"Bubbles" for Boarding Schools in September

[SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun]

Looking at the guidance it seems as though the Government are suggesting that a boarding house bubble can be different from the year group bubble. It should be possible for most for boarding schools to rearrange their boarding houses into year group boarding houses so that the bubbles stay the same. Otherwise one sick person is going to take out their whole year group and a chunk of all the other year groups. Mind you I guess this is the same problem as secondary school children traveling on public transport or primary school children needing wrap around care. But maybe it is more easily solved and should be pushed harder in the guidelines. Here is the quote:

"Some schools may keep children in their class groups for the majority of the classroom time, but also allow mixing into wider groups for specialist teaching, wraparound care and transport, or for boarding pupils in one group residentially and another during the school day."

I'd be interested to hear what any boarding schools are saying about this. It is obviously really early days with the guidelines coming out just today but do think horizontal boarding would be an option at your children's boarding schools?

For my son's school I don't think a whole year group would fit in one house so that wouldn't help but they could probably manage to only mix two year groups for example. The other issue is that they get more privacy as they get older so some of the year 9s would get their own room and some of the six formers would be in dorms which wouldn't go down very well.

Maybe the numbers will go down with overseas students not wanting to come here and the economic downturn. Maybe there won't be a school left to worry about it. Maybe we will be in the second wave and all the schools will still be shut anyway. It is all so uncertain.

I would be astonished if any school rearranged all the houses into years. Certainly won't be happening at either of mine. Bubbles are unworkable anyway at secondary - what would a 250 person bubble even mean?

But how they are going to define contacts I don't know. One of our schools says they are going to do loads of testing at the start of term but if a boy is positive, what then? Send home everyone he has a class with, and shares a bathroom with, and eats with? That will be at least 50 boys minimum. And in fact I don't see how they will avoid having lots eating together, so actually far more.

I would be astonished if any school rearranged all the houses into years. Certainly won't be happening at either of mine. Bubbles are unworkable anyway at secondary - what would a 250 person bubble even mean?

But how they are going to define contacts I don't know. One of our schools says they are going to do loads of testing at the start of term but if a boy is positive, what then? Send home everyone he has a class with, and shares a bathroom with, and eats with? That will be at least 50 boys minimum. And in fact I don't see how they will avoid having lots eating together, so actually far more.

I would be astonished if any school rearranged all the houses into years. Certainly won't be happening at either of mine. Bubbles are unworkable anyway at secondary - what would a 250 person bubble even mean?

But how they are going to define contacts I don't know. One of our schools says they are going to do loads of testing at the start of term but if a boy is positive, what then? Send home everyone he has a class with, and shares a bathroom with, and eats with? That will be at least 50 boys minimum. And in fact I don't see how they will avoid having lots eating together, so actually far more.

Sorry - WiFi glitch

Yes the eating will be difficult. Day schools are probably going to go for packed lunches. Maybe they will find a way to provide hot meals in the boarding houses for them or take turns going to get a decent meal at the canteen.

The 2nd July Govt guidance to parents clearly states that school kitchens should be open and serving meals in the Autumn. It's easy to find the doc at gov.uk/def etc

At neither of my children's schools would it make sense for them to rearrange boarding houses into year group houses. My daughter's house is likely to be able to have year group bubbles within house to an extent. I haven't heard any updates on this particular aspect from my son's school yet; but to be honest the cross-year-group interactions in house are one of the strengths of the boarding experience for him so I hope they can come up with reasonable strategies.

All these schools will need to individualise their strategies and have plans for different scenarios depending on the actual situation come September - and over time thereafter. And I hope that government advice remains advice not dictat so that solutions can continue to be put in place that make sense in a particular school, and actually provide meaningful risk reduction and management.

The school are planning to have bubbles within the boarding houses presumably by year group. Sounds like hard work but simpler than trying to reorganise the whole system.

I think the boys at my ds's school will be horrified at the very idea of being regrouped into different houses. Your house allocated, is usually a badge of honour, your house till death do you part and you keep the same HM. This fosters the strong relationships within the house throughout their time at the school ad beyond. The idea of returning to school to meet a completely different HM, new house staff different housemates etc would be unthinkable. No, this won't work at our school. We know they are making arrangements but it certainly does not include these types of bubbles.