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.

Our youngest staff member will get their second vaccination at the end of August, so will have full protection by end of 2nd week back.
In our borough only 60% of adults have had there first vaccination. I don't know what percentage of our borough is under 18, but it means a significant majority of the population will be unvaccinated, which does concern me.
I'm not advocating a return to isolation, it is grim for all involved, but I feel like the government have put there fingers in their ears and just keep chanting 'it'll be fine' on repeat.
We need clear guidance on ventilation, mixing of year groups and keeping poorly children at home (I'm a working parent - I have in the past dosed DC up on calpol and hoped for the best!).
We can't pretend that everything is normal, it clearly isn't. We can have a plan to keep schools open in a safe way for staff and children.

I'm school staff. Low paid, as mentioned up thread.

I can't bloody wait.

It's been horrible for children, particularly for those with best friends in other year groups and even siblings who can't mix in the school day.

We are keeping some changes in place. Key stages will still have play times separately. It’s decreased accidents and bullying. Also staggered drop off and pick up times and o parents on site for the foreseeable.

Also, two of our double jabbed staff got Covid at the start of the holidays so we will still likely have teachers isolating in September and the lack of bubbles means the whole school is at risk.

We all had covid at Christmas. I was terrified of getting it, but we were all fine. The two children had barely a symptom. DH and I are now double vaccinated, and children for the most part have it mild. We need to get on with life. Stop this madness. Adults all now get the chance to be vaccinated.

Parents, for whatever reason, will send in sick children. Asymptotic children will also spread the virus. Testing in schools doesn’t work and we can’t rely on parents to do it as they have their own motives. Bubbles will not be sent home. Children will be mixing across year groups. From this we can see Covid will continue to spread amongst children (fingers crossed they recover quickly and don’t suffer from long Covid). School staff will be off sick as they are more likely to be in contact with people with Covid. I don’t agree with all of these decisions but we have and now we need to lessen the impact.

Accept we need to spend money on ventilation, that it won’t be done by autumn but we need to make a start otherwise it will never happen.
Vaccinate secondary school children who wish to be vaccinated.
Vaccinate older primary school children who wish to be vaccinated.
Provide booster jabs to school staff as soon as effectiveness wanes, even if others have to wait longer. We have decided keeping schools running is important to our society and this takes precedence.
Put school workers on the same vaccination schedule as NHS workers in the future.
Provide more money for supply teachers.
Accept that there won’t be enough supply teachers and look at ways in which we can fast track DBS checks for non-teachers so classes will be supervised even if they aren’t educated and schools don’t close (far from ideal but childcare, I suppose). As a number of industries are not viable at the moment, this would provide short term employment.

I would also give schools more power to ask students to wear masks if cases are high in the community or school. I am aware this is not popular with everyone.

Agree with school staff having boosters but there’s quite a lot of evidence (Royal college of paediatrics have references) that children are low transmitters and the spread is generally adult to adult.

@PomRuns

Agree with school staff having boosters but there’s quite a lot of evidence (Royal college of paediatrics have references) that children are low transmitters and the spread is generally adult to adult.

Do you know whether that evidence relates to the Delta variant?

Anecdotally I know but two colleagues caught it from children and they were double jabbed and felt quite ill, still no sense of taste and smell a month on.

I’m not sure re delta - will try and find out.

There often can’t be absolute certainty about transmission, unless people are living in a bubble.

I hope other staff groups are offered boosters too - supermarkets/ travel etc

School staff should absolutely be offered boosters. There is no comparison to supermarket staff as school staff will be working closely with large groups of unvaccinated people with extremely close contact. However, school staff were not prioritised previously and so I doubt they will be for boosters. Despite many other countries prioritising them.

From the States (CDC), updated last month

www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/transmission_k_12_schools.html

SARS-CoV-2 transmission in schools among students, families, teachers, and school staff

With approximately one quarter of teachers at higher risk of serious consequences of COVID-19 because of their underlying medical conditions,53 reasonable concerns have been raised about the occupational risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection for teachers and school staff. Evidence from studies primarily done before vaccine approval for those 12 years of age and older suggests that staff-to-staff transmission is more common than transmission from students to staff, staff to student, or student to student.46, 50, 54 For example, in the large UK study, most outbreak cases were associated with an index case (initial case) in a staff member.46 Therefore, school interventions should include prevention strategies to reduce the transmission potential of staff members. Detection of cases in schools does not necessarily mean that transmission occurred in schools. The majority of cases that are acquired in the community and are brought into a school setting result in limited spread inside schools when multiple layered prevention strategies are in place.38, 55-57

Findings from several studies suggest that SARS-CoV-2 transmission among students is relatively rare, particularly when prevention strategies are in place. An Australian study of 39 COVID-19 cases among 32 students and seven staff traced contacts across 28 schools and six early childhood centers and found only 33 secondary positive cases (28 students and five staff members) out of 3,439 close child contacts and 385 close staff contacts.58, 59 Several contact tracing studies have found limited student-to-student transmission in schools.47, 54, 60, 61 A study of factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection among children and adolescents in Mississippi found that school attendance was not associated with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result. However, close contacts with persons with COVID-19, attending gatherings, and having visitors in the home were associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections among children and adolescents.26 The evidence to date suggests that staff-to-student and student-to-student transmission are not the primary means of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 among infected children. Several studies have also concluded that students are not the primary sources of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 among adults in school setting.47, 54, 59

