University life for our soon to be Year 2 undergrads (2019 intake): social bubbles (bursting?), the new normal and hopefully no second wave

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Previous thread

DD’s supermarket job is night shift so she doesn’t see any customers!

@bigTillyMint agree about school bubbles. DD's walk would be an hour each way which is possibly too much to be doing twice a day. Their HT seems to have conveniently forgotten that for some pupils school is more than a comfortable walk/bike ride away. All I see when I think of them are Venn diagrams. For starters, her best friend has a sister who is just starting at the same school (and with whom DD is also friendly), so that's two bubbles some of them are in already.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18, exactly. It will be impossible to keep them in “bubbles”. Our kids are bussed in according to where they live on the routes (obviously!) which bears no relation to age/possible bubbles.

And hand washing in Secondary?

@bigTillyMint DD's HT has asked us to provide the girls with hand sanitiser and tissues. DD says she never visits the loos at school because they are "disgusting". If the others have the same attitude then handwashing won't be a routine activity at all, will it?

Also, the idea is that the girls stay in their groups as much as possible, with the teachers doing most of the moving around at the school. BUT once they get to KS4 (and are separately set for maths and English), they aren't in the same class for everything at all. How will that work?

All credit to your DD @Benjispruce for doing so well in her modules, and for getting a summer job too.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 you have reminded me that I didn’t ever use the loos at primary or much at secondary I just used to hang on till I got home

I cannot see how it will work for streamed/settled subjects. Not so bad at primary I guess!

@bigTillyMint I remember being caught just short of our downstairs loo when I was about eleven , so assume we were the same re not using school loos. I cannot think that is good for renal/bladder health but we've all survived to tell the tale!

Thanks @NewModelArmyMayhem18. I remember crispy toilet roll paper. What on Earth was that all about?

@Benjispruce that stuff like tracing paper? I think it was deliberate to ensure as little was used as possible. Apparently called Izal toilet paper. Shudders at the thought.

Worked pretty well for playing music with comb and paper.

Ha @simbobs! Glad it had its uses!

Yes that’s the stuff, awful.

Our secondary is bubbling each year (300 pupils). They have over half the people by school buses so can't stagger arrival/end time.
There are apparently 5 boys/5 girls toilet blocks to cover nearly 2000 pupils. Some of them are tiny-and from the description I can't see any of them fitting more than 2 people in with any form of social distancing. Oh, and they have a total of 45 minutes break and lunch (staggered between years, I will give them that!) to do this handwashing which they should be doing regularly.

I've just ordered 5 litre of hand gel, and little bottles to put it in, for my dc.

Apparently on PE days they are advising pupils wear their games kit under their uniform to avoid changing twice. That's going to be great for the girls who chose the narrow leg fitting trousers, with the rather baggy PE shorts underneath.

I would have far more faith in it working if they were addressing the issues that apparently we have outside schools-like masks inside, social distancing etc, rather than just behind saying "oh children don't spread it." Which actually I find very hard to believe. Children spread all sorts-what's unusual about Covid-19; it's not like children are known for their hygiene.

It just seems too convenient to say "children don't spread it" so they can ignore all that they're saying outside. They're now complaining that 19-25s are spreading it. Tell me then, what changes between 16 and 19 that changes them from not spreading at all to being super spreaders. No? Don't fancy that one do they?

Exactly @Witchend - they just say whatever suits to get people doing what they want them to. Regardless of whether there is actually any truth to it. Or practical ways of really managing it.

Izal paper was AWFUL!

@Witchend and @bigTillyMint - totally agree - where does it even explain what a bubble is? Is there some sort of explanation somewhere? I can remember that terrible loo paper and freezing loos at primary school! I think our secondary loos were too full of smoke to go in!

Hi all. Phew what a scorcher!
Went pots and pans shopping this morning. Time is speeding up it seems. Can anyone enlighten me on contents insurance in a shared house? Need to check our policy to see if it covers DD . Anyone got experience of this? Thanks.

Thanks for the reminder about insurance. I had Endsleigh insurance back in the day. Sure it wasn't very expensive. Do they ensure by room or house? I'm pretty sure our current plan doesn't factor in student DC living elsewhere (off to investigate).

Not going to worry about TV licence for DS as he never watches live TV - suspect he will get his own Netflix subscription.

I got insurance for DD in the second year. It was £££ DH said it wasn’t worth it and we didn’t get any last year

Re insurance - when I last looked at this it was cheaper to ensure our policy covered students living away from home than to take out a separate policy just for them. Our policy is with Aviva

Our insurance also covers students living away from home but they have to keep their room locked when they are not in it.

For any of them planning on taking a car with them check what the parking requirements are at their house. DD today applied for a permit on discovering it’s permit parking only in her street!

Thanks all. I found out that we’re with Esure for our home contents and they provide student cover of £5k automatically so that’s more than sufficient.

That’s good @Benjispruce - it’s a bit of a help isn’t it. On the tv licence thing, I read that they don’t need one if we have one and they use a phone or laptop to receive programmes. Does anyone know which cables they need to connect phone to tv?

Yes it is a relief @Baytreemum. Didn’t get DD a TV licence last year in college as she was covered on ours so long as she didn’t have the device plugged in when watching iplayer. I think she mainly watches Netflix on our family subscription anyway. She watches on her laptop not her phone though.

They don’t need cables afaik just search BBC iplayer on t’internet.