Schools - why are they doing this?

[Scrooge89]

Why are the media preparing us for school closures? They simply can’t do this to us…

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-59673271

Not to my children. My youngest struggled so much at home and was one of the 25% who couldn’t go to school (although I saw how much some people fudged the key worker card I may have to do it).

I'm one of the minority that really enjoyed having my children home and homeschooling (yes I did work throughout from home, as did my husband and it was hard work and stressful). For the sake of my children I truly hope schools don't have to close again. They're both in primary school and have missed so much this past couple of years. Our school has been amazing and really managed to control the situation but they are under incredible pressure and stress. I hope January isn't as bad as being predicted

@Iheartbaby is STILL ignoring my post that I linked to AIBU where an office worker walked out as her colleague was a close contact to covid.

Me think @iheartbaby chooses to target teachers.

Its definitely due to staff - teaching, admin, kitchen, care takers and cleaning staff - illness. I was told there aren't enough sub teachers available either.

I know its really hard to have them home for online learning but its just impossible to keep schools running with so many staff off.

Taxi drivers can ask people for wear masks and open his windows?
If I was a taxi driver that's what I would be doing and driving along with tons of beautiful fresh air whipping around is still so much safer and more in the taxi drivers control than being physically pinned down in a room!

No one wants to close schools but currently Covid infections are doubling every 2 days so there is a chance that schools will have to close or partially close as so many staff will become infected. I really don’t think there will be a national lockdown, larger schools should be able to keep part open.

School rules have changed now too. There are no bubbles etc. and if a teacher goes off with covid or a child in class has it then is business as usual for the rest. We work closely, and I mean close enough to get snot etc in your eyes from a sneeze/cough from children who have a parent or sibling at home with covid. Many rethinking the risk in the profession as added to other strains it just isn't worth it. I'm pretty certain that I caught covid from a child at work in the summer and I'm still not right.

@Rahra

To be fair it’s only ‘taking out’ large numbers of pupils and staff because of the isolation rules not because they’re all actually ill.

If it wasn’t covid and just a normal cold/flu whatever most people who are isolating would have been perfectly fine to come in.

And yes I have worked in a work place where lots of people were dropping with covid and I still had to come in.

Absolutely it's the government policy that's causing the problem. My Neice who is a teaching assistant has worked all the way through and she says they are not really ill, when she had covid she didn't know she had it, it was cos she had to test for school. My mother in law is currently in hospital, the ward she's on went out on their Xmas party and now misty of them have covid, thing is they weren't scared to go out so what does that tell you.

The UsForThem group is a non political lobby group which represents the interests of children in the pandemic.
They are currently lobbying the government to keep schools open.
It is worth going onto their website and getting the email template to send to your MP.
You can find your MP by googling "find your MP", which will have her or his constituent email address.

Send me a DM if you require any further information.

To those saying the situation is "serious", I'd argue that no one has yet died of this new variant (yes someone has died "with" it, but not died "from" it) and the hospitals are not overwhelmed. And if they are, it's probably with cancer patients and those with untreated heart disease at this stage.

My kids came home from school prepared to not go back if necessary.

There are literally no isolation rules unless you test positive which is why myself as a teacher and the kids remain cannon fodder to boost herd immunity.

After 10 days I got pneumonia, now I’m on week 6 with tonsillitis begging them to help me. We are in our knees and we are very ill believe me

I can handle whatever is thrown at me and even tho i wont be happy for the dc's to be homeschooling again if it happens it isnt my main concern. lessons need to be learnt from cases like little arthur. children must never again be hidden completly behind closed doors. the majority of children will be well looked after but the ones that suffer must never be ignored again. there needs to be something put in place so that children are still seen regularly and their welfare is priority

@Baystard

Half of our school classes are already at home because of staff shortages - too many staff off with covid to be able to operate normally.

Same. We just had 2 weeks of no school due to staff shortages. That included keyworker kids. Wouldn't surprise me if it closes again after Christmas.

There is a big difference between shutting all schools to save the nhs and shutting individual schools that are having an outbreak.

