Primary schools from September...

[SandyStarfish]

Good that contacts will no longer have to isolate... however, Covid will run wild through the classes won't it? And the viral load will be high for children and staff in those classrooms because of all the particles in the air. And in winter it's too hard to ventilate much. It's going to be horrible working conditions again.

Ventilation and CO2 monitors should have been sorted a year ago.

Why are teachers treated like second class citizens?

They don’t make the rules but have to enforce them - they don’t decide what’s safe and what isn’t, they don’t decide to send your child home to isolate or swap to online learning. They do as instructed by the head teacher and ultimately by the LA and government.

If your child’s teacher is worried about the lack of ventilation or ill children or the number of sick teachers, then quite frankly so should you.

You aren’t planing your child off out of site out of mind to be ‘looked after’ as some sort of free childcare - they are in the hands of staff who know what they are talking about.

Don’t think for one minute all families would LFT their kids before school, don’t think for a minuet that some parents would happily sneak their child into class having been up all night coughing - that isn’t the teachers ‘fault’ a lot of classroom problems stems from parents who only think about themselves.

Teachers are paid to do a job, if they are sick you expect someone to jump in and take over? In my experience most supply teachers are retired or nearly retired and supply for a pension boost. There aren’t many willing to do that at short notice in a covid infested school.

You aren’t planing your child off out of site out of mind to be ‘looked after’ as some sort of free childcare

I was hoping we had got past this delightful phase of the pandemic, but no, here we go again.

@SandyStarfish

I'm not sure what I'd suggest. It's difficult. I'm just voicing how horrible it's going to be. And for TAs, such a poor wage too. Yes, there were thousands of needless isolations. But that wasn't the case in our school. It did spread from children to staff and result in a death. I hope most children have some kind of immunity to it now. I guess there's no way of knowing how many have had it asymptomatically.

How do you know it went from a child to staff to result in a death? There is absolutely no way of knowing where anyone catches covid unless its household transmission which even then is a best guess.

@SandyStarfish

Good that contacts will no longer have to isolate... however, Covid will run wild through the classes won't it? And the viral load will be high for children and staff in those classrooms because of all the particles in the air. And in winter it's too hard to ventilate much. It's going to be horrible working conditions again.

Unfortunately due to our inept government we have no way of knowing - because they havent recorded how many of those thousands of kids having to isolate went on to get covid. Ergo it may "run wild" or it my not. Cheers Boris.

I would suggest huge investment in clean air, air control, ventilation and whilst we are in this situation a relax, temporarily on strict uniform rules and the environmental concern of heat on and windows open.

I think ten min breaks whilst rooms are aired, slight tweaks to the school day to accommodate safety.

For older dc, a swift transition to working on line from home.

When even a mild covid infection carries the risk of long term neurological damage, and double vax does not prevent infection itself, I think many will be asking at what point do we improve the safety in schools. Home learning should remain an option for those who want it. It's beyond criminal.

Blue bells green bells,

. Great Post with "bells" on

The other problem is teachers are trapped in the system, they can't speak out, the head may think its all stuff and nonsense.. AND begrudgingly do the bare minimum!

So it's great to hear honest tales from the the classroom on here really because the teacher can't say to a worried parent.. It's shit, it's stuffy, Harry was sneezing all day with a sore throat which are unofficial the new symptoms but not officially so tyere he is..

@GreenLakes

Personally I’m glad that the government are taking a hard line on getting schools fully back to normal. DC have missed far too much education and interaction as it is.

I’d be telling the unions that pay cuts and redundancies are on the cards if they refuse to co-operate!

So teachers, who have to and are following government/ local authority/ school guidance and procedures (NOT making decisions themselves) should be paid less and fired? For not making any of these decisions?

Have you actually thought that one through or were you just trying to sound tough, or something?

@GreenLakes, "DC have missed far too much education"
Did your DC not engage with Home Learning then?
And why do you think I, as a teacher who worked full-tilt all the way through each lockdown, should now face redundancy or a pay-cut?

@Panickingpavlova so right. My SLT work in their offices. Pop their masks on and stand back when they venture out and talk to us. Very easy for them to say "Government guidelines say it's ok". For me to work across 3 bubbles. Aka 90 children 20 other staff.

@palacegirl77

It was obvious. It was early on. A girl in the yr above tested positive, then her brother, then the teacher of the brother's class a week later. Then a few more of the brother's class. It wasn't rocket science.

@Kitcat122 well said. We have risk assessments drawn up by those behind glass screens. It’s a joke!

Also, none of our governors have set foot in the school, leaving us all to it with the occasional email to wish us well. Our headteacher doesn’t believe in Covid and has allowed children with temperatures into class while she sits in her office even though her own risk assessment says otherwise. It’s not safe so so t kid yourself otherwise.I’m dreading September.

As a teacher I'm delighted to hear this news. The bubbles bursting was ridiculous and caused huge disruption to the children, not just in terms of their education but more sadly, their emotional well being.
This is absolutely the right thing to do for our younger generation who in my opinion have been affected a lot by the pandemic.