There is some evidence to indicate that SARS-CoV-2 might spread more easily within high school settings than in elementary school settings.9 For example, researchers in Italy identified and tested nearly all (99.8%) contacts of 1,198 cases in school settings and reported a lower attack rate in elementary schools (one secondary case; 0.38% attack rate) than in middle and high schools (37 secondary cases; 6.46% attack rate).62 This pattern was consistent with findings from a study in New South Wales, Australia, that reported higher attack rates in high schools than in elementary/primary schools.58 The apparent increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission among adolescents may be in part attributable to more social interactions with non-household members outside schools.63 Nonetheless, evidence for greater transmission in middle schools and high schools compared with elementary schools suggests that the former may need to move more quickly to virtual instruction when community transmission is high. Uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in adolescents will likely alter these transmission dynamics.

It's all bullshit, sorry. Just happens to be co incidence that cases drop in every school holidays?! Or maybe it's because children spread the virus like wildfire. Studies saying they don't are ignoring the fact that children are often asymptomatic so there's no proof they pass it on. But just about every member of staff caught it at our school, and we were not allowed to mix at all with staff. Masks on, not allowed to speak in corridors, we had our own side rooms (cupboards) to eat lunch in, and no meetings or anything face to face. But no, it must definitely have been all the staff parties that go on, and not the fact that children spread the virus.

Sandy starfish I completely agree. The uk study in schools was pre delta and also when infection rates were v low. From personal experience, within my child’s class both teachers and seven children tested positive, some without symptoms.

Also many states in us (and most countries in fact) required children to wear masks from age 5 at all times. So research isn’t comparable in terms of spread.

1- there are no ‘good’ options that will please everyone
2- parents will still send children in unwell
3- the 3 symptoms to trigger a test and self isolation are out of date with symptoms in delta variant and children
4- double vaccinated people are still getting it and many feel very unwell, have the govt thought through that this will lead to staff absences and potential school closures where there is not sufficient staff. Supply teachers will be very busy I imagine!
5- there will be pretty much zero mitigations in school. It’s realistic to think there could be issues in autumn and winter and to plan some sensible proactive mitigations
6 - the govt are reactive not proactive. They will wait until it’s all a distaste before doing anything
7 - yes, we have to learn to deal with covid, but we’re still in a pandemic period and this needs adjustments until we are through. It doesn’t mean it’ll always be like this. There is still much unknown eg long covid and school staff have a legal right to health and safety at work

Any study involving children and transmission carried out before widespread universal testing is worthless because children are more likely to be asymptomatic or show symptoms other than the classic ones. A child could infect all the adults in their household and appear perfectly well before they all get ill.

Teachers can also by asymptomatic and pass it to each other btw.

In my sons class the teacher was positive but none of the children were....thankfully she didn't pass it on to them eh.

Science and research might tell us that children don't pass it on as much (as per CDC link above) but nooooo the scientists must be wrong only teachers can possibly ever be right.

I'm from a family of teachers (only one of whom has tested positive btw with no symptoms - since we only like anecdata on these threads) and am all for mitigations in school btw but stuff like this plus almost 18 months of these types of threads and hearing teachers on many threads refer to children as things like 'germ factories' really pisses me off.

Teachers can also by asymptomatic and pass it to each other btw.

Beside the point.

It's far more likely for children to be asymptomatic than adults though. Plus not many children get tested. It's only very recently close contacts are asked to test. And parents have chosen to just isolate the 10 days instead of test if their child has symptoms (in my experience, in my school). So the reluctance to test children and the lack of asymptomatic testing in children means that any study will be severely biased.

@Reastie: perfectly summarised.

And does the virus jump through walls from teacher to teacher then? Because again, we were not allowed anywhere near each other.

The thing that hasn’t been mentioned here us that the country NEEDS a high proportion of children to be infected in order to have any prospect of reaching herd immunity (because children and teens are not being vaccinated, the only way of achieving a high enough percentage is through infection). This infection should preferably be really rapid, before the extra pressure that winter brings the NHS.

So measures to reduce spread in schools - and many thank to those who would like schools to have this protection - are not going to happen. We all just have to cross our fingers that the ‘collateral damage’ of this deliberate infection policy for children (on CEV children, older and vulnerable staff and family members) is not too severe. Again, a really rapid spread in September is to be hoped for, while hospitals still have capacity.

I can't find what I'm looking for now sadly.
Last August there was poster doing the rounds to say please send kids to school with colds.
Not sure if was our local authority or even wider scale nationally maybe from phe.
The head of our junior school shared it and my daughter was really unwell during autumn massive swollen raise gland in neck, fatigue and negative covid test and still I was getting phonecards about attendance.
If delta is same as cold symptoms this attitude is very dangerous.
Are Scotland putting in any mitigating measures this month?
We have to separate genuine illness from truancy.
I can't believe under new rules sibling or parent can test postive and we send them in that seems really dangerous not isolating a household.

There MAY be some heads who assert their legal duties under the Health and Safety legislation. However, very few would gave the financial and time capacity to fight the Government in a legal case so I think this will be rare.