Son's year group off again???!!!

[ForeverSausages]

Year 1. Came out of self isolation on Tuesday. Just had a message again to say year 1 has to self isolate again. They've not told me when self isolation ends which is great. Is this normal? I'm losing my mind over the constant lack of education and unpaid time off work.

Well just been told he has to self isolate until 8th July and return to school 9th July. By my calculations that means someone he had contact with yesterday at school tested positive? I'm really not sure how it can continue like this.

@singsingbluesilver

I doubt it would have made a blind bit of difference to the disruption to be honest. The isolations are happening to reduce community spread, not to save teachers. I’m sceptical about how effective the measures are though in regards to reducing community spread. Children are still out and about mixing, and rightly so.

Seems like an awful lot of disruption for not much gain but we will see what September brings.

@singsingbluesilver

I by no means assumed that posters on this thread allow their children to mix outside school. But from some of the replies it is clear that some parents think that their child's social life should not be curtailed. That being the case we must also accept that some parents are prepared to take the chance that they might pick up the infection that way.

Correct. Childrens social lives should not be curtailed. The high priority groups have been vaccinated, why should my child continue to miss out on things? This - right now - is as good as its going to get.

My TA daughter who just got her first vaccine two days ago will have to be in a crowded room all day again today. Some of the students in that room may well have been partying at the weekend. That's ok though, because the parents of those teenagers don't mind if their child picked up the virus and takes it home to them.

I find I mind though. I mind very much.

Three local secondaries with year groups affected. Hundreds of children self isolating. All traced back to a party.

@singsingbluesilver does your TA daughter not have a social life out of work?? Of course she doesn't she's sacrificed that for the greater good I'm sure

She has a social life within the rules permitted.

I just wish all parents would encourage their own children to do the same.

I will bring this back to my original point though. School staff should have been a priority months ago.

@singsingbluesilver

If she’s just had the vaccine she is low risk. The whole class can’t be disrupted due to your daughter. Her occupation isn’t special. There’s plenty of others who have been at risk. Your daughter can pick up the virus by going to Tesco’s.

I need to step away from this now.

Your child is rightly your priority. My child is mine. I thought that what I said was common sense - by giving school staff vaccine months ago it would perhaps have caused far less disruption for children in the long run. A win win situation.

I don't understand why it is unreasonable to expect everyone to keep social distancing rules to keep everyone safe, my daughter, the teachers, the other kids in the the school.

As I said I need to step away. Selfish behaviour from the few impacts on the majority.

@singsingbluesilver

It’s not just my child though is it? it’s countless children and young people who are suffering due to the current isolation rules. Your child doesn’t have to go and work in a school. I was working as a TA in winter and I fully accepted the risks as a 32 year old with no underlying health conditions. Your daughter has just had the vaccine so she’s going to be young and not CEV.

It’s not selfish to abandon rules at this stage of the game. My children have had seven or eight periods of isolation so far (I’ve actually lost count). They have been off waiting for PCR tests on the odd day or two. They have lost out on their activities, social time and god knows what else.

I’ve lost two jobs and my current one is on thin ice. We do not all get the luxury to work from home, and keep to these rules to keep very young and non clinically vulnerable TAs “safe”.

You need to step away and have a word with yourself. I doubt vaccinating teachers any earlier would have saved this disruption either.

My child was told by school they had to isolate....we didn't....I tested them...they were negative...we had a fun 10 days!

@singsingbluesilver

She has a social life within the rules permitted.

I just wish all parents would encourage their own children to do the same.

I will bring this back to my original point though. School staff should have been a priority months ago.

FWIW I think most people are socialising within the rules permitted as the rules are now more looser than they've been in previous months. Of course there will be a minority across all ages that take it too the extreme its not a singular action taken by teenagers/ children. Absolutely no one disagrees that school staff should have been a priority in vaccinating sooner but that is not the fault of the parents or pupils at all.

