Masks in classrooms secondary

[Hummmmming]

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/01/schools-in-england-told-wear-masks-in-class-as-fears-mount-of-omicron-surge?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Until the 26th of January

It’s so frustrating to see people saying masks don’t work because they gape, they’re reused and grubby so they won’t bother. Well obviously! If I wear the wrong size trousers they’ll gape and fall off, but am I going to put a belt on or just give up and walk around in my knickers

If your child’s mask gapes, look online for hacks that make them fit, I posted one upthread. Takes less than a minute to so and makes the mask fit with a seal all round.

Grubby? Wash the masks and/or show your kids how to do this. Why would you let them walk around with a grubby mask? Do you let them wear the same pants all week? Same principle.

Most schools give out surgical masks for free everyday so no need to reuse the same one.

Show your kids how to use masks. Teach them how to keep them clean and wear them safely. I consider that my job as a parent. No idea why some are so keen to abdicate responsibility.

Most schools give out surgical masks for free everyday so no need to reuse the same one.

Yes we do-no questions asked

Mask wearing in school is standard globally & does help. Parents dismissing it as useless & too hard are undermining the effort to keep schools open...to me, keeping schools open as much as possible but as safely as possible has got to be the priority.

@BewareTheLibrarians

It’s so frustrating to see people saying masks don’t work because they gape, they’re reused and grubby so they won’t bother. Well obviously! If I wear the wrong size trousers they’ll gape and fall off, but am I going to put a belt on or just give up and walk around in my knickers

If your child’s mask gapes, look online for hacks that make them fit, I posted one upthread. Takes less than a minute to so and makes the mask fit with a seal all round.

Grubby? Wash the masks and/or show your kids how to do this. Why would you let them walk around with a grubby mask? Do you let them wear the same pants all week? Same principle.

Most schools give out surgical masks for free everyday so no need to reuse the same one.

Show your kids how to use masks. Teach them how to keep them clean and wear them safely. I consider that my job as a parent. No idea why some are so keen to abdicate responsibility.

Masks outside of a clinically controlled environment are totally pointless. And please do NOT suggest disposable surgical masks, those are filling up the planet at a frightening rate and should never have been allowed to be sold in such volumes. That is NOT being a responsible parent. The fact that they are all advertised as "breathable" is the big hint that whatever you breath out is just going straight out the mask.

@legosnowqueen

Mask wearing in school is standard globally & does help. Parents dismissing it as useless & too hard are undermining the effort to keep schools open...to me, keeping schools open as much as possible but as safely as possible has got to be the priority.

So why hasn't it helped in Scotland? Or Wales? Or anywhere in Europe that's mandated them all this time?

U4T are having a proper meltdown over it. The teens themselves are mortified at all the “anti mask” stuff. It’s like they are embarrassed on their behalf.

BTW if you want to see how important schools are, look at the acrostic U4T tried. Comedy gold? Highly educated they are not.

@Piggywaspushed

Two fans on one side of the room, directing air towards properly open windows would make a much bigger difference

Well, I think in January this could be problematic , plus have you missed the memo that lots of classrooms don't have 'properly opening windows'? We have to beg for one fan in the summer , so not sure where two fans (presumably of a pretty good spec) per classroom come from?

Of course masks aren't ideal : there are multiple measures which combined will help to make the space safer for all users.

I was thinking that maybe the government could put their hands in their pockets and shell out for a few £12.99 fans. More useful than a CO2 monitor, which tells you that the air quality is dreadful, but doesn't actually help improve that air quality in any way!

January is irrelevant - we're all meant to have doors and windows open (as open as they will go) all year round these days.

@MrsElijahMikaelson1

DS has made the move to contact lenses to avoid the fogging, which is costing us and wearing a mask all day long makes his acne worse bless him 😢

I highly recommend that your DS rubs this Revolution Skincare Salicylic Acid Serum on his face after washing, at the end of the day, to help his acne/mask wearing. It has done wonders for me. I apologise if he already does or takes something else.

If parents (entirely reasonably) want schools to remain open, then they need to accept that some mitigation will need to be in place so that the schools have teachers and other staff in them.

Masks will help with that, especially if parents ensure that the masks that their kids wear are effective, and if cloth (not ideal) they're actually washed frequently.

Are they the complete answer? Of course not. Air purification would be infinitely more helpful, but that's not arriving.

Some kids will whinge, yet a lot of them will be wearing masks at their part time/Saturday jobs without complaint. But I suspect that most of them are less bothered about having to wear them at school than their parents are.

@MarshaBradyo
Yep.
Italy as a whole was something like 0.8% positivity on about 700,000 tests a day less than 6 weeks ago. Now up to 13% positivity. A month ago they were saying Omicron was only accounting for about 20% of those cases, I'm guessing it's much more now.
My town (60,000) people has 600 cases which is very high for here. But the queues for testing are going round the football stadium and the wait to be tested is 4-5 hours so I'm guessing that figure is much higher. Also, as it's cold season and schools are out (when we were at school, slightest sniffle and the family is contacted and told to test and keep child home until negative test) lots of people I imagine aren't testing. My own SIL has Covid symptoms but hasn't tested.
Just hope schools go back on the 10th.

@ChloeDecker

Most schools give out surgical masks for free everyday so no need to reuse the same one.

Yes we do-no questions asked

Please stop giving them out, they're killing the planet.

Standard at my kids secondary already - massive outbreak before Christmas significantly slowed down by getting most of the kids testing 2x a week and masks back full time.

I am also baffled at the dirty mask comments - you are the parent. Check they are leaving with a clean one every morning!

