Schools in meltdown. Put your kids in masks

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Long story short

First case May 10.
By May 17 th, half of all year groups at home. Many staff sick. Some departments have no staff at all. Some students sent home for lack of staff, rather than quarantine.
20th May. School closed. Half term brought forward one week
31 May. Reopen.
1 June several more cases identified
3rd June. All lower school sent home. Year 10 and 12 kept in only. Masks, which had been optional, are now made compulsory again. Too late
7th June. School closed again. I am now teaching online

So in the last few weeks, I have spent 3x longer on COVID related activities than on teaching. Including trying to get students home when classes close, and they can’t use public transport. Teaching doubled up classes, 30 online, and 30 in front of me, because there are hardly any staff in. Administering tests. Taking students to and from the testing site. Recording results. Cramming information in subjects I know nothing about, but have been told I am about to teach. Much of the time students have just been told to read in silence, while we get on with our main business, as a covid testing site.

So please put masks on your children. There is no reason for a secondary aged child not to have a mask on their face, and a spare in their bag, and a spare spare.

And please support what’s schools are trying to do to enforce masks.

I see so many posts of mothers up in arms about masks. We are desperately fighting to keep education going, and we need your support

I belong to a MAT composed of 3 large secondary schools. Within our 3 schools we have:

A 15 year old boy who developed type 1 diabetes when he caught Covid

An 18 year old girl who lost most of her hearing through covid

A 14 year old boy whose heart has been left so damaged by covid he might need a transplant.

It’s heartbreaking.

@osbertthesyrianhamster

How can u be so sure we won’t lockdown (even if none wants to) if these cases go through the roof?

@Lostinacloud

OR….we could just STOP testing these poor kids every five seconds and let a few cases just naturally go around so they can acquire a natural immunity instead of being stuck in a claustrophobic unhygienic mask and asked to take an experimental vaccine causing worrying numbers of serious side effects in the very tiny trial groups involved in testing. The huge majority won’t suffer any serious illness or ongoing problems and all over 50’s and vulnerable teachers working at the school are protected themselves by the vaccine. Let these kids be kids for gods sake and let them have a few sniffles and carry on like we did before all this madness. Utterly sick of all this now and it needs saying.

Absolutely this I'm so pleased to see some sense on here

@Takingabreakagain

We need to look around the world and see where restrictions have been lifted to see how the those places are now (not) affected. Florida has been open without masks etc since September. They had no new wave over the winter and now people are enjoying festivals, music and sport in massive stadiums. The also don't have the uptake of vaccines that has happened here. Makes you wonder if all the restrictions are actually making things worse not better..

Are most people in Florida assumed now to have had it?

@Lostinacloud

OR….we could just STOP testing these poor kids every five seconds and let a few cases just naturally go around so they can acquire a natural immunity instead of being stuck in a claustrophobic unhygienic mask and asked to take an experimental vaccine causing worrying numbers of serious side effects in the very tiny trial groups involved in testing. The huge majority won’t suffer any serious illness or ongoing problems and all over 50’s and vulnerable teachers working at the school are protected themselves by the vaccine. Let these kids be kids for gods sake and let them have a few sniffles and carry on like we did before all this madness. Utterly sick of all this now and it needs saying.

Round of applause YES!

Agree with @Lostinacloud too

Unless everyone becomes a hermit forever more, covid is going to have to go through everyone.

Nobody wants to be a hermit. You’ve got this all wrong. If what is happening in India is anything to go by, why would a lockdown not be forced?

@Lostinacloud

That’s what I used to think. But there is something really dodgy going on here.

@wasthataburp

Sorry OP but that is NOT happening all over the country. Your school clearly has had exceptionally bad luck! Stop preaching to people please, you are coming off like a lunatic

YABU!!!!!!! X 10000000

Or more likely, in a high covid area. Or a high area, with a group of people not obeying covid rules. Which could be the same thing, come to think of it.