It’s not rocket science, children are spreaders. They spread Covid, everywhere. They’re practically licking each other daily. You keep schools open you have more transmission. More transmission = more demand on the NHS. So tired of stating the bloody obvious.

Schools should be the last places to close.

@TraumatisedinTwickenham

The UsForThem group is a non political lobby group which represents the interests of children in the pandemic. They are currently lobbying the government to keep schools open. It is worth going onto their website and getting the email template to send to your MP. You can find your MP by googling "find your MP", which will have her or his constituent email address.

Send me a DM if you require any further information.

To those saying the situation is "serious", I'd argue that no one has yet died of this new variant (yes someone has died "with" it, but not died "from" it) and the hospitals are not overwhelmed. And if they are, it's probably with cancer patients and those with untreated heart disease at this stage.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

@Christmascovid89

It’s not rocket science, children are spreaders. They spread Covid, everywhere. They’re practically licking each other daily. You keep schools open you have more transmission. More transmission = more demand on the NHS. So tired of stating the bloody obvious.

It’s not harm free to close them. Which is also obvious

Back up what others have said, there are no isolation rules. COVID went through DS class, three kids positive, rest of the class still attending school. No one isolating. No bubbles.

DS came home with a blended learning pack "just in case".

It's not true that schools are only running out of staff because of isolation rules. In the last week my school has seen a massive spike in cases, including many staff (including me, I have Covid for Christmas). Staff aren't off school because of isolation rules, they're off school because they have Covid. In previous weeks they might be off for a day or two whilst they awaited PCR results that were negative so came back in, but now the PCRs are all positive. That's pretty much the extent of the isolation rules, you isolate if you test positive, otherwise you're in. I can only forsee two scenarios in January, either everyone will have already had it by then so we'll all be in (at least those of us without ongoing symptoms will be), or the school will be closed because it hasn't finished ripping through and we don't have enough staff. Honestly Omicron is a game changer, it's never been this bad in my school, we've had more cases this week than we've had all term. Schools are right to be prepared, we may not have a national closure of schools, but they'll be closed anyway if they don't have enough staff. This supposed army of volunteers to staff them simply don't exist.

It's the BBC for goodness sake. It sells papers. Wait and see

@TheHoneyBadger
Great post!

The UsForThem group is a non political lobby group which represents the interests of children in the pandemic.
They are currently lobbying the government to keep schools open.

Us4Them are a shitty branch of the HART group who lobby against any and all covid restrictions. Their chat logs were leaked and now everyone with an internet connection can read how they work with total nut-jobs and conspiracy theorists.

If they know they need a late start to 2022 then the government should lockdown immediately. That way people are kept safe and we may be able to save a few weeks and get children back to school at the start of term.

The damaging effects of last year's lock down on my teen were devastating. He didn't have a real interaction with a peer for over 6 weeks. The school was all talk and no action to try to create ways of getting the teens together over Zoom.

The mental health of children should be an actionable priority where the ONLY action is to lockdown now while there is still time.

This is the exact situation of this time last year. Why repeat the mistake of the past?

I can't emphasize enough how damaging isolation from peers is on a child.

My children’s school is prepared to switch to online learning as has been all along. Both of my children had covid and switched seamlessly to home learning for the time they were off and then went back in again. Being prepared doesn’t mean they are closing. It also doesn’t mean there will be a blanket closure. It just means that if a school has issues with staffing levels they can carry on teaching the children from home without a break while they scrabble around to get everything together.

@TraumatisedinTwickenham

The UsForThem group is a non political lobby group which represents the interests of children in the pandemic. They are currently lobbying the government to keep schools open. It is worth going onto their website and getting the email template to send to your MP. You can find your MP by googling "find your MP", which will have her or his constituent email address.

Send me a DM if you require any further information.

To those saying the situation is "serious", I'd argue that no one has yet died of this new variant (yes someone has died "with" it, but not died "from" it) and the hospitals are not overwhelmed. And if they are, it's probably with cancer patients and those with untreated heart disease at this stage.

And if you believe that, you really will believe anything!