Maybe it’s not compulsory because they understand that some schools will be able to put appropriate measures in place

I meant not compulsory for kids

the backtracking starts………..

The justice secretary Robert Buckland has repeated in his morning interviews that the 1 June date for reopening primary schools is not a fixed date. It now seems extremely likely that not all primary schools will be retuning in under a fortnight – and that the government will not force schools to open.

“The 1st of June was a conditional date, the five tests still apply, testing and tracing is clearly our priority –

More or less on now. Children have 1/4 of the viral load.

the backtracking starts………..

Not sure backtracking to your original stated aims is really backtracking.

Eh\?

You mean that yo don’t consider it backtracking to give a hard date when schools must open then change it to being a conditional date?

I’ll bet you over the next couple of days we see this slide further

Had letter from our kid’s primary. They’re expanding the existing model from 8th June to more vulnerable kids or those of critical workers (including wraparound care for those who need it) rather than attempting to bring back any whole year groups. It makes sense given limited space and the need to continue doing that role.

Feeling less and less likely ours will be back by summer.

Had letter from our kid’s primary. They’re expanding the existing model from 8th June to more vulnerable kids or those of critical workers (including wraparound care for those who need it) rather than attempting to bring back any whole year groups. It makes sense given limited space and the need to continue doing that role.

Feeling less and less likely ours will be back by summer.

That does make sense

Ours have said they won’t be able to take back all years to accommodate 15 kid class size, so our 7 yr old will miss his last term of school, but his 9 year old brother will be able to go back , as would his younger brother & sister in nursery

@outofbreath
Member
More or less on now. Children have 1/4 of the viral load.

Where have u seen that?

hard date when schools must open then change it to being a conditional date?

It was always conditional.

More or less on now. Children have 1/4 of the viral load.

Where have u seen that?

On the R4 show “More or Less” broadcast today and available on catchup.

More or less on now. Children have 1/4 of the viral load.

Is this just from a random sentence generator?
Edit
More or less? And where did they get the info from? Does 1/4 of the viral load translate to less transmission, especially if asymptomatic and and could you define what a child is?

Sheffield is allowing all keyworker’s kids back as well as Y1 & Y6. Havre tried to keep babybgoode at home and the one time we needed a place for him over the last few weeks they were full so that didn’t work too well.

But we had a phone call saying it is by no means compulsory but there’s a place if we want it. We’ve taken it for now but they have made it clear if we change our minds we can just let them know.

For me it’s not about the risk of him getting it, or even me; Mrs D is a nurse so we’ve always had a chance of exposure. Nor is it about the risk of Covid to us against accident blackspots or anything else. It’s a case of will kids going back at this stage re-ignite the whole thing and cause a second wave?

Kids will have a modicum of social distance forced upon them; and mandatory hand washing and sanitising.

No social distancing – bubbles. 15 kids and 1/2 adults with limited/no contact between bubbles.

The average sink to child ration in English schools is 1 to 30. That means each bubble has to share a sink with another. Which means disinfecting the area between uses. At 20 seconds washing per child, it takes five minutes per bubble to wash hands, even assuming zero changeover time.

The logistics are ridiculous: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2020/05/reopening-schools-question-logistics-not-risks-teachers

In a primary school the one teacher per bubble makes sense, as that’s the teaching model for most primary schools, but it will still require twice as many teachers and classrooms as usual so isn’t actually physically possible and requires teachers to possibly teach a different year group/topic to usual.

In a secondary, are kids just going to be babysat by a member of staff while they complete work set by their various subjects? Same for FE.

According to someone earlier in the thread, french schools went Back and only 70 new cases, which is good news.

(Re. Fears of 2nd wave)

You mean that yo don’t consider it backtracking to give a hard date when schools must open then change it to being a conditional date?

There was no hard date that schools “must” open. The whole of Boris’s Sunday night speech was prefaced with “if tests are met…if it is safe to do so” but everyone missed or ignored it as everyone focused on the proposed date.

I hate the incompetent **** as much as you, but I’ll give them a fair trial before I hang them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrss1/episodes/downloads

More or Less is a statistics programme/podcast on Radio 4 and held in much esteem by many (including me).

I’m happy that the establishments will do everything they can to mitigate the chances of my kids getting anything or passing anything around.

Do you have any evidence to support that assumption, based on the way the UK government have handled the crisis so far?

There’s a legitimate debate to be had about when kids should return to school, but I can’t see how the vast majority of English schools could possibly be ready to do that by 1st June. It looks like a lot of people at the sharp end of the business are just saying no way, not possible.

