Media blackout on school cases this term

[3asAbird]

I find it really odd all English secondary schools are back including my own children's school.
They all did testing well over a week ago.
Neither the news letter or local rag that normally lives for this kind of news has reported any postive cases which find hard to believe.

I asked primary head and she said only if 5or more cases would they inform parents and I argued how do vunerable parents or parents of vunerable kids assess risk to them if they unaware.
I would love to see more transparency on how many postives each week and % of kids who have tested.
Also phe clear published figures how much infections within educational settings each week.

The current newsletters are like alternate universe where covid doesn't exist.
None of my kids are vaccinated and 1 has ashma.

Think people summoning any absence i school or staff possibly maybe covid but I dislike all the secrecy.

I know my local small secondary school found over 12 cases in the testing and at one point last week had over 30 children off with a positive PCR.

This is in a reasonably high transmission area.

The news is not being shared with staff or parents and household members no longer have to isolate so there have been cases where siblings have tested positive 3-4 days after each other - all while attending school.

I think it’s a shame data not being shared so it’s transparent for families but I also understand the reasons why it can’t be.

In schools we are just expected to carry on as normal (assemblies, open evenings, all students in the canteen together). I think in a few weeks things may get bad - although I hope not as I quite like the return to “normality”.

On the plus side the vast majority of children on have very mild symptoms and there are lots of examples I know of where parents have not caught it from their positive children.

Staff in school are fully expecting to catch it within the next month or so which will likely be when the real disruption starts as there won’t be enough staff to cover lessons.

We have had loads of reporting of cases in schools here

Maybe you should ask HQ to change your clickbait title to
"My child's school newsletter" rather than "media"

However, for more anecdata, my friend is a deputy head and half their year 12s missed induction due to positivity.

Our local School has 5 confirmed staff cases and at least 13 kids (out of about 200) it’s not in the local news either

Our school newsletter said 4 or 5 cases. I personally know of 17 (was involved in the pre-testing last week)... so even if they "tell" you, who knows the truth.

@Geamhradh

Maybe you should ask HQ to change your clickbait title to "My child's school newsletter" rather than "media"

But its not just the 2 schools my children attend I have no idea if there's any postive cases. July local media was constantly reporting infections in schools over 4% of city pupils over 2000 kids were at home 1 week. Nationally I thought was reported over million kids off in July not all had covid some close contacts due to bubbles. Seen some article regarding Scotland and ni schools struggling but I assume they have different rules to England . So not fair comparison.

Why are we not allowed to be informed.
Especially as they dragging thier feet in jabs.
Also not all vunerable 12 to 15 year old have had chance have 2 doses yet

Not sure university fully returned yet.
I'm sure there must be cases at our senior school.
Most of kids travel on public buses with work commuters.
Testing is not a mandatory.
Islating close contacts has gone

Every school and council seem be different.
But silence from National and local media on stats of postives from start of school testing I find odd.

Our primary school tells the class ASAP and they all get reported in weekly newsletter.

What would you do differently if you had this info? We're in Scotland and our school have been very good at keeping us informed. We've had 5 of the Warn and Inform letters in the 2 weeks since they went back. The problem is that I don't know what to do with this information. There's no testing or isolating of contacts so everybody just carries on as normal meaning that it'll just keep going round the school. If I keep them off every time there's a covid case they'd never be there!

I think you need to find yourself a new hobby.

@BeyondMyWits

Our school newsletter said 4 or 5 cases. I personally know of 17 (was involved in the pre-testing last week)... so even if they "tell" you, who knows the truth.

Maybe confirmed PCR.

No black out here, the school has always informed parents of cases

2000 LFT taken and no positives

@Geamhradh

Maybe you should ask HQ to change your clickbait title to "My child's school newsletter" rather than "media"

I dunno, there was a media blackout before Christmas on school isolations. We all knew in the summer when there was a million kids isolating and how terrible it was. Were there similar national headlines and outraged discussions when nearly a million kids were isolating before Christmas? We can't trust the media to actually report what's happening in schools.

