Is there any thought yet as to how students are going to get home for Christmas?

[TawnyPippit]

I haven’t seen anything, but I’m assuming some thought must be being given to this, whether by the universities or the govt?. DS is in catered accommodation and I can’t believe that that that would keep on going all over the Christmas period. I’m not a Christmas obsessive - DS is just coming to the end of his first lockdown period, and also can’t come home for reading week as originally planned as we are Tier 2. But I have told him (rashly?) that it will all be ok for Christmas.

I guess the way it would currently work would be to do another period of isolation - which hopefully will be just 7 days by then - and then come and re-join our household. He is in Tier 1, so coming home is not a problem for him, its us that cannot mix households ATM.

I suspect its all too far away to strategise about at the moment as we will likely have several different iterations of lockdown restrictions before then, just idle musings.

Did will be coming home regardless. We will pick her up by car and she will be home for Christmas.

She's jn private accommodation currently as a first years due to the exam grade mess up. She is currently in an empty flat. The two post grad students have gone home, the second year never showed up.

I can say for sure that Dd is not staying in an empty flat for Christmas. It's simply not happening. Boris and his mates can say what they want.

If inter-regional travel is barred, then it might be difficult to just go and pick up. Not that that seems to be a measure under consideration at the moment.

But preventing people from travelling round the country might be a useful measure (circuit break??)

ph but then what?
Ask them to self isolate again before coming back?

Dd will drive herself home. No child of mine is spending Christmas alone whilst there's breath in my body

Everyone was very clear on the situation and Parents should have thought about this in Aug/Sept

This isntt the case in many universities.

Until freshers week DD's university was saying 60% f2f. It's not, it's 2 sessions a week and rest online.

Even her teaching practise is going to be virtual!!!

They were advertising the opening of the SU, the arts centre, the cafes, the other food stops. They were promoting societies and clubs.

Within a week almost everything hadn't opened and more and more moved to online.

Obviously by that stage students were committed to 44-48 week long accommodation contracts.

Students
include people of all ages
many of whom live in private rented houses
and have their own cars

I'd love to see how any enforcement could be done stopping people travelling on the motorway network

I drove right through the spring lockdown and was never stopped by the police (and I saw plenty)

And not all universities offered deferred places at all. Many didn't have this as an option. It would have meant replaying the following year. That's hardly fair on the current year 13s either.

Students
include 2nd years and 3rd years and 4th years and 5th years
and PhD
and placement students

lots of students (the majority in fact) had signed their accommodation contracts before COVID started

I think that there is a big difference between first years who are feeling very homesick and whose MH might be compromised by not coming home for Christmas, and older students who are settled and living with people thet know and like (I appreciate this doesnt apply to all older students).

DS is in a T3 area, sharing a one bed flat with his gf. We live in a T1 area. Unless things change before Christmas, they will stay there. Gf is a foreign student so cant go home as she would need to quarantine both ends plus I'm.not sure there are any flights.

They will be fine, we will send presents and food to.them. I'm not going to ask them to break the law in order that we can have a family Christmas. And as I said up thread, my elderly widowed mum.would then spend Christmas alone as she won't risk staying in the same house as them.for a few days.

It's just one year. There will be other Christmasses. I totally get that some students need to come home but many of them don't and therefore shouldn't.

@Aragog

Everyone was very clear on the situation and Parents should have thought about this in Aug/Sept

This isntt the case in many universities.

Until freshers week DD's university was saying 60% f2f. It's not, it's 2 sessions a week and rest online.

Even her teaching practise is going to be virtual!!!

They were advertising the opening of the SU, the arts centre, the cafes, the other food stops. They were promoting societies and clubs.

Within a week almost everything hadn't opened and more and more moved to online.

Obviously by that stage students were committed to 44-48 week long accommodation contracts.

Well said. This is exactly what happened with my son. If Unis had been more honest, he wouldn't have gone. But they just wanted the accommodation money.

my elderly widowed mum.would then spend Christmas alone as she won't risk staying in the same house as them.for a few days.
It's just one year. There will be other Christmasses.
Those two statement do not necessarily align for many families

If you have had a positive Corona test whilst at the university, this term and sat out the required quarantine, surely there is going to be resistance to the idea of self isolating? What would be the point?
And then there will be those who may have had it, and felt sure they had had it back in march April, but never had chance for test.

