MNHQ here: Details on school closures from the Department of Education

[AnnaCMumsnet]

Hello

We have been contacted by the Department of Education about the school closures affecting Primary and Secondary. They say:

"The Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, has today announced plans to keep early years, schools, colleges and universities open from January.

"The government will now begin applying the contingency framework for education and childcare settings in areas of the country with very high rates of incidence or transmission of the virus, with the first areas to move into the framework listed below. The framework requires secondary schools and colleges to offer face-to-face education to exam years, vulnerable and critical worker children, and remote education to all other students.

"Please note that vocational exams scheduled for the first weeks of January will go ahead as planned."

Return dates for primary and secondary schools & colleges in England

4 Jan – majority of primary schools start returning
4 Jan – secondary schools and colleges to provide remote education for exam years and face to face for education for vulnerable and critical worker children
11 Jan – face to face education for exam years and vulnerable and critical worker children and remote learning for other secondary school and college years
18 Jan – secondary school and college students return for face-to-face education

"In the following local areas under contingency framework, all primary students will receive remote education. The areas will be reviewed on 18 January and any secondary schools in the areas will provide remote learning except for exam years and vulnerable and critical worker children:

London
Barking and Dagenham
Barnet
Bexley
Brent
Bromley
Croydon
Ealing
Enfield
Hammersmith and Fulham
Havering
Hillingdon
Hounslow
Kensington and Chelsea
Merton
Newham
Redbridge
Richmond-Upon-Thames
Southwark
Sutton
Tower Hamlets
Waltham Forest
Wandsworth
Westminster

Essex
Brentwood
Epping Forest
Castle Point
Basildon
Rochford
Harlow
Chelmsford
Braintree
Maldon
Southend on Sea
Thurrock

Kent
Dartford
Gravesham
Sevenoaks
Medway
Ashford
Maidstone
Tonbridge and Malling
Tunbridge Wells
Swale

East Sussex
Hastings
Rother

Buckinghamshire
Milton Keynes

Hertfordshire
Watford
Broxbourne
Hertsmere
Three Rivers

"For more information please go to www.gov.uk/government/news/school-contingency-plans-to-be-implemented-as-cases-rise."

Which is massively unfortunate and I’m sorry.

But what about people who can’t work from home or are SAHPs. What happens to their children?

I think you're taking the piss now LittleBear.

Goodnight.

I’m not standing up for the DfE. I think Gavin Williamson is hopeless and schools have been treated appallingly but I don’t see what change between now and Monday that will make it better.

As I said on the other thread, would it have killed the DFE to have put the list in alphabetical order?

Thanks MNHQ. I'm very glad my area isn't on that list.

@Elephant4

I think you're taking the piss now LittleBear.

Goodnight.

And I think reality is intruding because it’s not as simple as you make out.

@LittleBearPad looks like schools are still open for key worker and vulnerable children under the contingency framework

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-contingency-framework-for-education-and-childcare-settings/contingency-framework-education-and-childcare-settings-excluding-universities

My question related to the hypothetical half and half approach to school opening but cheers.

🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

Hi MNHQ - the bottom link on the inital post post from the DfE is broken - page not found.

@LittleBearPad I did ask earlier if your workplace altered working practices due to Covid?

I am just reading the DfE contingency plans
Unless advised otherwise, all settings should continue to operate as normal irrespective of local restriction tier, and all children and pupils should continue to attend unless they are required to self-isolate.

If they are facing staff shortages or capacity issues, the DfE recommend:
using staff, such as trainees more flexibly
supply staff
recruiting both permanent and short-term staff via the Teaching Vacancies Service
so extra staff CAN be used as a reaction to crisis but the DfE haven't extended schools budgets to allow for extra staff to make smaller bubbles as a proactive measure.
Maybe a slice of the estimated £220million that went into estabishing the Nightingale Hospitals could have gone to schools budgets for combatting Covid community spread instead?

You say what can they implement by Monday - they could offer tests to primary staff before they go back in and on a rolling basis for one thing!

Official DfE guidance on facecoverings in primary:
face coverings will not be necessary in the classroom even where social distancing is not possible. Face coverings could have a negative impact on teaching and their use in the classroom should be avoided.
They could change this ^

They've had months of preparation for this exact scenario to arise maybe they thought if they said schools were safe enough times that it would come true?

Very poor use of the £1k bonuses Department of Education. Tut tut tut.

Yes - they could test primary school staff regularly. They could also prioritise them (and obviously secondary teachers) for vaccination.

I don’t think smaller years will wear face masks successfully. Years 5 upwards would work.

Yes you can use additional staff if needed - of course you can. But you can’t double the number of available teachers which is actually what would be needed. There aren’t enough of them.

Not sure what my job has to do with anything? Everywhere has changed its practice. Schools now are not what they were a year ago.

There needs to be proper accountability here. People will die because of government policy on schools.
At the very least suspend section 444 fines and give parents the choice.
Many parents are clinically vulnerable. Give the option of temporary online learning if parents require it. This would help to keep schools open for those who need it whilst reducing numbers making social distancing easier.

