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...

Well they'll close when safety and safeguarding is compromised due to lack of staff.

And if they're open but relying on volunteers, there's not going to be a whole lot of learning going on.

I've offered to be a volunteer in the reception class my daughter is in. I am not a qualified early years teacher and I doubt I'm very good at looking after large numbers of small children, I've certainly never had any great desire to do that and I hate running massive parties for little kids. Being willing isn't really enough if the goal is actual education.

If the goal is pretending everything's fine, that's another matter.

@Fallagain

When DDs school was at 20% of the class positive the school moved to bubbles and told the class to do LFT for 7 days. We are now at 75% positive cases

we were told that once it hit 75% of cases a class would be sent home.

Cue about 3 weeks of classes falling like dominoes. Our DS1's year 8 class was the last to fall and that was the week before the christmas break.

And if they're open but relying on volunteers, there's not going to be a whole lot of learning going on.

But I'm sure parents will be very grateful that their kids can at least be at school and pare can go to work.

Hopefully teachers will prioritise Exam year classes.

When cases blew up before Christmas, they went back to bubbles and cancelled clubs.

But not many teaching staff were effected so they could keep the school open

If you have a class with a high number of SEN pupils or a particularly challenging class behaviour wise, I’m not sure your average volunteer will cope. I am sure that may lead to some safeguarding concerns.

@Blubells

Hopefully the reduction in isolation to 5 days will help a little.

Remember though that's only if lateral flows on day 5 and 6 are negative. A lot of people test positive after that (all my family did).

@Blubells

And if they're open but relying on volunteers, there's not going to be a whole lot of learning going on.

But I'm sure parents will be very grateful that their kids can at least be at school and pare can go to work.

Hopefully teachers will prioritise Exam year classes.

Pretty shit though

Our primary has 20% positive cases and the class is sent home for home learning

My child's school decided to close and email sent out Sunday. They are closed until at least Wednesday. It's a small school. My youngest is home isolating with covid and first negative today and would have been back tomorrow along with another 5 children if open. My child caught at school and none of the rest of us have it. Testing constantly and negative throughout his covid. He has no symptoms at all.

Pretty shit though

But still better than the alternative of closing the school altogether..!

Agree, this is a mild illness for the vast, vast majority of staff and children working in schools (or anywhere). Shutting schools stops transmission for a bit, but then when you reopen it comes back. We really do all just have to have a brush with Covid now we’re a highly vaccinated population

@Blubells what sort of volunteers do you think would be suitable to take a class? What if there is a child in the class who has medical needs eg diabetes, intimate care requirements? Do you think some random, if well meaning volunteer, could deal with that?

Volunteers are tricky in school as they can't be left alone with children if not direct staff or CRB checked.

Blubells

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

Until this omicron wave has passed.

I'm sure I've been told that before twice

Yes, until this omicron wave has passed . Thankfully cases are dropping steeply in Greater London! Hopefully they'll start to fall in other parts of the UK soon too.

We're over 10% of the school.
Now 0% of the cases in the msoa are in our 2 class entry school. Then plus the teachers and parents.
This would look different if kids had been allowed vax or masks

@HSHorror

We're over 10% of the school. Now 0% of the cases in the msoa are in our 2 class entry school. Then plus the teachers and parents. This would look different if kids had been allowed vax or masks

Yep.

My kids would be vaccinated by now if I'd had the choice.

But I was forced not to vaccinate them so now my DD2s school is on the brink of shutting down, asking for parent volunteers. They've asked every child to lateral flow every day the explosion of cases since the start of term has been so great. Too little, too late. The whole school assemblies at the start of term are looking like the awful idea they so clearly were.

I think wearing masks would have been less intrusive than this. I did try with my DD but whilst she's done it for whole days quite happily (we flew abroad in the summer to a place with lower covid rates and mask mandates) it's difficult for her when her friends aren't so I didn't push it. And now it seems at least 30% of the school is off with covid including most of the senior management and two year groups have only a few kids in (and babysitters watching them - teachers off).

The staff definitely mean well and have contingency plans in place but I'm not totally convinced that safeguarding can be properly guaranteed. Fortunately my DDs class is (for now) one of the least affected with only a few kids off with covid (so far).

Yes imo the parties are the least of BJ worries as anyone who wanted to vaccinate but cant is very angry now as the cases in schools rise.

The decision to vaccinate children isn’t (and shouldn’t be) made by Boris though, he doesn’t have the knowledge and expertise to make that decision. He quite rightly is led by the JCVI.

My kids would be vaccinated by now if I'd had the choice. But I was forced not to vaccinate them so now my DD2s school is on the brink of shutting down

Vaccinations are highly effective at preventing severe disease, but not so much at preventing transmission, especially with omicron.

@theemperorhasnoclothes vaccinating kids is pointless now it doesn't cut infections as kids largely don't get severe disease anyway. We participated in the vaccine trials very pro vaccine and would have vaccinated our son if delta was still dominate.

Honestly it would be less disruptive if the well but positive kids and teachers were just allowed to continue as normal

@IHaveToSay

The decision to vaccinate children isn’t (and shouldn’t be) made by Boris though, he doesn’t have the knowledge and expertise to make that decision. He quite rightly is led by the JCVI.

JCVI have some extremely dubious characters. And are out of step with medical bodies the world over who have unanimously approved vaccines for 5-11 year olds.

They had Dingwall, a professor of sociology, making pronouncements about medical issues, pretty much promoting herd immunity (shown many times not to be a thing with covid) and he also claimed that long covid wasn't real and was in people's heads. Why did they have a professor of sociology making decisions about the medical basis of vaccines? Politics is my guess (in that his matched the government's).

And I don't think it's pointless to vaccinate kids. Pointless in terms of omicron and delta - probably, but not pointless in terms of future variants.

I know lots of kids who got Delta who are now getting Omicron. Vaccines give better protection it seems than natural immunity.

I know lots of kids who got Delta who are now getting Omicron.

As are adults who got vaccinated, because the current vaccines only target the original strain. So we're all getting Omicron!

@theemperorhasnoclothes regardless of your feelings on the JCVI, it still isn’t Boris Johnson’s job to decide on children’s vaccinations. You certainly don’t think he’s more qualified to make that call than the panel of experts, do you?