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Re-opening Schools?

With children not having a priority for tests, I guess it will mean fewer bubbles closing for positive cases - children with symptoms will either isolate (or take some calpol and go in) but none of their contacts will need to. Number of cases in schools will start looking much better.
 
spanglechick said:
My issue is that I’m not sure about seeing friends or family socially any more. Because I’m now surely a high risk to their safety, because of the exposure I’m facing.
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I feel exactly the same. I've said no to all the social things that involve being indoors with other people. My husband's training to be a teacher this year as well so I feel like it's just a matter of time now. I really don't want to be responsible for spreading it.
 
spanglechick said:
Hard to know what they can do, though.
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spanglechick said:
What makes me angry is that it’s just a matter of money. Schools could be completely safe, with routine weekly testing of all staff and students, if enough money was thrown at it. If it’s happening at private schools then it can be done.
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There. You answered your own question :)

I agree that having schools open is definitely desirable, more from a socialisation/wellbeing POV than the exams one (but I appreciate why you, as an educator, come at this from a different perspective), but it all comes back to test-and-trace.

I simply don't understand am appalled by how the Government seems to have poured almost all of its ineptitude and venality into every "attempt" it has made to get moving on test and trace, to the extent that, nearly six months down the line, we still have virtually nothing that is practically useful in place. Maybe, if they hadn't been so fucking clodhopping about it, they might still not have got it going, but at least they could say they tried. Right now, it's very hard to escape the notion that they couldn't give a fuck.

Which then makes decisions like opening schools into a vexed question, because of the problems - such as described by Harry Smiles - when someone shows symptoms or suspects that they're infected.

Some countries seem to be managing one-hour turnaround testing - assuming it's valid, then why on earth can't we?
 
It's interesting the extent to which it's absolutely unquestioned that the best place for all children is in school. I've always been a bit of a fan of the writings of John Taylor Gatto and so I guess I imagined that there were some people out their who maybe thought the same way. I mean, I appreciate that there are specific circumstances, like where children have special needs and the support (what little there is left post-austerity) is co-ordinated via the school, and since the Tories fucked the welfare state schools are now often a sole point of contact for children who need the kinds of help that in a saner society would be provided some other way (due to poverty, abusive/neglectful/chaotic home environments etc). But our local state school is basically a steaming heap of shit, and my two school-age ones seemed much better off out of it.
 
Fruitloop said:
It's interesting the extent to which it's absolutely unquestioned that the best place for all children is in school.
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It's not, we have debated at length on Urban all the ills and wrongs of school. Yet as a parent and teacher I cannot deny that both my kids missed and needed school deeply and that all of my students just want to be back and stay back.
We have schools and so when we don't, we leave a vacuum that has not been filled by society/parents/etc in what would be a more utopian state for children.
 
I guess in some cases I don't think the vacuum is such a bad thing. In fact one of the points that Gatto makes is that children always used to live in more or less that vacuum, and the idea that we need to fill their time with stuff one way or another is a pretty new one. Even in my own childhood I remember the situation being that you had to find your own stuff to do and stay out of the way, otherwise you'd be given something to do and that something would be a chore.
 
Fruitloop said:
But our local state school is basically a steaming heap of shit, and my two school-age ones seemed much better off out of it.
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This is an argument for the necessary improvement of state schools (perhaps starting with the abolition of private education) not an argument for the removal of formal education that we've barely had for a century for people from backgrounds like mine.
 
The number of schools in England sending home groups of pupils because of Covid-19 incidents has quadrupled in a week, according to the latest official figures.

Based on attendance last Thursday, they show 4% of schools not fully open because of confirmed or suspected cases - up from 1% the previous week.

This could mean about a thousand schools sending home pupils. Overall attendance has also dipped slightly from 88% to 87%.

This means over a million children were off school that day, whether from Covid-related or other reasons, with more pupils missing from secondary school than primary.
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www.bbc.co.uk

Quadrupling in schools sending pupils home in Covid cases

School attendance figures for England show big rise in pupils sent home because of Covid-19 incidents.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
Fruitloop said:
I guess in some cases I don't think the vacuum is such a bad thing. In fact one of the points that Gatto makes is that children always used to live in more or less that vacuum, and the idea that we need to fill their time with stuff one way or another is a pretty new one. Even in my own childhood I remember the situation being that you had to find your own stuff to do and stay out of the way, otherwise you'd be given something to do and that something would be a chore.
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I don't think I could really compare my childhood to the one of today, with all its technology. Nevertheless at secondary age I filled my childhood with things that children shouldn't be doing, so I suggest that it's not that straightforward. Certainly most of the children I teach told me that they did very little and found the experience joyless and restrictive. There is also a difference between unfettered childhood and childhood under pandemic constraints.
 
Back to school today. Incredibly impressed with our new acting Head, shame she's only temporary. Gave me a risk assessment that was thorough and sensible, excusing me from the riskiest duties where numbers may be high and spaces enclosed. She also made no bones about the irresponsibility of the member of staff who put me into self-isolation. That member of staff, who I thought I was very forgiving to by text over the weekend, spent the day ignoring me - apparently she's pissed off a lot of people so she's ignoring them too.

Less than 50% pupil attendance (tbf we average about 60% anyway) and the carers of one of our kids is positive.
 
What is the general approach when there are identified cases? In the school here, there has been one case and so the classes that they were in have been sent home but doesn’t seem like other measures, like closing to do more cleaning, was done. A friend has pulled his daughter, who wasn’t in the same classes, out of the school over them not taking more measures. They say he’s overreacting but it’s up to him if he doesn’t feel it’s safe and it’s surprising that he says that they weren’t doing extra cleaning. Surely they would do that even if just overnight.
 
Maltin said:
What is the general approach when there are identified cases? In the school here, there has been one case and so the classes that they were in have been sent home but doesn’t seem like other measures, like closing to do more cleaning, was done. A friend has pulled his daughter, who wasn’t in the same classes, out of the school over them not taking more measures. They say he’s overreacting but it’s up to him if he doesn’t feel it’s safe and it’s surprising that he says that they weren’t doing extra cleaning. Surely they would do that even if just overnight.
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Seems very odd and stupid not to do a deep clean of the rooms overnight after a positive test, even if it's only for psychological reassurance for people.
 
Thora said:
Some schools now aren’t even closing whole classes, just sending home the children sitting closest based on the seating plan and ignoring any mixing at break times :hmm:

I guess the issue with deep cleaning, is who is going to do it? Schools don’t have much of a cleaning budget.
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I don't know if they've now given access to the promised Autumn fund, but...

www.theguardian.com

Covid-19 forcing schools in England 'to juggle pupil and financial safety'

Exclusive: headteachers talk of sidelining projects and making do with a fraction of what is required
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Why are English schools being left to pay for Covid measures out of threadbare budgets? | Paul Whiteman

The government is well behind where it needs to be in terms of its thinking, planning and delivery, says NAHT leader Paul Whiteman
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

England's state schools suffering biggest fall in funding since 1980s, says IFS

Report shows schools in the most deprived areas worst affected by government’s austerity policy
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
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