Considering whether schools might close in Janl?

[PigeonLittle]

Trying to create a title so as not to panic anyone!

What are your guesses, will schools close again?

If they don't want schools to close, they will have to actually do something to limit spread in schools!

It is looking more and more as if this government don't really care if schools close, though. Shocking how slow they have been to roll out vaccinations to teenagers, even.

One of the sources for paediatric admissions, data from the ukhsa dashboard:
twitter.com/jneill/status/1470788839761498112?s=21

They can bloody well close everything else before schools.

If they want to continue to ruin kids education, then close them. But realistically lock everything else down first & see how that goes. Bubble kids up again, stop visitors into school, freeze kids asses off with windows open.

65 kids really isn’t very many kids and there is no suggestion at all these kids are gravely ill. I certainly don’t find it particularly concerning. My kid was admitted to hospital following a stomach bug in summer. She was dehydrated & needed some fluids. These things happen. Out in 24 hours & fully recovered. I suspect this is the case with most children needing a bit of support with covid. Also where they admitted because of covid or just happened to have covid at the time of admission?

@christmaspop

Surely it's pointless to close schools though? Everyone will claim key worker needs and all the kids will be in anyway.

They need mitigations to help them stay open in a safer way

Not everyone...me and Oh both classed as key workers during the last location and we didn't send our child in even though we could have had a space, as we were able to work from home

Oh god, here come the long covid twitter crowd 😫

*lockdown

Even if you want primary school children in masks etc, do you really think it will be the difference between schools being open or not now?

Very crudely, if omicron cases are doubling every 48 hours and masks reduce spread by 10% (probably optimistic for children sharing a space for a long period) masks buy you a few hours for each doubling of cases. I can’t see that being make or break in terms of the viability of schools being open (though I think they should stay open whatever happens).

Children will get covid sooner or later regardless of masks etc and probably sooner with omicron . I think that is now the scientific consensus. So mitigation measures might have public health benefits but they are not going to keep children “safe” from covid. I think the mindset about keeping children safe comes from a period where people thought covid might just disappear if we got cases low enough.

@whynotwhatknot

how would people go to work and theeres no furlough anymore

Yes, that is one thing. There is no money for another lockdown.

Another is that if covid is so rampant in the schools right now (half children in my sons year had it in the last few weeks and his teacher and the other half didnt catch it) then probability of all of them getting it again in 3 weeks time is the tiniest.

Also, why Europe with their masks on small children keeps coming back? Which country is Europe is it that is doing so well? In some countries they had school closed for a year and they have 500 deaths today with less reported cases and apparently omicron hasnt reached those countries yet.

If they did close schools again, maybe people would be more outraged about how they have only given a pittance in funding to covid catch-up for kids, and how it has been an utter shambles. Only reached 8% of the targeted kids this year for a start. If schools close, the government won’t be doing anything to help mitigate the impact.

@rrhuth

I really really really want them to stay open... but I don't see how they can whilst the worst of the Omicron wave happens?

I just keep looking at the predicted case numbers - and I don't see how they can stay open.

I am so cross the government has done nothing to keep schools open - we should have masks, air filters/ventilation, extra space and vaccines for secondary age at least. The government has done FUCK ALL for kids.

Well said.

Their policy on schools has been abysmal. They have no clue.

There should be proper ventilation and filtration in all schools by now.

I can't see many people keeping their kids home if there was a shut down though - most people qualify for key worker places and the epidemic in schools has been out of control for ages. Now that we have a more transmissible strain which evades natural immunity and the vaccines suddenly kids are expected to give up so much when so many of them have had covid over the past term with no protections? So many kids with long covid? Suddenly they're expected to give up everything to protect adults again, when adults have done fuck all to help them? No.

I really hope not, I would find it hard as a parent and as a TA and my ds9 would find it really hard to go back to homeschooling. I personally think that the best solution is to close schools as of Friday giving them slightly longer off at Christmas and limit households mixing again.

@Chessie678 I admit I am looking at it from a secondary perspective but I think anything we can do to reduce transmission in schools has to be a good thing as it reduces community transmission, keeps schools open for more of the time if we can reduce staff catching it, reduces the number of students out at any given time.

I think all those smaller measures together do make a difference - so bubbles, reducing contacts (eg minimise visitors to school), mask wearing for secondary s d maybe UKS2 (although I will bow to my primary colleagues on here as to whether feasible), getting filters to improve air quality/ventilation for schools, keeping siblings of positive cases out of the classrooms for example might all help slightly but together make a bigger difference maybe?

@cantkeepawayforever

and making sure you are comparing like with like.

