Schools contingency framework released

[noblegiraffe]

The contingency framework guidelines for childcare settings, schools, colleges and universities has been released.

Not much to see except that schools should seek public health advice if:

For most education and childcare settings, whichever of these thresholds is reached first:
• 5 children, pupils, students or staff, who are likely to have mixed closely, test positive for COVID-19 within a 10-day period; or
• 10% of children, pupils, students or staff who are likely to have mixed closely test positive for COVID-19 within a 10-day period

Additional measures might be onsite testing or reintroducing masks but is much more likely to be simply:

At the point of reaching a threshold, education and childcare settings should review and reinforce the testing, hygiene and ventilation measures they already have in place. Settings should also consider:
• whether any activities could take place outdoors, including exercise, assemblies, or classes
• ways to improve ventilation indoors, where this would not significantly impact thermal comfort
• one-off enhanced cleaning focussing on touch points and any shared equipment

Interestingly, 'mixing closely' includes students who have shared a classroom, not just those who sat within 2m of a positive case.

No reassurance for CEV pupils.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1011704/20210817_Contingency_Framework_FINAL.pdf

@Farevalah

Does anyone think the schools will close again? Same with universities, I think it'll be chaos this coming autumn /winter.

I have a feeling there will be a lot of restrictions brought back by half term. Whether it gets to a point where schools are closed, I don’t know. But I certainly don’t think it will be “business as normal”

@lonelyplanet

I expect the guidance to be changed to ‘only stay at home if positive and too ill to be in school’ at some point in the Autumn term

I expect the guidance to be changed to 'don't test'. This is already what was happening last term in Primary Schools.

I don't think that they will want to be quite as blatant as this, though I do think that they will change the guidance to 'only miss school if too ill to attend'

Otherwise, I think they will rely on a combination of:

• Removing even the suggestion of twice weekly lfts for secondary pupils
• Charging for tests or making it necessary to get a prescription for one from a medical practitioner
• Making tests less accessible though closing some centres or reducing their hours or stopping post-out tests
• Removing even the paltry and hard to obtain isolation grant

More indirectly:

• Employers will start getting very tough on anyone absent, especially anyone absent looking after a positive child rather than positive themselves.
• Employers will regarding lfts as definitive - ie encouraging people to rely on them even if symptomatic, which will mean that many positive cases are missed.

However, the principal driver, particularly in primary, will be:

• Parents won't test their children - we know this was already happening a LOT, especially with primary age children, but it will become near-universal as the school gate muttering will be 'Why should I test, and risk my child being off for 10 days? I know X was off for just a couple of days, they didn't test and said they had d+v so they didn't have to miss any more school / work - why should my child / my family miss out?'

I think the ONLY way that the Government's current plan of 'actively drive mass infection in schools, in order to create some level of natural immunity in the cohort we have no plan to vaccinate' will be derailed is if there is a newsworthy cluster of photogenic, probably white, preferably middle class, definitely 'no underlying conditions' children dying, and their parents (preferably also articulate, though obviously distraught) drive in-school infection as a story into the mainstream media.

They're all gearing up in the media to shout about how much they don't care if their kid gets covid.

I can't think of any loud voices in the media who have expressed any concern about kids getting infected.

Scientists, yes. Journalists, no.

@noblegiraffe

I can't think of any loud voices in the media who have expressed any concern about kids getting infected.

Scientists, yes. Journalists, no.

I was about to say Alice Roberts has has been pretty vocal about it, but you’re right-she’s a scientist!

Well I mind very much whether my kids get infected, but 1 is in a vaccine study (80% chance that they are vaccinated now) and the other one is immunocompromised and should get a vaccine in the next few days apparently.

I think that it's quite likely there will be a belated vaccine roll out to other vulnerable children 12+ and then perhaps more widely.

I am less anxious than this last time last year because the adults are vaccinated and I'm hopeful for boosters for vulnerable parents and teachers.

Also, cases are lower than feared and it seems this may be because people are being careful. If that's true, that's very heartening.

When I was in A and E , there was a teenage lad there is a nasty state. I know he is just one boy but his mum said he is normally very fit and healthy and had been utterly knocked for six. She was so shocked by how ill he was.