The DfE also suppress data - they didn't allow PHE to publish an analysis of how the delta variant was spreading in schools in the summer, for example. They have also decided that covid attendance data will only be published every fortnight instead of every week, and that heads will be reporting it weekly instead of daily. Kids who actually have covid will be coded as I (general illness) instead of X (covid) in registers too, making it far less obvious.

I'm wondering whether this is a move into the 'endemic' stage of the virus? Which is fair enough if there was clear government communication on this. I think the recovery mode is quite sneaky and has left many people confused.

We are already at the 'over 10 cases in a group' level for 2 year groups and have multiple staff waiting for a PCR result after being deemed close contacts. I couldn't tell you how many students have been for PCRs as parents are not very forthcoming with information. We are asking politely for masks in common areas, most staff are back to masks already.

I know of at least 15 students in school at the moment whilst there is an active case at home, not because parents told us but the students. Actually, no parent has told us....

This is going so well.

Our school is still reporting cases to parents. I’m not interested in any other schools, it has no relevance to my life.

My local council emails residents weekly inform us how many covid postives as %and total cases over last 7days and tells it it's high and higher than England average so be cautious,test and wear a mask neither of which are mandatory.
Also gives % of adults who received least 1 jab .

Why can't be have same level transparency in schools.
Clearly some are being more honest than others.

I kive in large city hundreds of school.
Freinds at other schools to mine.
They heard of no cases.
The media is not reporting
The usual Facebook groups no mention of covid.

Or are they waiting until they eventually day teens can have jabs then paint a bad picture as reason to get child immunised.
As at moment its like the pandemic is over in schools.
This seems to vary from what schools are doing in other countries

We had a few positives on LFTs before returning to school but there was no letter or email to staff or parents to inform though, even when they received a positive PCR. I only know because I was involved in the testing.
I did get an email from dcs primary to say there was a case in the school and just a reminder of the symptoms to look out for, what to do etc but that’s it.
I do agree with the OP though that there is, or will be, a media blackout with the gov determined to prove schools are fine and their plan is working great. You are better off asking those who work in schools what is really happening. It’s only been a week so far, feels like the calm before the storm. Come back and ask in a month

Thank god for that, all our newsletters consisted of covid updates last year and yesterday’s newsletter was a blessed relief. We don’t need to be bombarded anymore.

They’re probs my waiting

Ons study from March proved that when followed up by PCR almost 60% were false positive

Many refused to do them in our school

Ons study from March proved that when followed up by PCR almost 60% were false positive

Infection rates in kids are now much, much higher than they were in March so false positives will be far less of an issue.

I absolutely do not want what you are suggesting

It’s scaremongering

Cases don’t matter as almost in last week or so will be asymptomatic

We are deliberately moving away from cases that was the whole point of ‘living with the virus’

I appreciate it’s a worry with cev kids but cev kids who are well enough to go to school are very likely to have no or mild symptoms too

The last things we need is more emphasis on cases as people don’t care if joe bloggs has it

My dd is now a contact of 5 positive kids and I don’t give two hoots as not one of them has a sniffle! Dd is at achool as per normal

Are they noble because I’m northwest eat and at 330/100,000 it’s less than half Feb/March

@ByThePool2021

We had a few positives on LFTs before returning to school but there was no letter or email to staff or parents to inform though, even when they received a positive PCR. I only know because I was involved in the testing. I did get an email from dcs primary to say there was a case in the school and just a reminder of the symptoms to look out for, what to do etc but that’s it. I do agree with the OP though that there is, or will be, a media blackout with the gov determined to prove schools are fine and their plan is working great. You are better off asking those who work in schools what is really happening. It’s only been a week so far, feels like the calm before the storm. Come back and ask in a month

Thanks I just can't believe how many parents are happy be kept in dark on this. The lack of honesty and transparency. If my child got invited tea, a trip or older kids wanted to go somewhere minus adult I would risk assess. I'm sure schools will be fine until they not and severe staff shortage. The school year is young. Any reports from people who work in education are accused being anecdotal hearsay. Theres no official stats for us to look at.

If they authorise jabs teens would many parents agree if they don't see covid is a problem for schools.

Our school is still reporting all cases to parents so I’m not kept in the dark.
We had 4 cases in the first week (we’ve been back 3 weeks) and none since.
What happens in other schools really isn’t any concern of mine.