Many teachers have made sensible suggestions about mitigation and have been ignored

Yes - the bubble/isolation system is unsustainable, but it’s not an all or nothing situation.

The government - NOT individual schools, they don’t have much autonomy despite popular belief - need to be clearer and more swift in clarifying their covid management protocols for September. We need a national list of symptoms for which children are to be sent home until a negative PCR is obtained, funding for improvements to ventilation and a plan to cover ill staff with qualified teachers and avoid closures.

Surely this isn’t too much to ask for a STATE school system, governed by the STATE.

@BluebellsGreenbells

This is supposed to be a parenting forum yet the perpetual contempt of children is alarming!

The children have given so much to make sure the elderly and vulnerable have been protected, they have missed education and their friends and social lives.

Now they are all vaccinated we are allowing the virus to spread in their age brackets.

Hardly a glorious thing is it?

We’re all right jack, now you can get sick? What about long covid?

This! We don't know enough about the virus yet, but what we do know about cognitive impacts, organ damage and long covid etc is pretty frightening to me. This can also happen in cases of 'mild' covid. When minimising the risk to kids, people tend to use denominators; when highlighting the risks, they tend to use numerators.

Learning to live with covid in an unvaxed population (kids) at this moment in time means mitigations such as proper ventilation in schools to reduce risk and viral load. I think it also means isolation or choice of isolation from school, which is really shit, but not as shit as letting it run unmitigated through schools. Trying to minimise case numbers where possible in an open society makes economic and health sense.

I assume if £1m people died from covid tomorrow, there would be government action. What I would like to know, is what number of deaths / long covid IS the acceptable number to live with from the government's perspective. I assume this number has been factored into policy decisions, but have no idea what that number is. Does anyone have any info on this?

@Unanananana

What would you suggest? Teachers would presumably be double vaccinated by then?

My sons 'bubble' had zero cases of covid from when they went back to when they broke up in July. Its not exactly running wild around here. Sending home pupils for ten days just in case is not a long term solution.

Younger staff wont have the second vaccine until mid September and therefore the y wont have developed antibodies until the end of September.

Presumably staff who can be will be fully vaccinated by then which should mitigate effectively. Really don’t know what the answer is for staff who are unable to have the jab but keeping children home isolating for any longer just isn’t tenable.

@Pissinthepottyplease my 20 year old will have her second vaccine in mid August. It was available to those over 18 in June. I’d like my 17yd old sixth former who works in a pub to be able to have it too as she’s most at risk in our family now.

Unpopular opinion but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of sending my kids into school to sit all day with known covid contacts with no mitigations, no obligation to test or alert us to potential cases in the classroom. My concern is not for ourselves but for older or vulnerable friends and family we might pass the virus on to. I hope we keep some form of the bubbles system although appropriate how disruptive this is when cases are high in the commumity.

No one knows how severely a cv teacher with both jabs will react with a huge viral load because of many children spreading within the class. And the viral load in children too. I'm not saying there's any easy solution... there isn't. I do think there should be a strong message from gov passed onto all schools that children showing symptoms should isolate until negative test. It would be a compromise. Your children don't have to isolate if a contact, but they can't attend school if ill. And enforce this so it's accepted in all schools. Yes it's a pain for working parents (myself included) but it also might be a way of reducing viral load in the box classrooms and helping to prevent new variants occurring due to unmitigated spread in that age group.

[quote Benjispruce5]@Pissinthepottyplease my 20 year old will have her second vaccine in mid August. It was available to those over 18 in June. I’d like my 17yd old sixth former who works in a pub to be able to have it too as she’s most at risk in our family now.[/quote]
There was huge demand and not everyone could get it in the first two weeks.
Say you got the vaccine on the 1st July, then you won’t be getting the next one until 26th August so you won’t be covered until the 9th September. Students in our area are back on the 2nd September.

(Some) Parents will ALWAYS send their kids in ill, Covid or not. Either they don't know or don't care that their kids will invariably dob them in and tell us they were sick in the night or that they've already had calpol this morning or that Mum/Dad had plans today so they can't go home.
We had one a couple of years back who had been sent home the day before after throwing up all over the classroom and two other children and was dropped off the next morning long before the bell went (long before the 24/48 hour thing was up) and Mum promptly switched her phone off. Child said she had to come to school as Mum was going for a spa day. None of the other phone contacts were picking up either.
It happens.

Yes it happens. As I said, I work in Primary, I ring the parents. I've cleaned up sick from ill children sent in when they shouldn't be. And that's the point... we need to be more strict on it. OK there may be the odd time when you can't get gold of someone, but the vast majority of the time, you can. We were quite strict in Sept... " is coughing; ring parents to collect". And it was rare for a child with signs of illness to be in school as parents were vigilant. But a couple of months later and we all just accepted that we would be surrounded by coughing and runny noses because parents sent them in anyway. And when flagged up to SLT, they just shrugged. If it is not crystal clear to parents that schools will not accept ill children without a negative test, then they will send them in anyway for ease of life. It's unpleasant at the best of times when illnesses are going around in class and you're surrounded by it all day every day because parents send ill children in.