I am more anxious this year than last. I feel like we are actively funnelling the school community into some screwed up herd immunity by infection experiment that we will regret long after this government has gone. I think long covid and neurological impacts in people who have had mild or severe covid is worrying and is minimised by the whole "kids don't get it/don't transmit/don't get ill/it's just flu" mantra that has been trotted out. It also stops things getting back to more of a genuine normality. Lots is said in the name of keeping schools open, whilst removing all measures to help that be done in a safer way. I keep hearing how we are following the science - where is the science behind current proposals?

What about school staff who are either not vaccinated or have only had one. If they teach positive children do they have to isolate for 10 days each time? Does this mean a lack of teachers, TA’s or admin staff?

Teachers, at secondary at least, largely never had to isolate in those scenarios as we weren’t considered part of the bubble and should have magically stayed 2m away from everyone.

Yeah, no one ever isolated at my secondary school (staff). We just had to pretend we'd always socially distanced from the crowds.

I wonder if unvaccinated teachers (I heard we had some who weren't getting it) will still be expected to maintain distance from the kids then?

My friend is unvaccinated. Not by choice; a medical issue. I do worry for her.

I wonder what the Government will 'advise' for all the immunosuppressed or immunocompromised teachers, staff and pupils given the vaccine hasn't necessarily had a robust enough effect.

I don't think we have any at our school, but a friend at another school said she had two unvaccinated through choice colleagues who said they are going to refuse to attend assemblies, trips etc in the autumn term as they don't feel safe

Do we know that twice-weekly LFD testing will definitely be stopping at the end of September or is that still not been decided?

Looking at wider MN, unvaccinated people aren't quite how we imagine. They often seem to be actually quite cautious about mixing etc. That said, lots of them WFH, which is certainly not what teachers can do.

It's 'up for review' at the end of September which I think will mean it will go. But they are having us do them in September so that newspaper articles can have 'measures in schools include 2 tests in school at the start of term and twice weekly testing at home from then on' (that was the BBC, who ignored the September review, and ignored that primaries won't have either of those things).

I’ll still be distancing as much as possible. I hope that isn’t going to be frowned upon. I know several double vaccinated people who have been seriously unwell after catching it. Very different if we’d managed to avoid delta but we didn’t.

We have a member of staff who cannot have the vaccine and is ecv currently being treated for cancer still. My school had her in school working in her own little area distancing but not in the classroom at all.

I don’t know what happens with these people

@DanglingMod

I don't think we have any at our school, but a friend at another school said she had two unvaccinated through choice colleagues who said they are going to refuse to attend assemblies, trips etc in the autumn term as they don't feel safe

I just can't even...what?

I can't imagine colleagues will have much patience with them.

The idea of double vaxxed/children avoiding isolation (as DH and DS just have!) is not that you are supposed to carry on as normal. You are supposed to then go on to limit contacts and wear masks. This is certainly not going to happen in schools. I also wonder how much sympathy any parent will get if they ask for time off work because a spouse or child is ill and needs caring for. DH would not have left me alone, not for the first four of five days anyway and parents certainly won't leave young children!

Lots of friends work in GP surgeries and their work have overruled the isolation rules and anyone with a family member at home with covid can’t go into work. Much better idea

Schools get threatened with legal action if they do that.

I have a feeling there will be a lot of restrictions brought back by half term. Whether it gets to a point where schools are closed, I don’t know. But I certainly don’t think it will be “business as normal”

Agreed. I work in a private school so finished before my children. Literally in the house the whole time as I had loads to do. 14 days later, my 14 year old showed symptoms and a couple more days down the line we all had it. I assume the 14 year old picked it up in his school. I am double vaxxed and it made no difference to me. I was unwell - unwell enough to not have worked for 18 days if it hadn’t been the holidays. Didn’t need a doctor or the hospital. Going off that train of transmission (and I realise it’s anecdotal but it reflects many of my friends’ experiences) it is hard to see anything other than schools individually needing to close off and on for the full academic year. If the timing of boosters is off, schools with older staff in larger numbers may really struggle. They can’t expect us to crowding hundreds of kids into halls for assemblies and there not to be a knock on effect when one of them is positive.