Closing schools impact

[ooopsupsideyourhead]

An interesting article from the BBC. On the one hand as a teacher, I can see the effect this is having on our young people, I know they are stressed and confused BUT at the same time, isn’t preventing 2-4% of deaths justified?! This article feels like it implies not!

That and the fact that it makes only one line of reference about the danger to school staff!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52180783

I saw this first thing and it's made me really anxious. It seems irresponsible to issue the "findings" of such a study when the long-term impact is yet to be established. I don't feel comfortable returning to babysit hundreds of germy teenagers until there's no threat to my health. We all know it won't be business as usual - the kids won't be doing normal lessons as guaranteed large numbers of kids will be off and there'll be lots of staff absence, so ultimately what's the point? Surely it's better to have a minimal impact on preventing deaths than the alternative?!

The juxtaposition couldn't be less reassuring - this article next to one about Boris Johnson spending the night in the ICU.

I’ve just read this. I don’t understand how schools could be safely staffed when you consider vulnerable staff who will need to stay at home and the high levels of staff absence that are inevitable whilst people need to be stringent about isolating if they develop a cough or fever. There won’t be the ratios required of adults to children.

Then social distancing in a school is impossible. Every school I worked in was bursting at the seams. We were cramming children into classrooms in very close proximity as class sizes grew relentlessly and old buildings became decreasingly fit for purpose.

I can only see it working if classes come in on a rota system so there are never more than half the student body in at any time. As a parent of primary children, I’d welcome that if it can be done safely for both staff and children but it is quite a logistical nightmare!

There was a story the other day about making sure staff have adequate time off between staffing the schools on a voluntary basis - they've had to shut one of my trust's schools due to lack of staff and they only had a handful of kids turn up in the first place. How can there be enough staff to reopen fully if they can't staff half a class worth's? There's so much in play here, not just the effect on the death rate. Social distancing in a school is impossible.

In secondary, I can see us going back initially taking a year group a day and teaching them in groups of 5 or 6 students socially distancing being practiced in each class. Supervised hand washes between each lesson and back to back classes with an early finish to avoid lunch break.

Or half a day for one year group and half a day for another.

It is impossible to socially distance in the early years as it involves working with very small needy children and lots of intimate care. I wish when they talked about schools they wouldn't lump us all together. Things that are possible in for example, yr 11 are not possible in eyfs or special schools. A blanket policy/statement about schools is not helpful. Also ratios need to be considered carefully.

I think you’d want the school cleaned in between different groups of kids ideally? So maybe one week in, one week off for different year groups to keep numbers down?

And yes, early years is completely different and absolutely not manageable to have social distancing measures in place at all.

I don’t understand how schools could be safely staffed

Completely agree. I also don't think a lot of people would send kids.

The 'evidence' that schools don't have a big effect is very weak. When you put any central hub into an SIR model it hugely increases transmission.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52167016

This article in the BBC today : it is fairly typical f how 'the science' we are supposed to follow has no understanding of the education sector! And they say we are the ones who don't understand the 'real world'...

I don't see how any of this is practicable in real life schools.

Plus, the one sentence about teachers (which only seems to care about the most vulnerable ones, never mind the rest of us) smacks once more of the herd immunity idea.

Those of you who say it is impossible to social distance in early years, I obviously agree (I can see key workers children on their lunch break form my window and there are only about 20 of them!) but, also, have you ever seen how much secondary school students paw and slobber over each other and how overcrowded many corridors and classrooms are!? And the cleaning... well...

It says the effect of closing schools is small IF you don't have other social distancing effects

So if children still go to parks and to play with each other and everyone still goes into work, THEN the benefit of school closure is small

Which is totally not the same as saying in the case when you have social distancing, if you let the schools back it would only have a 2 to 4 % impact

That Ferguson who probably released this study has no idea about communication and how people will (mis) interpret his terribly precise statements

Quite. I have often thought that Ferguson doesn't understand people.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52180783

Just pasting again as the above link now takes you to the wrong place!

Actually reading the article properly, it's Ferguson that argues for school closures. It's a chap called Viner who thinks they should reopen, based on modelling from SARs.

Ridiculous.
The minute schools reopen, they must stop asking anyone else to 'stay at home'. Can't have it both ways.

Ferguson’s comments are not the main focus of the article, My interpretation is that the angle tends towards promoting the research that says that closing schools has limited impact.

I’m glad I’m not the only school worker who feels disquiet though. Apart from one line about vulnerable teachers (no other staff!) the rest of us are clearly expendable!

It’s madness.

There isn’t space and there aren’t enough teachers to do this. Saying that pupils should stay in the same groups all day ignores the fact that in secondary they do different combinations of subjects.

If some children come in on a staggered basis, who is going to produce materials for the rest of the pupils who are doing online learning? Their own teachers certainly won’t have time to.

In Scotland, we change timetable in May/June so that we can start working on next year’s course. If we come back staggered, we won’t be able to do that, so the courses would need to be completely changed to remove some content.

This isn’t about continuing education, it’s about getting childcare back.

I think a lot of the desire to reopen schools is based on the idea that people who are trying to WFH can't because having their children home directly conflicts with this. So, yes, I think a plan could be to partially reopen schools and tell everyone else to work form home still where they can.

I can actually already imagine the posts about some DCs losing out over others if school returns varied in any way across the country , as seems to be the way it is planned to play out in Denmark.

Countries which have reopened schools, or plan to, have widespread testing and contact tracing.

Frederica , my school in England also does that.

It seems irresponsible to issue the "findings" of such a study when the long-term impact is yet to be established

This. And when small tweaks in the variables of the model they are using would give very different results. And as if you can send schools back and still maintain social distancing!

It's what @midgebabe. If school remains closed while lockdown is relaxed, then the effect is minimal. This is the model followed by many East Asian countries. People have returned to work, factories reopened but school are still closed. They argue that the effect of doing this on children's education and social development is not worth the impact it has on the spread of coronavirus.

In our current situation, we are having a lockdown situation here in the UK.

I think this report is really damaging

Schools have only been closed for 2 weeks which isn't enough time to jump to this sort of conclusion. Especially, as we haven't reached the peak in this country yet. So the data has been mostly based on other similar diseases and in other countries with very different styles of education. I don't think form conclusions can be drawn until after the crisis is over

I agree that in EY it’s impossible but I teach sixth form and social distancing would be pretty much impossible there too for different reasons. Firstly, the classrooms aren’t big enough - we only teach two year groups in college so staggering wouldn’t be doable (for example, I’m the only A level teacher for one subject where I have classes of 20 in small rooms - I could maybe fit 8 students in there while social distancing - I physically can’t teach 3x as many lessons!). We don’t have an assembly hall or much large space so not much chance to spread students out. The cafe is always hugely crowded and if you shut it there’s no actual place for students to go. Even in the staffroom the kitchen is narrow, department offices are cramped... I can’t see how you could do it. The last two weeks before closure, I felt so stressed with how close I was having to get to other people all the time and that’s as an aware, worried adult, not an invincible 17-year-old.

Most of you have it the other way round. Beliving this is about school opening but other measures remain in place.

In Hong Kong, for example, even restuarants are open, but schools are still closed from Jan. They have just re-closed pubs and bars. Everyone is already back at work for a while now.