Schools not having to isolate when in contact of virus

[Baileysforchristmas]

There is hope this will stop after September.

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/28/ministers-set-to-end-automatic-isolation-for-pupils-in-england

@pinkpip100

I’ve always worried about him and his asthma. It’s not just covid that can make him ill. Have I expected whole classes to isolate for respiratory infections in the past just for him? No I haven’t.
Covid hasn’t changed that. Do we live in fear as a family though? No we do not. Do I want my son to actually have a life? Yes I do. Do I want my son to have a proper education without interruption? Again yes I do. Do I want my son to continue playing his sport which is good for his lung capacity? Yes I do (he’s currently isolating again so unable to participate in sport).

I’m a realist. These suggestions of things to help are piss poor in reality.

If you have a CEV child they are always at risk to a certain degree. Pretty much short of locking them up daily you have to learn to live with it.

It’s just not going away is it? The quicker people accept this the better.

@Thewiseoneincognito

Oh I know what I’ll do. I’ll keep him locked up, never thought of that. Thank you. Knew I came on Mumsnet for a reason.

In all seriousness though it’s a fucking good job I’m not like you lot, I can only imagine the anxiety you lot are transferring to your kids.

Thankfully my kids mental health is good 👍. They see a parent modelling logical and rational behaviour.

[quote Chillychangchoo]@pinkpip100

I’ve always worried about him and his asthma. It’s not just covid that can make him ill. Have I expected whole classes to isolate for respiratory infections in the past just for him? No I haven’t.
Covid hasn’t changed that. Do we live in fear as a family though? No we do not. Do I want my son to actually have a life? Yes I do. Do I want my son to have a proper education without interruption? Again yes I do. Do I want my son to continue playing his sport which is good for his lung capacity? Yes I do (he’s currently isolating again so unable to participate in sport).

I’m a realist. These suggestions of things to help are piss poor in reality.

If you have a CEV child they are always at risk to a certain degree. Pretty much short of locking them up daily you have to learn to live with it.

It’s just not going away is it? The quicker people accept this the better.[/quote]
Actually they're not 'piss poor' at all. As pp said, perhaps you need to do a little more research before writing off potential mitigations in schools.

Also I would appreciate not being told by you what I 'have to' do in relation to my CEV child. Every family/situation/level of risk is different.

@pinkpip100

Look I could sit here and think of numerous “mitigations” but they’re not coming to fruition are they?

So I have a choice either home school my kids or send them to school. Seeing as I can’t afford the first option and they need an education, I presume I’ll have to go with the second.

They are completely piss poor in my opinion and not at all realistic. I could research until the fucking cows come home but what exactly is that going to achieve for my son?

In the meantime we keep him on his daily steroid inhaler, and we keep our anxiety low.

God loves a trier though so good luck to you all with your proposed mitigations. You’re sure as hell gonna need it.

Night 💤.

@motherrunner

I’m just wondering as a teacher whether I’ll be allowed/expected to work if I contract Covid, and whether as parents they would be happy knowing their teacher could be potentially exposing 200+ pupils a day to the virus?

Oh ffs. Teachers need to stop bleating about this and start doing their jobs!! Teachers can be vaccinated now and most teachers are under 60 and so at very low risk of getting ill from covid WITHOUT a vaccine.

Children are not little disease vectors and should not be viewed as such all testing and bubbles need to go now preferably. By sept by absolute latest.

If you're ill, stay home like we've always done. Otherwise get on with life and live what is now endemic covid no more risk than flu.

Teachers haven't stopped doing their jobs.

Seem's like all of us with CEV children will be back to isolating our children and homeschooling then (without any support from the government of course) all because our kids dare be unhealthy and ruin it for the rest. I can't wait to hear what the government plans to do for the 53,000 CEV children in the UK ...oh wait, they won't be mentioned as usual.
Everyone concerned about a child's right to education, but only if that child is healthy it would seem. Even on long term stays in hospital DC is able to access schooling through the hospital, but when they can't attend school due to schools being full of covid they receive nothing at all.

With the numbers rising in schools I would disagree that children aren’t little disease vectors.

What do you think teachers are doing at the moment @MrsArchchancellorRidcully?

@yeahdarling

Teachers haven't stopped doing their jobs.

Really?? How is it when my 9 yr old has to isolate, he gets no live lessons at all? He won't engage offline. He needs teacher interaction but we get nothing but a few worksheets. I work ft so he ends up doing nothing at all.

@ineedaholidaynow

With the numbers rising in schools I would disagree that children aren’t little disease vectors.

What do you think teachers are doing at the moment @MrsArchchancellorRidcully?

Schools are safe and children are not spreading covid. That's direct from PHE and W. Schools mirror their communities but do not seed covid themselves.

How disgusting to view children as disease spreaders! How disgraceful that children have to continue sacrificing their childhood to save fully vaxxed adults.

Fuck me some of you lot disgust me.

It’s not disgusting to view children as disease spreaders. Have you ever been in a school!

We vaccinate primary school children with the flu nasal vaccination precisely because they are vectors.