We’re in SE England and my children have been wearing masks all day in Secondary (apart from when eating lunch) since after the October half term.

Thanks for that tip chloe!

@LadyIckenham

there's a long article in the Times today (behind a paywall, or I'd link) about what would have happened if we hadn't locked down. One of the points made by the journalist was that school children were not significant drivers of infection until Delta arrived in 202l, and that cases fell in November 20 despite schools being kept open.

And yet the ONS survey published in the week before Christmas found that education staff are 37% more likely to be infected by Covid than the general public

We knew. We knew. And yet many continued to vilify us as workshy lefties.

Instead of complaining on here maybe parents (and non-parents) should be writing to their MPs to improve ventilation in schools eg filters. All the CO2 monitors do is show how crap the ventilation is by 9.30am!

@ViceLikeBlip

Two fans on one side of the room, directing air towards properly open windows would make a much bigger difference. But hey, what do we know 🤷‍♀️

And who is paying for these two fans per classroom in every school? There's no money left in school budgets after eleven years of Tory austerity. Or maybe they'll direct us to buy them from a 'preferred supplier' who is one of their mates?

I hate to burst the bubbles of those posters claiming masks don’t work in a public/community setting so there is no point at all but there is plenty of evidence that they do help in reducing spread:

Schools 3.5 times more likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks if they did not have a mask requirement”
www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0924-school-masking.html

The role of face coverings in mitigating the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus: statement from the Respiratory Evidence Panel:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/face-coverings-and-covid-19-statement-from-an-expert-panel/the-role-of-face-coverings-in-mitigating-the-transmission-of-sars-cov-2-virus-statement-from-the-respiratory-evidence-panel

www.poverty-action.org/news/new-study-first-randomized-trial-show-wearing-masks-reduces-covid-19-real-world-setting

www.scientificamerican.com/article/masks-protect-schoolkids-from-covid-despite-what-antiscience-politicians-claim/?amp=true

Sorry @ViceLikeBlip - just realised that you are, in fact, a teacher.

Regarding your Q about masks with clear inserts, a few of my colleagues wear them. I've never had a problem making my 'teacher voice' heard through ordinary masks, though, and I'm quite softly spoken.

[quote AnInspectorBores]@LadyIckenham

there's a long article in the Times today (behind a paywall, or I'd link) about what would have happened if we hadn't locked down. One of the points made by the journalist was that school children were not significant drivers of infection until Delta arrived in 202l, and that cases fell in November 20 despite schools being kept open.

And yet the ONS survey published in the week before Christmas found that education staff are 37% more likely to be infected by Covid than the general public

We knew. We knew. And yet many continued to vilify us as workshy lefties.[/quote]
Many schools here have indicated its adults passing to children and other adults and not the other way around.

I would be interested to see more on that but i am guessing it's very hard to research.

Lots of my children's classrooms don't have any external windows (lots of glass internal windows).
It's a new building and not a lot to be done about it without big spending.

Unions have been calling for mitigation measures in schools and have been totally ignored by the government the whole time, and now the government is introducing one (the one that costs them no money) and it’s because the unions are demanding it?

Don’t be daft. The govt is quite capable of ignoring teaching unions. They are introducing this because they have totally fucked up.

I wonder if the people who spent ages banging on about how ‘only hospitalisations matter’ are now having to plan for 25% staff absence and thinking that just maybe that wasn’t entirely accurate.

"Many schools here have indicated its adults passing to children and other adults and not the other way around."

What is your evidence for this? How many schools? Where? How did they measure and communicate this "fact?"

What is a properly open window ? I have 2 windows, each opens an inch as I'm on the first floor. Door opens onto an internal corridor. There is no chance of any ventilation. No CO2 monitors have ever reached out school so I doubt any air filter things will either.
Once again I will say it. We want schools open, we want kids in and learning BUT
Sick staff = no staff. No staff = no school.
Keep staff safe and we can teach, leave us to catch Covid (again and again) we will be off. My year 7s get it. It's so bloody simple.

@toomuchlaundry totally agree!

Have just written to my MP about it. Pasting it below in case anyone would like to do the same and needs some inspiration. On the petition site petition.parliament.uk/petitions/595205
if you click on 'Show on map' you can see how many people have signed it in each constituency so you can include this in your email.

You can find your MP here members.parliament.uk/

Dear XXX MP

I am writing to you to kindly request that you make urgent representation to the Secretary of State for Education asking him to fund air filters and purifiers for all schools in England.

I understand that 7000 have been promised yesterday but that will clearly not enough to supply all schools and I am not aware that the schools my two children attend will benefit.

Schools can not be left alone to secure funding for this. The government needs to step in here to fund this given the large wave of Omicron we see, particularly in London, which will be extremely disruptive to my children's education.

Current measures (carbon monoxide monitors, open windows in January, persuading retired teachers to come back to the class room and mask wearing in secondary schools) are not enough. My daughter is in Year 5 in primary school and there will be no mask wearing so children there won't have this protection. My son is in Year 7 in secondary school and I have just heard the Chair of the Education Select Committee on Sky news describe the detrimental effect mask wearing has on children. I understand that it is estimated that fitting out all schools with air filters would cost half of what the new royal yacht would cost. There is simply no excuse for the lack of government action on this given the grave situation we find ourselves in.

Over 6000 people have signed a petition on the parliament website calling for funding for HEPA air filter systems in all classrooms. 18 of those live in your constituency: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/595205

I would be extremely grateful if you could convey my concerns and those of the other constituents outlined above to Nadhim Zahawi as a matter of urgency.

Thank you very much for your attention to this important matter.

Your sincerely