Are secondary schools currently closing due to covid or just ours?

[altmember]

My daughter's secondary school (she's in yr 8) has been closing to year groups on a rotational basis since the beginning of October. They said it was because of staff shortages due to covid and other illnesses. Apparently staff numbers are 1/3rd down, so they can't accommodate all the kids in at once.
So two out of 5 year groups has been 'working from home', on average about 2 days per week for the last month.

A month ago cases in the community were particularly high (peaked about 1100 per 100k), so the school being on it's knees wasn't surprising then. But cases have been progressively dropping since, and we're now down to about 300 per 100k locally. The school was struggling more and more getting towards half term, but they were confident the fire break effect of the half term week off would get things back to normal. Well, they've been back for 3 days and now the school has announced year group closures starting again today (Thursday).

Obviously, I can understand the school's predicament, but if it carries on like this it's going to be pretty detrimental to their education. Yet I've not heard of any other schools in the area suffering like this, and covid cases are broadly similar. So why is our school getting absolutely hammered?

There's been little in the local or national media about it. Is this a common thing, happening all over the UK and just being kept quiet?

"There's been little in the local or national media about it. Is this a common thing, happening all over the UK and just being kept quiet?"

School posts have been common since last year and there is always someone who says my school is fine no cases etc.

As you note the real difficulty for schools is when staff come down with covid. Even jabbed people have to be off for 2 weeks and I know some teachers who can still be Ill for a month after catching it. Maybe viral loads are high in schools.

Schools that were hit last year will have staff who have been infected and double jabbed. Statistically this gives the best protection and reinfection is rare. Schools that last year " were fine no cases etc" will likely be worse affected this year.

The school I'm at had cases last year and is in the nw so have few staff off but we have still had to go back to masks on corridors and assemblies and staff meetings on teams etc

Not at my daughters secondary school here in London and to be honest I don’t think schools here will be closing again.

It sounds very inconvenient, OP, but I'm pretty sure it's not being done for a laugh. Have you contacted the school directly to discuss it?

It sounds like Covid is going around the staff at the moment, so the community statistics won’t be very relevant. I would ask the school how long they anticipate having to carry on in this way.

Crikey. That’s a high rate. Ours is 470ish per 100k. Not that I’ve heard of in any of the local schools - children from round here go to 3 different secondaries and they all seem relatively fine. It is bad that this is being suppressed. Again.

South West here. After a previously quiet Covid our local schools have closed this term.
All the year 13 &11 were out in June working and have continuously picked up Covid from tourists. By end the end of summer the year 12 &10s were also working and have now gone back to school but it's majorly in the school population. The vaccine for the younger kids has been cancelled and they be only just offered it to the older ones. A few older ones are vaccinated by driving 52 mile trip, no public transport, between 3pm and 6pm. Obviously no 16 year old selling ice creams for £5 an hour managed that.
But it's ok my Brexit voting boomer parents have had their booster at the local surgery and can't understand what all the fuss is about.

Both of my double vaccinated teacher sisters had Covid in half term last week. One is really quite poorly. Both have to take the following week off.

So if the staff can't come in they can't teach in person.

I work on a secondary school on London and we’ve had no closures and only if e staff member has been off sick with Covid, and only because it was an asymptomatic positive LFT followed by PCR.
Quite a few kids off at different times but no closures or forced year group isolations.

We are not closed yet but my school is full of Covid. Lots of children off and staff at their limits. It's pretty crazy at the moment with SLT covering lessons and break and lunch times. If we literally have one or two more staff off we physically won't have enough adults. Moral is also very low. It's a shit environment to work in. Everyone is just waiting to get Covid.

We,'ve just dropped 25% now 773 but it will climb again after half term. I'm proper cross with the ripped off Covid infested visitors coming down here, pulling every trick in the book to get their holiday, being hideous to the locals. And I'm furious with the locals and up country investors now turning every garage and bungalow into an Air BNB. I hope the whole lot crashes down and everyone gets back to the med.

You’ve literally outlined the reasons why in your OP. A high case rate and huge numbers of staff are out of action.

Write to your MP to complain.

So far they haven't.
My eldests secondary is getting the children to do saliva testing every Monday. I hope its nipping any cases in the bud.
My younger teens school is ignoring covid so I'm basically crossing my fingers.

A lot is being kept quiet.

Staff shortages are a real difficulty. There are very few supply staff at the moment. They went into tutoring and are now not available or don't want to go into school. Schools are also being financially hammered by supply costs and have not been given any extra money (ever) to cope with the extra costs covid brings.

My yearx13 dd had no teacher input education in one A Level subject for 3 weeks and another for a week. School acted fast and reintroduced restrictions before Council got off their ass like mask wearing etc but too late. Primary school seems unaffected. In an area where cases topped at 700 per 100K but on all the school threads it seems that it is all junky dory and all the cherubs have done so much better this year and if a teacher happens to be poorly they get a supply. We'll for younger kids you might.
Last year was better for us and even the periods of home learning as least she was being taught by a well teacher on zoom not having work set by an ill teacher.

We are a primary and still open, but after half term we went back into a adapted version of bubbles along with the rest of our borough. We have a lot of staff sickness atm (luckily mostly support staff so we are muddling along) but we are dinging it incredibly hard to get supply in so we are struggling!

