Email from DfE to Headteachers. Schools prepped to shut again?

[AntiMaskersAreTwats]

Do you think this means it likely schools will shut again?

Covid is airborne, they could have done more.

Well, I hope you and your DC are wearing masks all the time in public and at school.

Seriously, everybody is a critic but what would you do to make schools safe! Sending kids to work online from home is not the answer - they have suffered enough. Wear masks....have you tried to make 1500 students compliant with wearing masks! Open the windows, yes that can be done. Keep the doors open, yes. Teachers to remain at the front of the class, yes. More to take up the vaccine - yes in an ideal world. Keep testing, we do, three times a week at present. Marching - what do you hope to achieve apart from passing on the virus. I don't have the answers but all the critics don't either.

Actually I dont think will close again. The cost to the dcs is too high and they know it.

However, they might bring back sending bubbles back home for 10 days etc… to contain things. Which would actually make sense seeing how contagious omicron is p. The whole group is more likely to have had it than with delta, let alone alpha.

I wish they were insisting in ventilation and air purifiers tbh..

They have said that schools will be the last thing that gets shut if any restrictions are required.

@DrMadelineMaxwell - with respect, they also said schools would be the first thing to reopen post-lockdown, which they weren't.

@AntiMaskersAreTwats

What is the source of your screenshot, please?

@moose62, in France secondary school. Children have been wearing a mask all day since last year. It is totally possible to ask 1500 teenagers to wear a mask.

What else could they do? Air purifier and better ventilation (not just windows open btw. It’s cold outside and actually hard to implement).

What I have noticed over those last 18 months is that some schools have been rife with covid (a friend of mine is a teacher - she says about 90% of the teachers git covid with the first 12 months if that). Bit others not so much. A few cases there and then but very few bubbles sent back home etc…
There is a reason. And if some schools can manage that, then surely others can too??

I don’t think schools will close again but bubbles could be reintroduced?

My dd is in 6 form, last year of A level and they are being encouraged to go home during study periods if they can (dd has up to 6 study periods a week) to limit the amount of students moving around school. Schools closing would be awful for her year group, they missed out on sitting GCSE, they have missed out on half of their first year of A level and many of them have had to isolate at least once (dd has had too twice). Kids have been through enough so I’m sure schools closing again will be an absolute last resort.

with respect, they also said schools would be the first thing to reopen post-lockdown, which they weren't

What opened before schools?

I work in financial services, we have many contingency plans for all sorts. We have to legally test them each year. It’s a sensible and normal thing to do.

Schools may have to close - nobody knows what the next few weeks will bring

@moose62 it’s not easy, is it. But I think all the things you’ve suggested need to happen. Lots of small actions taken by everybody will help, it seems to me.

The problem is that schools are great places for the virus to circulate. We can’t avoid that truth. And that doesn’t mean that other places (nightclubs, pubs) aren’t also places for spread, but they’re not essential to the lives of most people, and places that are just for adults can insist on vaccine passes.

@milly74

We are definitely joining any freedom marches, this has to stop. We cannot keep doing this.

DH and I said the same last night. I have read many threads on here though from posters declining the vaccine for their school aged dc so I wonder if the uptake will be higher now?

@TheKeatingFive

with respect, they also said schools would be the first thing to reopen post-lockdown, which they weren't

What opened before schools?

From memory, churches (and other places of worship), some hospitality. It was said that schools were the first to reopen on 5th April, yet almost all schools were on holiday for two weeks. When they eventually did reopen, it was at the same time - or possibly just after - non essential shops, businesses and hospitality.

Children have really have their education disrupted for pretty much 2 years. Enough is enough.
Schools should only close as a very last resort- ie no staff available. And on an individual basis. Children need to be in school- for education, for socialisation, and, most importantly, for safeguarding.

@Spikeyball

Shutting all schools would mean bringing back furlough which the government will be loathe to do and the number of keyworker children this time will make it pointless.

So true- you’d literally be excluding 4 kids from a class of 30 and telling teachers to remote and class teach- pointless

@Mybalconyiscracking

I will March this time, enough is enough! What is the bloody end game here?

The end game for the OP is trying to whip up a frenzy.. Why are you falling for it?

So what do people suggest? If those in 'control' (government, school boards, experts) say schools need to be closed as they can't operate safely?
Instead of a letter to Santa, should pupils be writing letters to Covid? Asking to please stay away?

I desperately want schools to stay open, for things to return to what they were pre-covid. Our family life has been completely shattered by Covid, and I can already see lasting damage from lockdown and school closures (before someone accuses me of being a 'lockdown lover' 🙄)

But what's the alternative?

From memory, churches (and other places of worship), some hospitality.

