Outbreak in primary what happens?

[Sarah62]

Reasonably large outbreak in our local primary, approx 10 kids currently testing positive in one class.

What action will/can school take?

Will the class closed and children sent home? Or does the school wait for it to spread to other siblings/classes and then close?

If we make it through the next two weeks it’s going to be a miracle

You should get a letter to inform unless one of them has Omicron. Don't expect much though.

We have just had most of our school and teachers hit by covid. Nothing happened. Its been left to spread and going up the year groups. School couldn’t of cared less

It varies.
Round us, if they have enough adults, schools are staying open. One primary was below 50% for both children and staff at one point this term, but stayed open.

As always schools are just following DfE guidance.

And it's very stressful for the staff to stay open in these circumstances so perhaps that should be appreciated.

Recent outbreak in my class where 1/3 of the children got it and the two TA's. The kids got a letter. That was it.

A local school had such an outbreak that they had no choice but to close, as not enough staff. Now cases in small town are 1700+ per 100000 (rural area) and one member of staff dead.

It's now of course spreading to all other schools. I doubt we will get to Christmas. Or worse, the ones still standing will catch it to isolate over Christmas having worked in the thick of it.

What do you want the school to do? For every parent wanting mitigations there will be others complaining bitterly if poor Fred is made to wash his hands too often, or the windows are open in class, or his nativity is on zoom.

Schools can only follow the guidance. In the case of an outbreak they will be told what to do directly by PHE. Which I can tell you, from personal experience, is diddly-squat.

We closed a couple of classes Friday- Tuesday to try to reduce spread, and asked parents to get PCRs over the weekend. We've had Covid constantly in every class since September, but yesterday things seemed to have calmed down - it seems it ripped through the school and we've now mostly had it, if we're going to get it. It'll be interesting to see if we now get the Omicron variant at some point. We managed to cover classes because we have several PGCE students in, and they were left alone with the class. Bang out of order for both the students and the children if you ask me, but the classes stayed open and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I did wonder if we'd have teacher parents complain, but not a peep.

14 children in my class got covid over the space of 8 days. The class stayed open. The TA didn’t catch it so taught the class. Remote learning was provided for children but couldn’t make contact at home as I was ill.

The enhanced measures included wiping the light switch with anti bac and the class was ring fenced meaning they weren’t allowed to go in the hall for assembly and ate in the classroom. They could mix freely outside with other classes at break and lunch though.

Also adults from the affected clsss were still able to move between classes to teach, share TAs etc. I was told that the DFE guidance allowed this when I questioned it. Glad I exercised caution as I didn’t spread it to other staff in the year group.

They will only close if Public Health England/Wales/whoever tell them too (unless they run out of teachers, I suppose).

If you are worried, keep your DC home.

If there's an outbreak in our county (5 or more cases per class), it's referred to local Public Health to discuss additional restrictions. Most recently this has involved putting that class into a bubble and advising parents and suggesting they might wish to test their child.

PHE seem to be advising the classes to all get PCR tested if there is more than two confirmed cases in a class round here.

There are 19 cases at our school, 15 in one class and now the teacher has it too. The class with 15 has gone back to a bubble and taking frequent lateral flows. The head sends us emails to let us know how many cases there currently are.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

As always schools are just following DfE guidance.

I actually don’t think that is true. DCs school told us they were following all guidance/instructions issued by PHE I think it was, definitely not DfE.

There was quite a serious outbreak in a couple of years. We were told they were introducing special measures (they said amber, no idea if that’s a standard phrase or their language) as the percentage of cases had gone above a certain level. For a period of time they went back to no outside visitors, masks for staff in communal areas and parents on pick up/drop off and reverted to year group bubbles. I’m sure there were others things too but those are the main two I can remember. It was to be reviewed after 3 weeks at which point cases were low enough that they reverted back to normal.

When there was a small number of cases in DCs class we weren’t even informed (only knew because the parents told us on the Class WhatsApp).

@Saladd0dger

We have just had most of our school and teachers hit by covid. Nothing happened. Its been left to spread and going up the year groups. School couldn’t of cared less

@Saladd0dger I'm sick of people blaming schools. It's not that the school doesn't care it's hands are tied by public health. I have been in the room with my head when he had a call for public health, he cannot close he has to do what they say!

I'm sick of people blaming schools. It's not that the school doesn't care it's hands are tied by public health. I have been in the room with my head when he had a call for public health, he cannot close he has to do what they say!

Agreed. I wish people would stop blaming the schools. Our Headteacher wanted to close some classes but wasn't allowed. Public health make the rules, and schools have to follow them.

We follow guidance from PHE.
We currently have 3 classes with more than 5 cases (one has 18 cases!). Those classes each form their own individual bubble, with the same staff supporting each individual class. In practice this means that stay in their classroom for lunch, can't use the hall/library however they are able to use outside spaces with other classes, so do join in with playtime.
Remote learning is set for those at home.
We have been told that once the are 2 cases in a class we are to ask the whole class to get a PCR test, we can't enforce hhis and children can come into school whilst awaiting results.
It is not cases amongst children that would close us, we will only close if we don't have enough staff, we're just hanging on for now.

@Saladd0dger

We have just had most of our school and teachers hit by covid. Nothing happened. Its been left to spread and going up the year groups. School couldn’t of cared less

It's it the school ...it's public health or the department of education that say who and what can be done or info given to parents .... What do you want the school to do ?

We have lots of cases at my school. Once the class hits 10% positive they have to be ring fenced so have lunch and break separately and their own toilets. We had 4 classes ring fenced last week but down to just one this week. We also send a letter out asking the other children in the class to get PCRs. One class did close last week but that was due to lack of staff not covid cases.

Our school are going by the local council's guidance. Still sending out the national letter saying children who are close contacts can come to school with no isolation because the head says she has to send that. She then adds our council letter asking us please to keep close contact child home until they have a negative PCR or isolate for required amount if positive. We had 17 cases before half term when children were allowed in school unless symptomatic while waiting for PCR results.
The one case we had 2 weeks ago stayed at one case when close contacts were removed, thankfully both had negative PCR's

When this happened in our school a couple of weeks ago, they went back into bubbles, and the affected class had to eat in their classroom and have separate playtime with no equipment. They were still allowed to attend after-school club but kept separate from the other children.

Tbh apart from a couple of younger siblings, who would have got it anyway, it did seem to stop it spreading.

Had quite a few cases in KS1 recently. All we're doing is kind of bubbling them, so no in-person assembly and lunch in their classroom. Although one year group all had to take a PCR test last week.

Certainly not closed, on PHE advice.