My DS went to a garden party a few weeks ago there were about 25 dc there from 3 different schools (it was a big garden) their socialising was no different to what was happening in the beer garden down the road with far more adults

So much sympathy. We moved back to UK recently and my daughter got a grand total of 4 days in her new school before her class was off. She's home this week and compared to where we were before the home learning is abysmal. I really hope this closing class business will stop in September it's unbelievably disruptive

I'm not sure if you fit the category but the government are doing a test and trace support payment if you have to isolate or take time off work to look after kids who are isolating www.gov.uk/test-and-trace-support-payment

@summersolstice43

I’ll look at that thanks.

@Chillychangchoo Its worth a try, good luck

It's a red herring to say young teachers are not at risk.

If they have covid then they won't be allowed to teach. Staff are thinly spread so it doesn't take much before staff shortages cause significant problems.

Also there are many students not doing the tests. We have no way of knowing if some of those are asymptomatic spreaders.

This situation os absolutely not tenable. Adults now seem to be able to mix plenty with little chance of being asked to isolate, while children have to because it's easy to see where they've been

Meanwhile now apparently you can wander into the country without quarantine if you're a business big shot.

@TubeOfSmarties

This situation os absolutely not tenable. Adults now seem to be able to mix plenty with little chance of being asked to isolate, while children have to because it's easy to see where they've been

Meanwhile now apparently you can wander into the country without quarantine if you're a business big shot.

It would be Interesting to see how many workplaces send home multiple colleagues home regularly to isolate, or is that destroying the illusion that in no workplace does anyone ever come within 2m of another person, touch something someone else has, or breathe same air as others ever

@WaverleyPirate

But young teachers can catch covid anywhere, not just at school so what exactly is your point? It’s unlikely all teachers would be off isolating at exactly the same time. It is also incredibly unlikely the teacher would be seriously ill with it post vaccination. Teachers get ill every single year from bugs so I’m not entirely sure what your point is, because judging from your post you are assuming school is the only place they could contract covid 🤔.

We shouldn’t be sending home children multiple times a year full stop. That is absolutely not learning to live with covid. Living alongside it means isolating the individual alone who happens to have it, very much like chicken pox etc.

We don’t send the whole class home for that despite some children being very ill with it.

People’s mindsets really are going to have to change if we are going to get any sense of normality back.

[quote Chillychangchoo]@WaverleyPirate

But young teachers can catch covid anywhere, not just at school so what exactly is your point? It’s unlikely all teachers would be off isolating at exactly the same time. It is also incredibly unlikely the teacher would be seriously ill with it post vaccination. Teachers get ill every single year from bugs so I’m not entirely sure what your point is, because judging from your post you are assuming school is the only place they could contract covid 🤔.

We shouldn’t be sending home children multiple times a year full stop. That is absolutely not learning to live with covid. Living alongside it means isolating the individual alone who happens to have it, very much like chicken pox etc.

We don’t send the whole class home for that despite some children being very ill with it.

People’s mindsets really are going to have to change if we are going to get any sense of normality back.[/quote]
This.

My Y5 has been off since yesterday for a week and I'm at the end of my rope again already.

I'm lucky that I can work flexibly from home but the home learning expectation is massive and our school don't do any 'live' (Teams/Zoom etc) lessons, so there's no actual contact with the teacher, just receive several attachments per lesson to read through and do. The school maintain the children should be able to do the tasks independently - yesterday for History we read up to page 12 of the 4th of 4 attachments before we discovered what the actual task even was. Today they have a task that involves using software

• download some if you don't have it and watch video tutorials to learn how to use it before you do the work - apparently 10 year olds should be able to do this independently and complete the task in an hour. FFS.

[quote summersolstice43]I'm not sure if you fit the category but the government are doing a test and trace support payment if you have to isolate or take time off work to look after kids who are isolating www.gov.uk/test-and-trace-support-payment[/quote]
Thank you for this. Unfortunately, I don't qualify.

@heidipi I agree. We also get a PDF attachment and the school just says make sure he can access it and get him to upload photos and videos of him completing the work. He's 6. I'm not how he's supposed to access the various stuff independently and also take photos and videos of him doing it and then upload it. With no input from me. It would actually be easier for me to pull him out of school until September, take 3 weeks off unpaid because at least then we wouldn't need to self isolate. Being a single parent means I have to self isolate too.