Delta variant 'out of control' in Greater Manchester schools says union
Entire year groups have been sent home from some high schools
Re-opening Schools?
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SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
March, April, May there were no detected cases in schools near me. Now every school in the area has kids and staff isolating, whole year groups in some cases. We just today got everyone back in from last week's isolations but another 50-odd kids and staff have been sent home today.
Staffing levels are precarious. The staffroom consensus is it's odds on that the whole place will be closed before the end of term. Proper teaching is being abandoned in favour of busy work on the grounds that it's not fair to teach half a class and not the other. Provision for those at home is almost nil, it being impossible to teach full time and provide stuff for remote learning.
Grim, is what it is.
Staffing levels are precarious. The staffroom consensus is it's odds on that the whole place will be closed before the end of term. Proper teaching is being abandoned in favour of busy work on the grounds that it's not fair to teach half a class and not the other. Provision for those at home is almost nil, it being impossible to teach full time and provide stuff for remote learning.
Grim, is what it is.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
The whole thing has "reactive management" written all over it. It's like watching the inevitable toppling of a house of cards, as card (protection) after card is carefully removed, or never implemented in the first place.
I'm just completely appalled at the way government has managed to twist and bend its desired outcomes - schools remaining open, in this case - into a kind of parody of the science, which they have to equally twist and bend in order to achieve any kind of rough fit, the gap being filled in by blatant denialism. It's so fucking depressing.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
What we currently have is neither one thing nor the other; neither functional schools nor effective control of case numbers. This is the sort of shit you get from risk-assessment, arse-covering type management strategies.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
And an obsessive desire to keep schools open at any cost. Perfect storm.
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
A couple of weeks ago we had a positive case in the lower sixth and had to send a quarter of them home to isolate. They returned on Friday. Halfway through today one of those kids - who had been coughing all weekend but still went to a party and to school today - thought she’d better do a LFT and tested positive. Cue a quarter of the lower sixth (about two thirds of whom were in the last batch) heading home to isolate. Again. We also lost about 20 year nines today.
We’ve had to cancel 6th form induction week, the year 11 leavers’ BBQ, and next week’s year 13 transitions week, and their party/prizegiving. All too risky.
We’ve had to cancel 6th form induction week, the year 11 leavers’ BBQ, and next week’s year 13 transitions week, and their party/prizegiving. All too risky.
baldrick
hmmmmm
Are your kids bothering with LFTs now? We have stacks of them in school but they're not being taken home by kids any more in anywhere near the numbers they used to. I think once they were allowed not to bother with masks they don't really see the point. We've had parents phone up to say they don't need the LFTs and not to give them to their kids to take.
On the other hand we have pop up vaccine centres and surge testing in the community here. The message is so confused
On the other hand we have pop up vaccine centres and surge testing in the community here. The message is so confused
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Are your kids bothering with LFTs now? We have stacks of them in school but they're not being taken home by kids any more in anywhere near the numbers they used to. I think once they were allowed not to bother with masks they don't really see the point. We've had parents phone up to say they don't need the LFTs and not to give them to their kids to take.
On the other hand we have pop up vaccine centres and surge testing in the community here. The message is so confused
We handed out a new batch yesterday. The kids all took them. The cases identified so far have all been from LFT results, not symptoms, so some of them must be using the tests.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Similar here. One positive test wasn't reported for days so the ten day isolation period for contacts was already half over.
Three year groups affected now.
This has all given me a glimpse of what sensible class sizes could look like though, especially for practical science stuff. It's the difference between crowd control and actually teaching.
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
Mine certainly does, because I make him.Are your kids bothering with LFTs now? We have stacks of them in school but they're not being taken home by kids any more in anywhere near the numbers they used to. I think once they were allowed not to bother with masks they don't really see the point. We've had parents phone up to say they don't need the LFTs and not to give them to their kids to take.
On the other hand we have pop up vaccine centres and surge testing in the community here. The message is so confused
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
Ditto. We are all taking them 1/2 times a week.
sheothebudworths
Up the bum - no babies!!!
Nearly 250,000 pupils missed school in England last week for Covid-related reasons, DfE figures show
Richard AdamsNearly 250,000 children in England missed school last week for Covid-related reasons, including 9,000 with confirmed cases of Covid-19, the worst figures since state schools fully reopened in March.
