considered vulnerable conditions (ie having chemo) are really not much more at risk than any other child. Obviously it’s a worry and nothing much was known at the beginning but 1000’s of vulnerable children and children with asthma have caught covid now in the UK- vast majority have been a symptomatic or v mild symptoms

Well I'm certainly hoping it's sooner rather than later. My child has just been sent home to self-isolate for the second time in as many weeks, as has the entire form, not just a few close contacts. Zero contact of any kind with either of the children concerned, it's like a blanket approach (they are quoting PHE guidance) but the impact on education and mental health (it's not just educational isolation, it's social isolation) is bound to have an impact. My child is pretty resilient but got very upset in the car on the way home.
It's also impacting on parents who have to organise to wfh, and I feel for those who don't have understanding employers.

My guess is not before September. The secondary school I worked out would want to keep the classrooms as they are for the rest of the academic year. Then back to kids moving rather than teachers in September. I feel sorry for the current Year 7’s who will have no idea where some of the rooms are, having been confined to one corridor and playground all year!

My kids primary have said no hot lunches until September, so they are planning on keeping to lunch in classrooms rather than the hall.

I’m sure my oldest will want to burn his masks once he can stop wearing them at school. The 17th would be a lovely birthday present.

They don’t get to do science or cooking in the right rooms such a bad end to year 6 and start to year 7

Ds is Year 7. He has hot meals, but they have seperate trays of food for Onlineeach year group so if your teacher lets your class out late, you get the scrag ends for your year. He's had that twice in the last week. We're applying for primary for DD in September so would like to be able to go and see primary schools by then please. Onlinemeetings haven't tended to work for us, connections not working etc. so I'll be glad to do away with online meetings.