OR….we could just STOP testing these poor kids every five seconds and let a few cases just naturally go around so they can acquire a natural immunity instead of being stuck in a claustrophobic unhygienic mask

That is what is happening, has been happening here where I live. Already happening. Watch this space. NOrth West England 😕

@WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith

Unless everyone becomes a hermit forever more, covid is going to have to go through everyone.

Nobody wants to be a hermit. You’ve got this all wrong. If what is happening in India is anything to go by, why would a lockdown not be forced?

I dont think I understand your point?

What is happening in India that is so bad? Doesn't look like any reason to panic from this graph showing number of new cases

Why is it just NW England? What is happening? We already had the waves so why again?

Another one saying I don't believe you op 😴

@Lostinacloud

OR….we could just STOP testing these poor kids every five seconds and let a few cases just naturally go around so they can acquire a natural immunity instead of being stuck in a claustrophobic unhygienic mask and asked to take an experimental vaccine causing worrying numbers of serious side effects in the very tiny trial groups involved in testing. The huge majority won’t suffer any serious illness or ongoing problems and all over 50’s and vulnerable teachers working at the school are protected themselves by the vaccine. Let these kids be kids for gods sake and let them have a few sniffles and carry on like we did before all this madness. Utterly sick of all this now and it needs saying.

👏

@Orangesandlemons77

Our secondary has not just dropped masks but is 'getting back to normal' in terms of changing for PE, doing group work etc. Whilst this is good in some ways as a family with CEV parent and DC in secondary it's a bit concerning, the older one who is ironically at home after GCSEs is to get the vaccine as in the household. but the younger one is school is not. It's just over 16s.

Is your CEV parent vaccinated?

There are 3 kids (that I know of) in my sons class who are vulnerable to COVID.

What do we do for them?

He's in a 7 form intake secondary.

@WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith

At a complete guess, but an educated guess going on past lies, false statistics and fear propaganda, the government need cases in order to justify their ongoing delays to giving everyone their full lives back. It has been virtually impossible for them to find enough cases to spark the fear factor for several months and so they need a quick low key spread to go around non vulnerable people (school children) to rally up a good number of countrywide cases.
In Cambridge they’ve been testing 6000 students per day and found not one single positive case for a month. If they can grab onto a small cluster of cases and let it spread before they instigate their mass testing then this provides exactly the evidence they need to bring in more locking down or restrictions.

@Notonthestairs

There are 3 kids (that I know of) in my sons class who are vulnerable to COVID.

What do we do for them?

He's in a 7 form intake secondary.

Start a thread, and I am sure posters will try and give you advice.

@Orangesandlemons77

Some schools are not sending year groups or contacts home now, ours is part of a trial where they have tests every day (if in contact with a case). Except there has only been one. Since they opened in Jan.

That’s so sensible.

It’s nuts sending kids home, and causing inordinate disruption.

If the virus is gonna spread, it’ll spread. (Especially now with a higher transmissibility.)

Tell people to act with caution. But don’t damage even more the prospects of children it doesn’t affect.

@lightand what would your advice be?

Ok chilled now.

I mean, I’ll give it a week and a half until we’re isolating every other week.

That sounds like people didn’t bother to test before going back after half term…

@Lostinacloud

Ok. My head is racing, trying to take in your theory. First point though. How’s does that explain people who we know. (Two totally different aged teens friends) being positive. One where quite a few in the group are all positive?

I work In Retail we’ve been open all the way through…. We’ve all been verbally abused hundreds of times over, many of us physically.

People don’t want to comply anymore. They’ve had enough.

I won’t be forcing my son into a mask. They are becoming a source of conflict, I don’t want that at home as well as at work

No cases in our school since December. My ds year group almost all had Covid in the autumn. LTFs twice a week now. All adults at the school should be vaccinated (or turned down) by now (might be some under 25s on staff but I can't think of any...). I don't know any parents who are not vaccinated. No masks thanks.