@LittleBearPad can you think of any other workplaces, other than education, where staff are expected to work in a contained space with 30 other people (x that by 5 for secondary) all day not wearing facemasks? I can't.

Totally agree to keep education running and staff more safe that they should be a priority for the vaccination rollout.

Mask wearing. At least let teaching staff have the option of a visor or mask for some activities?

For children I don't know how effective mask wearing is for different age groups - DfE should look at evidence from Europe and Asia newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-02/Should-children-wear-face-masks-at-primary-school--V4iqqcz4yc/index.html

Nope and the new variant is concerning on this point.

I agree if teachers want to wear a mask or mask plus visor they should - kids have got used to hearing their parents speak through masks - they can cope with a teacher.

I think parents carers etc should be required to wear masks at drop off and pick up. With normal exemptions etc.

And secondary is considerably harder but there I think more could be done online so children weren’t in 5 days a week.

@Agoodbriskwalk As a side note, I'm glad government employees have nothing better to do than lurk on here and correct misunderstandings due to the government's shambolic communication attempts. Yes you. Get a better job - one that doesn't involve selling your soul.

You've reminded me of the civil servant earlier this year that tweeted 'Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters'.

I wonder why they have moved away from talking about key workers to talking about critical workers. Is there a difference or are they just being confusing?

@Elephant4

In the following local areas under contingency framework, all primary students will receive remote education. The areas will be reviewed on 18 January and any secondary schools in the areas will provide remote learning except for exam years and vulnerable and critical worker children:

This bit is unclear to me. Does it suggest that primary students will go back on 18th? or not?

Does it suggest that in the areas listed secondary schools only provide remote learning from 18th?

Sorry if I am being completely stupid - but I sense that we are being shafted in someway here.

Yes I'm a secondary teacher in one of those areas I'm confused by the language here.

Hello, DfE. I assume you’re reading this if you’re asking MN to post on your behalf.

Please can you answer these questions?

1. What is the reasoning behind shutting schools in these areas and not adjacent ones?
2. What is the reasoning behind continuing to allow pupils and teachers to be in classrooms without masks, when they are needed elsewhere?
3. What happened to the tier system you proposed in the summer, which would at this point be allowing for some kind of blended learning with pupils on a rota?
4. Why aren’t you prioritising vaccinating school staff?
5. How regularly will the list of local authorities be reviewed, because the situation is changing quickly?
6. What are your reasons for ignoring the recommendations of Independent Sage around keeping schools open safely?

I want all children in school, to be clear.
As, I believe, do you. But I also want them and staff to be safe, and while I believe you also want that I see no evidence of any measures you are taking to ensure that.

I’m not convinced schools can remain open safely at this point and you are going down a route where it seems inevitable that we will end up with them all closed in due course.

But you also seem to be engaged in the worst kind of magical thinking here, whereby schools are safe because you want them to be. And they clearly aren’t because you are closing some. And ignoring some measures that would make the ones that remain open safer.

Can you please do this for the rest of the uk too?

Thanks Mumsnet, was useful info for a friend who isn't on Mumsnet but confused and worried.

Meant I didn't have to wade through pages and pages of hyperbole to find the info, either.

[quote BunsyGirl]@Fortherosesjoni70 Well I’m not sure that me having heart palpitations is good for my safety. As for my DS, I can’t believe the decline in mental health that he suffered last time was good for him either. Rolling around on the floor and screaming every day because he was so distressed. I have no issues with his safety at school. Amongst the numerous measures that his school have put in place is the regular testing of teachers.[/quote]
Well its not the I experience we have in most schools.
I am from Scotland and we have better mitigations here but still the virus persists. Thats what you get when you jam 30 plus kids in a class. I may say the mitigations are in primary really. Not anything significant in high school.
I have a primary aged child and she did suffer in the first lock down mentally mostly because she couldnt cuddle her gran and because she missed her friends. She did find it distressing but weighing it up it was necessary to ensure her family catching the virus and being seriously ill. she undoubtIedly would have found that awful. She was terrified of us catching it in particular. I am also a teacher and most of the children at school had the biggest concern of a loved one dying.
Regular testing in schools?
Not sure where you come from but here in Scotland, while the profess to allow teachers regular testing, it just has not happened. I wonder why? Indeed just recently a relative of mine had to fight to be tested as a teacher! No chid has had regular testing. We have strong unions here too!
I do obviously feel for children but there safety to me personally trumps education for the time being.

their safety not there!

I should say in Scotland we were promised asymptomatic testing but it NEVER came to fruition. I'm glad if that is happening in you school

Could you please ask the DofE why they consider it is safe to replace SI with lateral flow testing - and what is the medical evidence that underpins this (links to the exact peer-reviewed papers on accuracy of tests, please, as the ones cited by BMJ etc show reliability under 60% when tests performed by trained members of the public rather than HCPs, some considerably lower)

Will tests be daily, every morning (after several hours for viral load to have risen overnight, before mixing in school) in keeping with the advice from Vallence to 'act as if infectious'?

Will families of medically vulnerable pupils, or who have a CEV how sehold member, be informed if their child is mixing with a person who under any other circumstances would be in isolation?