Are all schools a germ breeding ground?

[cookiemonstermum]

Hi all,

Don't know if I just need a moan

My daughter is in year 1 and just getting over the flu. Most her class and school have been off with it. She's now missed her flu vaccine again (missed last year's too due to covid outbreak at school)

Just before that it was a lovely sickness bug. Children were being sick in assembly.

We fast forward to tonight and inching she's coming down with Hand Foot and Mouth. She's only was in 3 days last week.

Are all schools just as bad as last year over 6 or 8 weeks there was a outbreak of chicken pox this followed buy most her year and her teachers being off with covid then few days after them all coming back had an out break of HFM.

Surely if things were being cleaned ect it shouldn't be this bad. I fear that I will yet again get a letter stating her attendance isn't up to par but she's off due to things she caught at school.

She never caught anything while at nursery! (She was there over 4 years to!)

So are all schools like this?

It was noticeable that it wasn't just covid that was kept put of school when all the extra hand-washing/sanitising etc was going on as well as kids being aware of hygiene constantly.

It's a 6 week ish cycle with mine in primary - usually get run down & pick something up just before half-term/school holidays...
1st year of nursery was far worse than any stage of school.

Fundamentally most kids are grim....

Yes! I had half of my class off sick last week (15 children) and now I'm sick too. Feeling sorry for myself as 35 weeks pregnant too and trying to hold on until the end of term but I keep catching bug after bug. Parents send their kids in sick and some children don't/won't wash their hands after going to the toilet despite my millions of reminders 😑

It makes a massive difference!!! 🙄 kids who were out of school or nursery have missed out in picking up bugs,and are making up for that now.

I'm sure some parents do this. But it's not the main reason schools (and all other places where a lot of people come together) are breeding grounds for germs.

There are kids constantly running colds and flus etc etc as well as the adults. DD was horribly ill the first year of nursery because of COVID lockdowns. She had never been sick till about 20 months.

There were a few article about children being a lot sicker than they ought to have been with RSV because they had an immunity gap. So I’m fine with DD picking up colds, flus and viruses it’s a pain in the ass if they are so poorly they have to be home but I think a lot of kids have some catching up to do.

Was your child at nursery during Covid? Mine started just before lockdown, he wasn't ill that much in 2020/21 but since things opened up in late 2021 it's been relentless. We did have a break over the summer just gone but this autumn he's had an almost constant cough and cold - he just gets over one and another starts. Last winter/spring it was sickness bugs and Covid.

He's in preschool now so I'm expecting another couple of rough years when he goes to school and mixes with all those new germs.

This is my experience.
Child told to keep his jumper on in June, when he got ridiculously hot we realised he had chicken pox, parents had tried to hide it, said they had no idea.🙄

Child was ‘sick a tiny bit, not sick sick’, child tells us they were sick lots in the night. Parents not answering phones.

Child hunched over clutching stomach, parent had a meeting, poor child waiting for an hour to be collected.

I’ve got to say that I’ve taught for nearly 20 years and we’ve never had a child being sick in assembly!

Yes. I’m a TA in a secondary school and it’s common for staff to pick up lots of bugs too because pupils come in with coughs/colds etc and it passes through the school community. I don’t think schools can do anything to stop it, it’s up to parents to show some common sense if their children have something contagious. But of course parents face their own pressures to get to work which I understand.

Also schools are really cracking down on absences now. DS had 4 days off with a bug - sore throat, really run down, no energy. Had to agree I would "try much harder" to ensure his attendance didn't dip any further as they'd have to step up attendance management. Erm ok then....

They touch everything inside and outside, they sit with one foot up on their chair and play with the bottom of their shoes, they share pencils, they pick their nose and scratch their bums. They touch each other's faces and eat their morning snack all without washing their hands.

"Cleaning" in schools depends if the are short staffed and what is prioritised. Even if they clean the desk tops they don't clean all the chairs daily, or the door handles although it has got better post covid. Children's hand washing has got much better if they were in school as covid hit so instead of just a splash of water they now use soap and lather up properly but they are now in older years. The younger ones are still in germ soup land.

Having seen all of this I used to make my children change out of their uniform immediately and wash their hands when they got home.

Yes, she started in 2017 and attended through out due to me working (key worker)

Yes they’re all like this. It’s partly that dc are still learning personal hygiene and personal space, so germs spread like wildfire. But it’s also partly poor design in schools. There should be hand washing troughs outside each classroom so that every child can efficiently wash their hands before they eat their snack, otherwise they’re eating fruit with dirty hands. There are hand basins in the toilet but not enough for 30 children to wash their hands before getting their snack without some of them wasting half their play time waiting. There should be hand washing troughs outside the lunch hall too for the same reason. So many children do not wash their hands at all during the school day, or only do after they’ve used the bathroom.

Also there aren’t enough staff to supervise proper hand washing so your child washes their hands unsupervised. In my school the classroom is rarely cleaned by the cleaner (hoovered every other day, tables wiped down once per week). I end up cleaning the room when it feels so disgusting I can’t take it anymore, but obviously I don’t have time for that so it’s as infrequently as I can possibly get away with.

yes, normal.
especially for those children who haven't mingled regularly with other children in nursery or preschool.

the first winter is usually tough.
look out that your dc gets

• good nutrition & vit d3 supplement
• exercise (at least one hour every day, preferably outside)
• sleep

good luck!

Crikey! Has the school reduced the cleaning staff to the point where they don't manage to get the tables wiped?
I clean in a school, tables are cleaned every day without fail. I couldn't imagine not cleaning them.

...classrooms are hoovered daily as well, but tables are always the priority. They are minging.

