When do schools take action?

[Tenpintonpin]

My kids' primary is currently swamped with Covid - rough estimate is that at least 25% of pupils have tested positive over the last week. The message we received from the school (before the weekend) is that Public Health England have advised them to carry on as normal for the time being. Is there a point at which they actually will be advised to do something? Not necessarily home learning, but at least trying to keep year groups separated etc...

I go into special schools as part of my job and two are closed partially this week

In my school it's "Just open windows and doors and clean door handles ".👌 🤷‍♂️ I've had Covid twice now so.....

Ours did a 10 day circuit break at 15% of any class. Seemed to work well.

If young children aren’t going to be vaccinated, they will all get Covid at some point. So “riding out” the wave and letting them get it over with isn’t such a terrible strategy. Otherwise you’re just prolonging the agony..

So “riding out” the wave and letting them get it over with isn’t such a terrible strategy. Otherwise you’re just prolonging the agony..

Exactly. Just get over the wave. Hospitals aren't being overwhelmed, so no need to 'slow down' this wave!

Our school never stopped bubbles. We also still have staggered starts and finishes, children eating in the classrooms, masks at drop off and pick up.
They currently have around 35% off with covid.

Our secondary school reverted to homeschooling for a week on advice of phe as staff cases meant over 60% of staff were ill and something like 79 pupils tested positive in one day of school testing

When there aren't enough teachers.

In the primary where I work we have had to close one year group, cancel anything where children from different year groups mix and children are back to eating in classrooms. The number of cases rose really rapidly, first children, then adults, me including.

It's all well and good saying "just get on with it". But for how long. We (staff) are getting ill multiple times. Working in freezing cold miserable conditions. I'm a TA earning minimum wage doing a teachers job for a large portion of the last 2 years. I'm seriously considering leaving.

It's all well and good saying "just get on with it". But for how long.

Until this omicron wave has passed.

In the event of an outbreak, schools follow whatever the UKHSA tell them to do. In most cases, this is just keep ventilating. However, they could recommend cohorting a class or year group if the rate of spread was high enough.

At primary, cohorting isn't the same as bubbling. During bubbles, because staff had no choice but to work in constant physical close contact, adults were included in the bubble. For cohorting, they aren't. The advise is to keep that specific group isolated from other children but that staff can be directed to work across multiple groups. This is to stop their being issues with not having enough staff to cobble together a plan to remain open.

DS’s school were advised to close year groups when numbers got high and go back to remote provision for 2 weeks.

Local Primary had higher number of cases in year groups, were just told to wash hands more!

The school closed when they don't have enough staff to keep it open safely.

70% of the staff at my son's nursery had it last week all at once and they only closed the classes where they had no staff.

Update: school is now closed for the week, due to "extremely high levels of infection amongst staff and pupils." Apparently there is a threshold and and we have well and truly crossed it.

We got an email today saying theres covid in every year group and staff, there’s not enough staff left so the kids are being looked after by remaining school staff and trusted volunteers as per PHE advice.

My sons off with covid as are 13 in his class.
Not sure what the threshold is but tuck, his great school are on their knees.

In our school in London things are definitely improving, much less cases recently, so hopefully things will improve in the rest of the country soon too!

The reduction in isolation to 5 days will also help as most pupils and teachers thankfully aren't very ill with omicron.

@Tenpintonpin, whereabouts in the uk are you, please?

SE England, small(ish) rural school. I'm assuming that most of the staff are now sick/isolating.

Do you expect them to do something when there are colds going around?

She/he said covid, not cold.

Given that the omicron variant presents very much like a cold for most, it's a valid question?

Isolation is only reduced if you test negative in later LFTs

My dcs school has a 'number of' cases over the weekend (unclear how many but one of dcs class staff has tested positive as well as other staff and pupils) and have reinstated bubbles, staggered start and finish times and will be cancelling after school clubs if they can't keep class bubbles and daily lfts for all.

We had a message this morning asking to do lfts before school, then the message of bubbles and changed timings just before lunch after contacting PHE. I'm surprised that this isn't the same everywhere, I'd presumed advice would be the same.

My son attends a special school and I have just Been to pick him up and hardly any parents where there. The parents that usually pick there kids up. there was a few taxis and council buses but not like usual and the school haven't said anything about how many cases they have.
My older son tested positive on Friday he said that he had been sat with another boy who tested positive last Tuesday. But I wasnt told he was a close contact.
My son what attends a special school is non verbal so he can't tell me anything. Think they should be telling parents what the situation is in schools.

Sal