Still no air filters in schools?

[wondersun]

Is anyone else really hacked off that there are still no air filters in schools??

The kids don’t spread it / don’t get sick from covid nonsense narrative has been replaced with cases are low due to school holidays (so much nicer when covid knew to wait at the school gates!) but the government are still refusing to do something so simple which could make schools safer.

Its like they don’t want to admit it’s worth avoiding repeat covid infections so therefore have to do nothing to stop/slow the thread and risk inevitable questions.

Even if it just slows it - every covid infection is a roll of long covid etc risks - why do they seem so keen to spread it round asap.

From vast experience, people who suggest ways of keeping kids in schools are always accused of trying to close them.

Ooh, quick goalpost move there.

You said that kids are going to be off on a rolling 2 x two week cycle. Nobody is saying there will be no illness or absence due to covid, but how exactly is that going to translate to the level of absence you mentioned based on illness alone? What's the basis for that? Not some, not even lots but the specific pattern you suggest?

Because this is exactly what happened last year? So experience tells me? Do you think I am just making this up?

In the absence of any evidence or context it's rather difficult to say.

It sounds like you mean you're talking about your own quite specific experiences, possibly during a period with isolation laws and widespread test access depending on when you mean. With that in mind, are you arguing that this is something that's going to become sufficiently the norm that it would be better to spend the money on air quality measures rather than support staff as the poster you quoted mentioned (not sure where the glue sticks part came from as that didn't seem to have been mentioned before?) or that it isn't going to be the norm but you think there's another reason why it should be determinative?

First week of July this year, no widespread testing, very little requirement to isolate, and nearly 1 in 5 children off school. Is that not a problem?

^This.

It looks like that might be a response to me although I'm not sure. If it is, how does it pertain to the specific pattern the poster mentioned and that I've questioned the likelihood of? If not, apologies and as you were.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior why do you think it will be different or not happen?

If you agree that many children were also off due to outbreaks in January, then that is two periods of extremely disrupted learning per year, yes?

Actually for my child the class outbreaks were in November and February, but similarly disruptive over a period each time for her class.

Well, a rolling two week cycle isn't actually what happened across schools as a whole last year, even during the period when isolation was a legal requirement, so in that respect I don't think the wider picture will differ. I think the rather lower absence figures being cited from various points last year, sometimes by people who appear to think they're disagreeing with me, are more likely to be what continues this year. The 1 in 5 figure didn't surprise me at all, for example.

If the 1 in 5 figure doesn't surprise you, does that mean that you think it is acceptable?

It is indeed. It's also well below the level of disruption that I stated isn't plausible.

I think you misunderstood the poster.

I'm just glad they are AT SCHOOL and I dont have to homeschool them!!

Well that's a particularly low standard set for expectations of education.

What an odd link to make. No, as it happens I think very little about the consequences of continued poor policy (Gove...) and underfunding of schools in recent years is acceptable, and we can trace some of the causes of the present mess to well before covid turned up. Something I think you agree with me on, actually? With this in mind, there's really no need to wade in goalpost moving when someone points out that a particular prediction is implausible.

They are describing "I had two significant outbreaks in my Y6 class this year and lost approximately two weeks of teaching time - in terms of children off and eventually me also. At least."

We limped to the summer holidays. The last 2 weeks our school was badly hit.

It wasn't because of lots of testing but actually lots of illness. They could come back after 3 days (5 for adults,) but few were well enough.

I get sick of hearing it doesn't really affect kids, so it's fine.
It hardly affects some, it badly affects others. I know there are few alternatives but I'm really not ok with my children getting it 2-3 times a year. We do not know how this will affect them in the long term.

We also had more than half of the staff off at one point (small school) and one more and we would have been forced to shut. We could not get supply. I had 4 year groups in together but as so many were off it was only about 35 children. This was in July.
After a similar time in March. You just get back to 'normal,' and then it starts again.
It was on the news last night that rates are continuing to fall.
In October when we have been back a few weeks they will start to rise.
To anyone who thinks none of the above is a problem - you are the problem.

Referring to 'kids who are off on a rolling programme of 2 x two week cycles' not the best choice of words then...

(In an outbreak). Agree confusingly worded, but other posts clarify.

Ffs, kids are not receiving anywhere near 39 weeks of learning because there is so much covid. And this appears to be the accepted norm now. If air filtration tackles that, then that’s what we should be doing.

This is hardly an unbiased report - its an advert. The ‘findings’ were produced by the company that actually makes air filters.
We need actual scientific independent reports!

We had a higher than average number of absences in July at my school - all down to illness, but amazingly those children were almost all away on holiday at the time!

Was illness in my groups. Some confirmed by LFT (one in hospital) others off with v similar symptoms but no testing.

Pre-2020 a "rolling 2 week cycle of absence" wasn't uncommon in EYFS/KS1 with chicken pox outbreaks. I remember one particularly bad year in I think 2016 teaching Y1 when I had minimum 3 children off every week for the majority of the spring term. No online/hybrid work set.