The decision was based on the idea that the children can do it themselves and should be taking responsibility for their own environment. To be fair, it is working very well in KS2 and the pupils are taking much more responsibility for keeping the room nicer. It’s a disaster in Y1 though!

Yes, early years is just a viral soup.

All the teachers here are so nice instead of taking kids from primary school to the sink and wash hands with them they just blame them in their unknowing.

In our school kids can not wash their hands properly because the soap dispenser is not working in girls toilet. And it is one toilet for girls from reception and y1, which entrance is in y1 room.
I can hardly imagine this brave kid in reception who would go to another classroom just to wash his/her hands.

Breeding ground for germs from April to October tbh. It's worse this year because we are catching up on several years worth of germs.

Schools are under a lot of pressure to keep attendance up as well. My eldest is at secondary and was sick after lunch (possibly just bouncing around too much after eating too quickly) I called and was told if it's a one off vomit and seems fine in himself to bring him in.

There's a horrid cough going around which sounds like your hacking up a lung. THat's all over school as well.

@rujik2 Do you honestly think teachers have time to take children to the bathroom to supervise them washing their hands?! I’m too busy teaching. How do you imagine that could possibly work?
I am responsible for making sure the class make progress on the curriculum goals. The timetable is so full that we don’t have time to return to things so I have to be 100% effective the first time. If I’m not addressing the whole class in the input then I’m supporting children who didn’t understand at their table, giving extension tasks, live marking, photographing / videoing (because remember I need evidence of progress for every child not just the ones who can write in their book) or keeping children on task and using the resources appropriately and fairly. If there was a learning walk while I was out supervising hand washing, I’d (justifiably) be in trouble for wasting learning time and leaving the rest of the class unsupervised.

I am utterly fed up of seeing my children unwell. Only 2 weeks ago my youngest got covid from school. Was back to school for 3 days and picked up scarlet fever. That has completely wiped her out since. Now my eldest has caught scarlet fever and a dry cough on top and has done nothing but cough day and night. It's driving me mad. Prior to this it's snotty noses, sore throats, random temperatures, sick. It feels never ending. I have a chest infection. We feel like such an unhealthy household at the moment. I don't think the schools are getting cleaned properly, and I think schools need to reassess their back to school policies for illnesses. There are some selfish parents that don't care for their child or others and send them in too soon after illnesses leaving everyone else wide open to catching it. My daughter has colitis too and we're trying to get her well and it's just knock back after knock back. Really frustrating

We don’t award attendance in my school, it’s an utterly ridiculous notion.

I teach upper primary. I had two very unwell children in my class yesterday, one who told me they’d projectile vomited everywhere before school, but felt better after being sick. The other looked incredibly choked, and thoroughly miserable, with the cold. Several others are coughing, sneezing and wiping noses. Our desks are well cleaned and windows open. Hand sanitiser is still everywhere and kids encouraged to use it/wash hands regularly. However, if parents keep sending in sick kids, it’s going to keep spreading.

I’d hate to jinx myself, but I haven’t been ill with a cough or cold since covid…. and never caught covid either. I used to pick up all the regular coughs and colds going around the classroom beforehand. I was anal about hand washing and sanitiser before covid and I’m still regularly coughed and sneezed on now. The only thing I can think it might be attributed to is that during covid, I got incredibly fit. I now do at least an hour of cardio (cycling or running) a day, in all weathers. I eat an obscene amount of fresh fruit, veg and pulses and take several daily vitamins.

Now I’ve said this, I’m guaranteed to get an absolute belter of a cold in time for the Christmas holidays…

Schools need to get their act together regarding ventilation and air purification in classrooms. Setting aside the risk of catching airborne diseases, a classroom stuffed with 30 kids will have CO2 levels through the roof, which has direct impacts on cognitive ability, it makes you drowsy etc. schoolsweek.co.uk/classroom-carbon-dioxide-levels-three-times-above-watchdog-guidelines/

On disease spread, many illnesses are airborne: Covid, RSV, flu, colds. Yes, kids touch each other and spread germs that way, but by ensuring they are breathing cleaner air this will reduce the spread of airborne viruses, including to teachers, this also means less staff absence. Cleaning surfaces will only do so much if you catch the disease by breathing it in and no one is masking.

What can you do as a parent? PUSH PUSH PUSH your school to install Corsi-Rosenthal boxes. These are cheap air filters made from box fans, HEPA filters and tape that are proven effective at filtering the air in rooms to trap the viruses. There are campaigns ongoing to get these in classrooms but it's not going to happen extensively unless parents demand it. See for example what Councilor Oliver Patrick in Somerset has done with a "go fund me" to get air filters in schools there. twitter.com/LibDemPatrick/status/1597744075482202112

This thread sets out very clearly why clean air matters and how you can achieve it: twitter.com/adsquires/status/1478804143837954056?t=rmPPAyBH3DcrlIBlpjPnUw&s=19

Interestingly the two commercial air purifiers that the DofE advise schools use are very expensive and less effective at cleaning the air. twitter.com/LibDemPatrick/status/1597744135234260993?t=J3pgr9BA8T8BwpzVYSR2Hw&s=19

Bottom line, we as parents must demand the best learning environment for our children.. Be the nagging parent that sends emails to the Head demanding Corsi-Rosenthal boxes be installed and that constantly follows up to make sure it happens, that pushes the PTA on it, set up a fundraising event, contact your councilor about it, your child's health matters most. Let's use COVID as an opportunity to improve schools rather than sticking our heads in the sand and accepting as given that school = constant illness.

PS Demand the same air ventilation and filtration in your workplaces and healthcare settings.

Agree with PP; it’s the children, not the school. Most of the time, kids have already spread whatever they have round by the time anyone realises they are poorly.

It does get better with age.