So the huge differences in population age distribution etc between South Africa and the UK is something that you have fully considered before positing information from that country as relevant to the current situation here? 'Comparing like with like' is important, yes, which is why posting headline numbers from South Africa without very detailed caveats is fundamentally misleading.

Yes obviously differences in population dynamic is obviously something that needs to be taken into account, but this is probably partially offset by the less advanced vaccine program in South Africa.

However it is arguably misleading to quote hospital admission figures for Omicron vs Delta, without any analysis of potential differences in time spent in hospital.

Sadly I think it’s inevitable looking at the data. I say that with a heavy heart, mum of young children who works full time and not able to furlough. I was on the edge of a breakdown last time. Used to cry at the end of the garden so they couldn’t hear me.

In my welsh county and the surrounding counties, schools are closing early and moving to online provision next week. Many schools were meant to be open until Wednesday next week and are now closing on Friday, except for key worker provision. I’m a teacher (advisory type role) but won’t be sending mine in next week as I can work from home.

It’s saddening to see people saying that teachers are calling for schools to close. Every single teacher on this thread has said how much they hope it won’t come to this because of the impact on their pupils. I am really really hoping schools do not close. My children go back on the 10th due to training days. It wouldn’t surprise me if they delay going back another week or so but I would be surprised if they actually close after all the negative press and the known negative impact school closures have on children. Teachers, like parents, will be the last to know.

Oh and one of the staff I work with got given a c02 monitor for her resource provision room. It has no windows. It is meant to have levels under 800. They’re usually between 1000-1800. She has to log it but nothing ever happens because of it. Most pointless thing ever.

I hope they don't close the schools.

I am a single parent, who happens to be a teacher as well. If they shut, I will have to shut my dd in her room for hours on end AGAIN, so that I can deliver lessons. Not such a problem when she was 2. But now that she's 4? Her school will be closed.

We have done everything in our power to keep them open, dealt with lockdowns; online teaching etc at the drop of a hat. I've been working my arse off, setting extra work, accepting the fact that I need to teach 200+ kids a day, in rooms where windows don't open etc. With kids who think it is hilarious to wear masks over their heads or under their chins, and so on and so forth. Which is a joke in itself, and then have the audacity to fuck about, 'my mum says I don't have to wear a mask' etc.

It beggars belief that people say that teachers are begging for another lockdown. It takes about three times as long to plan an online lesson than a real life lesson. Times that by 42 hours a week...

@blameitonthecaffeine

I think it's very likely, for a shortish period. As much to do with lack of staff as controlling spread. If a million people a day are falling sick then teaching / schools will not be the only sector likely to be badly affected by personnel shortages

A situation like that where a school is forced to close temporarily due to their personal circumstances and open when they are able to again is very different to the govt shutting out all non key worker children altogether regardless of whether their school can cope or not.

The first is unavoidable if a school ends up in that position. The second absolutely should not happen and I doubt it will.

Completely agree @blameitonthecaffeine. I can't believe people are equating a very temporary closure due to lack of staff with a government led mandate to close all schools regardless of local infection rates / staffing.

I don't think (I hope??) the later isn't likely.

@Andacherryonthetop I had a co2 monitor in my room, one of the kids stole it. Go figure

@DockOTheBay

Nobody in their right mind would want students to have a third year of disrupted education. GCSE years should be in at an absolute minimum, they've had the opportunity to be vaccinated too.

No they haven't, they've had once dose so far and Omicron needs three (altho I guess two if recent is not bad)

No I don’t think. Completely different situation to a year ago. Teachers have all been jabbed, I can’t see any reason why they would close.

We should have bubbles...we are working with the one group of people who have not been vaccinated. They did away with the isolation of close contacts. Prior to that we would have one or two cases in a class and it would be prevented from spreading too much. Even with delta, the lack of close contact isolation meant that half my class was off at one point at the same time.

I do NOT as a teacher want to be back trying to do it all - teaching face to face AND remotely is not a winning combination and takes a lot longer. And to know that so many people feel we are having a doss while it happens is a kick in the teeth.

I wanted a safer classroom. I was never going to get that with 30 kids shoe horned into a small room with 2 windows that opened a sum width of 10 cm at the bottom, where the windows were both next to each other so no through breeze. We have the CO2 monitors - they are on red constantly with both windows and the door open. Pointless.

Today we have been told that we are going blended learning for the last 3 days of term next week. And they aren't ruling out not being able to open up again straight away after Christmas.

It's a shit-show.

@CatsTheWayToDoIt

No I don’t think. Completely different situation to a year ago. Teachers have all been jabbed, I can’t see any reason why they would close.

Someone needs to watch the news.

No no no no no
Schools won’t close
Just no.
Stop trying to panic everyone @PigeonLittle

I can’t see any reason why they would close