@walksen

"There's been little in the local or national media about it. Is this a common thing, happening all over the UK and just being kept quiet?"

School posts have been common since last year and there is always someone who says my school is fine no cases etc.

As you note the real difficulty for schools is when staff come down with covid. Even jabbed people have to be off for 2 weeks and I know some teachers who can still be Ill for a month after catching it. Maybe viral loads are high in schools.

Schools that were hit last year will have staff who have been infected and double jabbed. Statistically this gives the best protection and reinfection is rare. Schools that last year " were fine no cases etc" will likely be worse affected this year.

The school I'm at had cases last year and is in the nw so have few staff off but we have still had to go back to masks on corridors and assemblies and staff meetings on teams etc

The media are keeping things quiet.

It's absolutely unbelievable how they have behaved through this.

Nothing is shown of what is going on in schools or the fact that Covid is just being allowed to sweep through schools, infecting children and staff.

There’s been a lot of cases and staff shortages but also a lot of kids off with it isolating too so it’s just been managed in school with stand in teachers.

It’s an absolute disgrace how this is basically being shushed up.
Secondary schools near me are staying open by a thread but only just.
Overall I support schools staying open but it’s a national disgrace why the teens weren’t vaccinated in the summer

We had higher cases earlier on and no extra closures

London too same as pp

There aren't enough staff in lots of schools, and there aren't any supply teachers either in lots of places. Or supply teachers are already booked. We have at least one supply teacher in every day in our school, and have already used all of our supply budget for the year. Next it will be closures or combining classes, neither of which works for education.

As parents, it's also worth wondering how safe schools are if staffing is low. It takes quite a lot of staff absence for a Head to actually close a school, but there will have been literally weeks or months since March 2020, where schools aren't safe for children or adults due to low staff levels and heightened levels of child anxiety. This time last year was scary. Not covid scary, but just scary. Children on edge, staff on edge, extreme behaviours from children, lots of exclusions and so on.

Just before half term we had rate of 845 per 100K - and DC secondary sent one year group home very quietly as they had such low staff levels. Wasn't in school e-mails to parents or on webpage our children told us then confirmed by some parenst we knew with children in that year.

I know another local school did similar week before that did hit local paper and according to DD1 mate at socthform at yet another they'd done similar.

There were BBC articles about how in this part of UK they couldn't get supply teachers in many secondaries.

I know our children have had many supply teachers in their classes including GCSE years.

The rates have dropped to over 600 per 100,000 people now and they got down to the 12 year olds in vaccination program and most of the flu vaccines have ben done in the schools now. They've also reintroduced masks in all day in school. So hopefully this half term won't be as bad.

Before opening the thread i thought it would be staff absences.

Not here yet. I live close to two high schools, both have 250 kids a year. I know teachers in both.. there’s covid, there are staff off but all year groups remain open & schools fully functioning. Our area is in the top 10 for cases in Yorkshire!

My DD’s school was back in bubbles, staggered lunches & no visitors before half term after an outbreak took out half the teachers (one form entry school so that’s only 4 of them). Luckily supply teachers were in & no other disruption. It’s back to normal now. My DD’s teacher has an awful lung condition & she caught it 😩 but thankfully, back after two weeks. I was so relieved to see her on Monday!

@Mummyoflittledragon

Crikey. That’s a high rate. Ours is 470ish per 100k. Not that I’ve heard of in any of the local schools - children from round here go to 3 different secondaries and they all seem relatively fine. It is bad that this is being suppressed. Again.

As I said in my OP, the local rate was very high a month or so ago. But it's been dropping steadily ever since and now it's one of the lowest in the county at 300 per 100k.

So I fully understood why the school was on it's knees a month ago, even though schools in neighbouring towns haven't had to partially close like this, despite similar covid rates. Appreciate that the teachers mostly won't be living in the local msoa, and that the local rates aren't a direct indicator of what's going on in the school.

My younger kids are at one of the local primaries and they've not had anything like the level of staff absence that the secondary has, just one teacher been off with covid (I know primary age kids are less infectious, so that's got to be a factor, but even so).

You’ve literally outlined the reasons why in your OP. A high case rate and huge numbers of staff are out of action. Write to your MP to complain.

I know why, I just don't know if this is normal - happening all over the county? Because schools in neighbouring towns to ours aren't suffering this way. Our MP is worse than useless, she always toes the whip, even when it's detrimental to her constituents. People write to her about all sorts of issues. All that happens is they receive a generic response saying 'thank you for your correspondence, I'm doing a good job for you'.

It sounds like Covid is going around the staff at the moment, so the community statistics won’t be very relevant. I would ask the school how long they anticipate having to carry on in this way.

The school was pretty confident that they'd be able to return to fully open after half term. They confirmed as much last weekend, and first 3 days of this week they were fully open. If it only took 3 days after the mini 'firebreak' of half term for things to spiral out of control again, it doesn't look good for the rest of the winter.

The school have been very careful in how they've worded their letters/statements - saying that a high number of pupils have had covid, but being vague about the reason for such high staff absences (I get that employer confidentiality might be a consideration). They certainly can't all be off with covid, not 1/3rd of the staff, for over a month.