And yet again housemates who have already quarantined, due to positive housemate and contact tracing.

You aren't going to get a very biddable clientele for further self isolation. They won't find it makes any sense.

@ListeningQuietly

my elderly widowed mum.would then spend Christmas alone as she won't risk staying in the same house as them.for a few days. It's just one year. There will be other Christmasses. Those two statement do not necessarily align for many families

I'm.not sure I follow you.

We can't have our son and my.mother in the same house as it will put her at too much risk, plus as it stands it's illegal. We will have (I hope) many other opportunities to celebrate Christmas with our son in the years ahead. We wont have as many opportunities with my mum. Plus surely it's reasonable to prioritise the person who would be alone if not with us at Christmas?

DS is having a great time at uni, I think, but still to be forewarned you are not going to be allowed home, was surely something they should have been warned of, back in August. I know that D's would have chosen a uni nearer if this had been a possibility, so that we could at least visited briefly if he was going to be "stranded". At present there is no means of travel except by public transport, train ride, we don't drive.

How would they stop the students travelling home. DS has his car with him and whenever he wants to go anywhere he can. There are only c140 positive cases split between campus and off campus accommodation. The number of cases has decreased and is tiny.

Surely DC that have already had the virus should be OK to come home anyway? Even if immunity is only a few months those who caught it since the beginning of term should still be immune at Christmas, therefore not likely to be bringing the infection back with them.

The problem is that when household bubbles are self isolating, the advice is to limit contact, even within the bubble, to positive case.
If you start telling people who have tested positive they have a free pass, compared to others, you create a situation where students will try and Get Corona over with.

I am just using this as an example of how quickly compliance Could dwindle.

I don't think the debate is really around students being specifically banned from travelling. It around whether students could be granted an exemption in the event of a country-wide travel ban preventing all people travelling.

In the former lockdown with a travel ban there was an exemption for travel for education purposes, enabling all students who needed to to return home. So students would not need to be specifically exempted but rather they’ll only be banned from travel if the government/s remove universities from “educational purposes” exemptions. (I don’t see how they can remove them entirely as boarding and residential pupils need to get home.) Then we will soon have a multi-tiered system where young people attending university in the same area as their parent’s home can go home without needing to isolate first for a fortnight, and those living further away cannot. My daughter’s two household members whose parents are local will be going to and fro to the supermarket and bars and thhe parties they attend with old schoolmates () exposing those who need to self isolate to get home via their shared corridor and shower room.

Plus, my DD’s accommodation couldn’t cope with 10% of them being quarantined at once. So looking after almost all of them at short notice seems unworkable.

All teaching going OL for final fortnight, perhaps to coincide with a national lockdown of bars restaurants gyms etc... so that socialising and mixing is as minimal as possible is perhaps the most realistic thing that could be attempted... at what cost to hospitality venues most lucrative time of year though. Or maybe opposite approach and OL for 2 weeks in January, to coincide with a hospitality lockdown then?

There wasn't an exemption from travel for students in former lockdown. Mostly they were advised to leave halls because lockdown was imminent. Okay not advised, but the scarers were on most to leave. And after that they were told stay if they hadn't yet left.
Then there was an exemption for moving home, but it didn't cover back and forth moving. Students tended to move back and forth tentatively, not often, but not exactly in line with guidance, if they were in private acc. Most students just went home for good and got a refund or partial in ds1 case refund..cos halls closed to all practical effect...ghost towns.
So it isn't analogous.
Now you are allowed to travel for education which would not make sense of any travel ban for students.

Most students just went home for good and got a refund or partial in ds1 case refund..cos halls closed to all practical effect...ghost towns.
And the more than 2/3 of students in private rented
got no refunds AT ALL

The students, children of my friends, in private acc, all stayed, because they were with their friends and it wasn't so lonely or odd. And there was socialising, exercise, food shopping etc within household in beautiful empty cities .But that was 2nd or third years.

There wasn't any particular desire to come home unless halls advised it. Still a university experience of sorts with student housemates, picnics, chats, online work, cooking.

But that doesn't really apply to our fresher cohort in halls. They need a break from the intensity

In winter too.

DS2 has had Covid recently so we're not worried about him coming home for Xmas.

DS1 has agreed to self isolate for 2 weeks before Xmas so we can see my parents/his grandparents on Xmas day.