Didn’t Boris say schools were vectors early this year and that is why schools were closed

We had so many cases in a the past week that after working out that there would be more children isolating than actually in school, our Head (on PHE advice) has closed the school for 2 weeks as a circuit breaker. In the hope that they will actually get the last 2 weeks of term and be able to do the mock exams y10 have been missing for the last few weeks. It's probably a good idea, but we got told Monday at 5pm that they were closing from Tuesday. Luckily most secondary pupils don't really need watching all day, but it's still hugely disruptive. I hope it works!

disgusting to view children as disease spreaders! How disgraceful that children have to continue sacrificing their childhood to save fully vaxxed adults.

So true! Sick of children being spoken of with such distain, if you have such a bad view of children and think they're all out to kill you with their super germs then don't fucking be there! Quit and find yourself the perfect covid secure job that it seems every other profession has but you good luck with that and before anyone pipes up with "but who will teach little jonny if people quit? " anyone who treats children with the vitriol that's spouted on some of these threads shouldn't be in the profession in the first place

"Really?? How is it when my 9 yr old has to isolate, he gets no live lessons at all?"

Lots of schools try to do internal contact tracing so unless the entire year group or bubble is isolating the teacher is in front of kids still at school.

That is if they are not Ill or self isolating themselves. We have lots of staff off again including cleaners, canteen staff and even infected double jabbed teachers who may not get hospitalised but also have to be off for 10 days

The issue with letting it run rampant through schools is that it won’t be long til lots of teachers are off. At that point, schools will have no choice but to fully or partially close due to lack of teachers available. Yes many have had one jab but few teachers have had both - plus it doesn’t stop you getting it.

While I don’t agree with student disruption, the disruption of staff being off could be worse.

Not to mention the difficulty in redeploying staff to the new testing centres.

I am certain there will be future circuit break closures for school outbreaks

Yes if it’s bad now in summer I imagine winter will be very bad. I foresee many people being off with Covid as it will just run rampant through schools. Teachers will be vaccinated but without plans for a booster vaccine and little known about long term efficacy will the vaccines be enough to bring us to normality?

@Myleftfoot39

Yes if it’s bad now in summer I imagine winter will be very bad. I foresee many people being off with Covid as it will just run rampant through schools. Teachers will be vaccinated but without plans for a booster vaccine and little known about long term efficacy will the vaccines be enough to bring us to normality?

This is my concern. I have had both vaccines but come Sept it will be 6 months since my first. As I’m under 50 I wouldn’t be in the category for a booster. The majority of our teaching staff are in the same position. Last December we ended up closing the school to all students on two occasions as we didn’t have enough staff as many were ill at the same time. This could happen again so even though isolations of close contacts will it’s likely end, that may not be the end of school closures (albeit temporarily).

@walksen

"Really?? How is it when my 9 yr old has to isolate, he gets no live lessons at all?"

Lots of schools try to do internal contact tracing so unless the entire year group or bubble is isolating the teacher is in front of kids still at school.

That is if they are not Ill or self isolating themselves. We have lots of staff off again including cleaners, canteen staff and even infected double jabbed teachers who may not get hospitalised but also have to be off for 10 days

If my 9 year olds bubble goes down, the whole class isolates so no one in his class is in school but still no live lessons and just rubbish worksheets which my son won't engage with. He spends 10 days on his Nintendo.

During lockdown when they closed schools I ended up paying for private live lessons for him as school and his teachers were so useless.

It is not treating children with disdain to say they spread diseases, it is fact. Colds, COVID, chicken pox, D&V etc all spread in school.

COVID in particular spreads because the Government have refused to put any money into schools to help pay for mitigating factors. That is who I speak of with disdain not the children. I am not a teacher by the way, so you can’t tell me not to be in the profession.

The issue with letting it run rampant through schools is that it won’t be long til lots of teachers are off. At that point, schools will have no choice but to fully or partially close due to lack of teachers available. Yes many have had one jab but few teachers have had both - plus it doesn’t stop you getting it.

If so many teachers are off sick that they can’t run the school then close it or partially close it till they are better. That’s unavoidable. But sending 60 kids home to ‘SI’ for a LFT is absolutely avoidable and daft.

@MrsArchchancellorRidcully

My year five and six have been off since last Wednesday, we have received ZERO work. ZERO. I mean we do usually get a few token worksheets but nothing this time. Their teachers are absolutely not fucking working as hard this week. I emailed them yesterday morning for work and I’m still waiting.

Embarrassing.

It is avoidable, but not daft.

I work in a large secondary school and the mitigations imposed by the government are utterly inefficient. Especially with the new variant.

We've had 3 cases on Monday morning, and out of those 3 cases, another 6 self-isolating kids have now developed it. So in theory, the 'chain' has now been stopped. If those kids were not sent home this morning, we would be up to 18 cases by the end of the week.

Another case appeared this morning, but it's in a different year group.

The main issue here is that our school has imposed the wearing of face masks in class (despite government guidance) but many parents are discouraging their kids to wear them and ask for exemptions because of 'mental health'.

We open the windows and doors. That's it. no other ventilation or air filtration system can be installed as the school has no budget (we've had to make staff redundant and those leaving are not replaced unless absolutely necessary).

My guess is that if we don't ask kids to self isolate, we would have 100+ cases within two weeks. And those kids are likely to give it to siblings who will pass it around other schools.

I'd prefer to have 60 kids self isolating and well, rather than 100+ kids sick at home transmitting the virus to other people in the community.