What hospitality?

You could argue that churches should never have closed, I hardly see they as some great indicator that schools aren't a top priority.

[quote LostForIdeas]**@moose62, in France secondary school. Children have been wearing a mask all day since last year. It is totally possible to ask 1500 teenagers to wear a mask.

What else could they do? Air purifier and better ventilation (not just windows open btw. It’s cold outside and actually hard to implement).

What I have noticed over those last 18 months is that some schools have been rife with covid (a friend of mine is a teacher - she says about 90% of the teachers git covid with the first 12 months if that). Bit others not so much. A few cases there and then but very few bubbles sent back home etc…
There is a reason. And if some schools can manage that, then surely others can too??[/quote]
@moose62, in France secondary school. Children have been wearing a mask all day since last year. It is totally possible to ask 1500 teenagers to wear a mask

My brother lives in the USA. They make all children from 6 years upwards mask in schools and in public. He says there haven't been many problems enforcing it and vast majority of children do wear it.

@LostForIdeas @KaycePollard I work in a school where we do all that. I spend a large part of my day asking students to wear their mask, put their masks on correctly etc. it seems a badge of honour for them to remove them as soon as you are out of view. only about 50% are compliant and obviously the staff. We keep all the doors and windows open and all breaks are outside. We don't have any large assemblies or gatherings anymore. We will be doing whole school testing on the return to school in January. These are all things the DFES has asked us to do. I don't see what further measures we can take..... and perhaps we have been lucky as a school but I have always felt safe.

@kittensinthekitchen

So what do people suggest? If those in 'control' (government, school boards, experts) say schools need to be closed as they can't operate safely? Instead of a letter to Santa, should pupils be writing letters to Covid? Asking to please stay away?

I desperately want schools to stay open, for things to return to what they were pre-covid. Our family life has been completely shattered by Covid, and I can already see lasting damage from lockdown and school closures (before someone accuses me of being a 'lockdown lover' 🙄)

But what's the alternative?

Close everything else before schools! Until hospitalisations rocket I can’t see the requirement to close schools!

A third of my sons class have tested positive since last Friday. Most of them over the weekend. They were supposed to have their nativity in front of parents this week but it got cancelled with 24hr notice.

Some parents in the WhatsApp chat still whinged about how it wasn't fair they couldn't see it in person although it was still going ahead. Oblivious to the kids and their families also in the group who were at home ill and the families with vulnerable family members they desperately want to see this Christmas.

A friend of mine got covid off his kids at half term. He's 43. Double jabbed. No underlying health issues. Ended up in hospital. He was only in for 4 or 5 days on oxygen but since being discharged he still can't walk further than 10metres.

And people want to march and protest?

To achieve what exactly? What is your goal?

Our school has been brilliant. They are still running as much as possible for other year groups. They've bent over backwards.

And they are still in this situation.

And all parents do is whinge. The schools cannot do right for doing wrong over things completely beyond their control.

And people want to march and protest? To achieve what exactly? What is your goal? to keep schools open- I’m sorry for your friend but he could have caught covid from the shops or a pub, children are still relatively unaffected by covid so no I don’t expect my child’s education and mental well being to be compromised in any way when adults will still mix.

As an aside - I have no school age DC and don't know anyone who does, so have nothing to go on.

What are the guidelines in schools at the moment re covid mitigations? The school DD is doing her placement at don't seem to have any, is this right? No regular testing for staff or students or anything (apart from the planned 'back to school' test day I already mentioned). Someone mentioned upthread that teachers should stay at the front of the class - she's been walking around classes looking at students' work and helping them with it. Doors and windows aren't open it anything. I was quite surprised but thought it must be how it is in schools - this thread has made me think otherwise!

‘We need to learn to live with it’ - that was the excuse mantra for having thousands of daily cases with zero mitigation’s in place (‘vaccines will save us, irreversible unlocking blah blah’) as summer drew to a close.

Guess that’ll be a no then- we can’t live with it untamed because this is what happens. You take massive steps backwards and lay down the welcome mat for new variants to take hold.

Perhaps after our tenth or eleventh wave people will understand that ignoring Covid simply prolongs the agony and that schools and our education system need a complete overhaul to move forward. Clearly the pre-covid setup is incompatible with Covid world.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

And people want to march and protest? To achieve what exactly? What is your goal? to keep schools open- I’m sorry for your friend but he could have caught covid from the shops or a pub, children are still relatively unaffected by covid so no I don’t expect my child’s education and mental well being to be compromised in any way when adults will still mix.

Perhaps it's just my area, but schools are only partially closing at the minute due to lack of staff. Marching isn't going to change this. It won't stop staff getting ill or help with the lack of supply staff.