Primary school closure for only a ‘suspected’ case?

[Deathsquito]

Now dealing with a very distressed, non-verbal, autistic 5 year old. He had his uniform on, his school bag ready, and we got up to the classroom door to be turned away.

He has had hardly any school this year, and he was already behind.

I’ve reasoned with myself that it can’t be helped in the past, but am absolutely furious today. If the bubble closed for every ‘suspected’ case then no child would have been in at all this year! Why now is no test result needed to do it?!

Why is this a thing? I thought it had to be a confirmed case to close a school bubble? Is there a new rule?

Ds has only just gone back to school after his fourth lot of two weeks off, he is going to miss the last two weeks now and I’m so upset for him.

Sorry, title should say ‘Primary school ‘bubble’ closure’.

If its the teacher it might be closed because they cant get supply or internal cover. We are really struggling to get supply teachers in. The market just vanished. Our normal agency and two others have hardly anyone on their books now.

It’s very possibly a family whose siblings in other settings have already tested positive, and now the child in your school has developed symptoms and is awaiting pcr results, knowing the likelihood is they’ll be positive.

It could also be suspected because of a positive lateral flow and needs to be confirmed with PCR. That would lead to isolating whilst waiting for test results.

I'm very surprised you didn't find out until arriving at school, and 4 lots of isolation is unusual for a reception class. It sounds like Covid is a big problem in your area, and it could be an issue with getting cover for the class so they're unable to open safely.

"Suspected" means a positive lateral flow result and waiting for a PCR to confirm.

His teacher (at the door) said it was a child who was quite poorly and a suspected case.

I know it’s not the teachers/schools fault, and am concerned for the poorly child, but I can’t help being frustrated. I didn’t think of an already confirmed family member/lateral flow test.

The child is in a reading group with ds and all the classes from which the reading group dc are from are now closed. So they must be fairly sure.

The anger is probably more a displacement from ds having a meltdown. The teacher looked panicked and said we should have been informed but judging by the class whatsapp exploding, no one else knew either.

The MyED message and phone text weren’t sent out until 10 minutes after drop off time.

The reason for the late notice is possibly that the school found out themselves at about 8.45am. On two occasions in my school we've had to go and turn children away as we've been notified at 8.45am and the children arrive from 8.50am. It is unfortunate but can't be helped.

Sorry this is happening op... It might be the parent / family member / staff member / affected person only informed school shortly before opening... If its an unusual or high risk scenario, which it seems to be in your case, there would have had to be urgent meeting to devmcide action Re closing a bubble, even if this was only a 5 minute meeting, if someone gets in touch at 8:15 am, it doesn't leave much time to put an action plan in pkace then update parents. I appreciate it's very frustrating for you, times are rubbish right now. Plus expect it to get worse with people crammed into pubs for the natch spreading anuthi g back home and then into school...

Feel a bit silly (and guilty) for feeling so angry now. Ds is now happily playing with his action figures. Works going to be a nightmare but it can’t be helped.

Hoping what has just been said on the class WhatsApp isn’t true about what the parents of this child were up to last night, but not going to give it any more headspace now.

Thank you all for your messages, they have helped!