The weekly attendance figures published by the Department for Education (DfE) found that Covid-related absences from secondary schools tripled in the space of seven days between 10 June and 17 June when it surveyed schools, while the rate of absences in primary schools has doubled.
There were 9,000 confirmed cases among state school pupils last week, compared with 7,000 the week before and just 4,000 at the end of May.
The DfE’s figures have been adjusted to exclude pupils in years 11 and 13 who have finished school for the year, leaving 3.3% absent overall.
The biggest rise was in the number of pupils self-isolating because of Covid case contacts within schools: 172,000 according to the DfE, while a further 42,000 were self-isolating because of contacts outside school, and 16,000 were off with unconfirmed cases.
(eta - from The Guardian feed)
The removal of masks in schools just makes absolutely no sense - I really can't see how this is anything but a deliberate attempt to spread it amongst kids now/'herd immunity' amongst the unvaccinated under-18's. It's fucking despicable, on every level.
Dr Rosemary Leonard on BBC news earlier making a passionate plea about children’s lives returning to normal because of the impact of the pandemic on their mental health and the up to a year waiting list for children’s mental health services.
I heard her give examples of school children having to repeatedly self isolate because of covid cases almost consecutively.
But i didn’t get a chance to listen to all of it. So I don’t know if she made a suggestion as to what else to do with children and the need to have to self isolate. Any else watch this?
I heard her give examples of school children having to repeatedly self isolate because of covid cases almost consecutively.
But i didn’t get a chance to listen to all of it. So I don’t know if she made a suggestion as to what else to do with children and the need to have to self isolate. Any else watch this?
Steel Icarus
we move
Did anyone see on Friday night (obvs) schools were told this:
www.tes.com
Covid: Schools told to plan for more remote learning
Department for Education also asks schools to draw up plans to bring back virus testing sites and reintroduce face masks
www.tes.com
I didn't watch that, but I concur. 12-month waiting list at our CAMHS clinic, doubled since over the past year, massive and unsustainable rise in referrals and calls to duty. My own children have suffered worsening mental health and their learning, confidence in the learning has really taken a knock and they've not had to isolate since end of last school lockdown.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Oh look, it's happening again. Who could possibly have predicted it, nothing we could have done etc etc.
Shocked. Shocked I tell you
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Next school over is now closed altogether due to too many staff out isolating. We're maybe one more case away from a simillar fate.
elbows
Well-Known Member
This BBC article looks at things mostly from the perspective of getting rid of the disruption by changing the rules about self-isolation etc. They manage to mention the government-led trial without even mentioning lateral flow tests. They do acknowledge that the trial results wont come in time to change things this school year. Its certainly clear that authorities would like trial results to demonstrate that school infection just reflect the wider community infections, rather than being one of the important cause of the wider community spread. Because in articles like this one they already find it easy to avoid talking about the physical health of children, so if they can add 'the school outbreaks arent a big driver of waves' to that mix then they will find it easier to rush back to a business as usual approach for schools, without as much outbreak-related disruption. This is surely part of the plan for 'learning to live with covid' that they will likely want in place by the start of the next school year. Whether they will actually manage to pull that off remains to be seen.
Should schoolchildren still have to self-isolate?
More than a quarter of a million children are absent from school in the UK because of coronavirus.
www.bbc.co.uk
Steel Icarus
we move
Daughter just rang me (obviously with a staff member) to ask permission to go home as someone in her class has or potentially has COVID. Seems daft keeping schools open now, just send them home until September.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Another bunch of students sent home today.
It’s so bizarre to read about football
VIPs from amber list countries having permission to come to the UK and not have to quarantine and yet it seems like the rate of students been sent home to self isolate is increasing.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
I've got an interview on Monday, at a school that's on course to be shut by then. Luckily I've already worked there so the 'tour the place and meet people' bit is pretty redundant anyway but the 'teach a lesson' and 'meet the kids' bit really aren't.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
Yes. Her thesis was basically "we need to stop being so scared of Covid". In those exact words.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Endless, endless waving of "children's mental health" as if MH care in this country was not already thoroughly fucked for children, adults, everyone, far before the pandemic, and if it wasn't just just a transparent talking point for the "open everything up now" position.
But there has been a huge amplification of existing mental health difficulties and a doubling of referrals and waiting times is an unmanageable situation.
Sure, I understand that but in a way so what? We know that already. But there is also the reality of camhs in crisis.
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