If schools remain at the current limited opening then, with funding, there could be changes made to the school building – extra sinks in classrooms, temporary partition walls in halls and dining rooms, additional entrances to the school grounds, fencing to divide up playgrounds, etc. – and recruitment of additional staff, which would allow safer, fuller opening in the autumn term.

*places tin foil hat on head*
Of course, if your plan is to use school opening as a tap to turn on/off the rate of infection to achieve herd immunity without overwhelming the NHS…

More or Less is a statistics programme/podcast on Radio 4 and held in much esteem by many (including me).

+1

The average sink to child ration in English schools is 1 to 30

I doubt that includes hot water, my science lab doesnt.

I do think this partial opening over the summer term is a test of facilities and transmission rates with a view to greater opening in September.

My lad is a potential Year 12 guinea pig in this experiment. He’s pretty confident that college wouldn’t expect them in unless they felt they had a suitable and sustainable way of doing it. He’s also aware that his A levels and uni entry next year will depend on everyone judging it right.

The exact wording of PM speech was:

In step two – at the earliest by June 1 – after half term – we believe we may be in a position to begin the phased reopening of shops and to get primary pupils back into schools, in stages, beginning with reception, Year 1 and Year 6.

A few of those words seem to have been forgotten along the way and taken 1 June as anything more than a target for schools to prepare by.

I’m not even sure to what extent schools that have academy status (as many are now) can be forced to do anything.

Our local school is doing bubbles. or something like it. instead of five full days, jr will get two half days. I make that a class size 10% of the full size class. This means they can get spread out nicely.

I assume the two teachers the class usually has, will be split between the new small classes, and will stick with one half of the classes for the duration.

I think in the rush to expose the problems with the plan, the actual details of the announcement got drowned out

Edit – which has put a lot of unnecessary pressure on schools, staff and parents.

Not wanting to divert the discussion, but I just want to pick up on this point about hand washing:

I doubt that includes hot water, my science lab doesnt.

Water temperature is not a critical factor in hand washing. The necessary chemical reaction will occur with cold tap water. It’s the time spent applying soap and the technique which are critical.

Here’s an excellent article explaining the science:
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/11/21173187/coronavirus-covid-19-hand-washing-sanitizer-compared-soap-is-dope

The BMA were advising against the return to school but last night gone fully against it and said its OK….. **** stinks, how do you sleep at night

The BMA were advising against the return to school but last night gone fully against it and said its OK….. *

Thats not what they said though as far as I can see.

From beeb, full article behind times paywall if anyone can cut and paste

The doctors’ union, the British Medical Association, said schools should reopen “as soon as it is safe to do so”, but warned “a zero-risk approach is not possible”.

“This is about ‘safe’ being an acceptable level of risk,” the BMA’s Dr Peter English wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

That is still inline with a different bma person saying its not safe for 1st June.

No one believes schools shouldnt open if safe and safe will still pose some risk. The debate is when is it safe and what the risks are and when are they acceptable.

Looks like I’m back in from start of june with fave to face meetings with 10’s and 12’s…lots of “where possible” in RA!!!

now as it stands dont know when I need to be in school or between which times and neither does my partner with her school and we don’t know if our sons primary has a place for him but we do know that without before or after school provision we both cant work at the same time.

A concern of mine is that whatever the measures schools put in place a good number of local kids walk via the park and skateboard ramp, meet their mates etc. That could be stirring it up and when the boarding school lot come back that too could be a logistical petri dish.

My friend teaches at the local school. They want to bring back year 6 (among others). For distancing they would need to go from classes of 30 to 15 kids. So 4 teachers needed, instead of 2. Plan is to use year 3 teachers.

Which mean year 3 would now have no on-line learning or pastoral care at all. My friend had refuses to abandon her class.

Perhaps the Government would like to release funding to pay for the additional teachers required.

Looks like we’re continuing with just online, while “exploring options” for face-to-face. Our main issue is that Y12 is 50% of our College, and that a third of them travel considerable distances on coaches to get to us while almost all the rest use public transport.

Also impossible really to have one fixed teacher per small group of students as they’re all doing various A-levels.

Our summer is earlier, so we on’y have four weeks between half-term and the summer anyway. Back in on the Monday after A-level results day.

I’ve just read that 50 French schools have just closed down again having eased off a week ago.

Primary school in Derby is closed after two cases. I think I’m vaguely reassured that it seems to be the first localish school to have had an outbreak since lockdown, in a city that was a bit of a hotspot. Although only 3 miles from us as the virus flies…..

I think I’m vaguely reassured that it seems to be the first localish school to have had an outbreak since lockdown,

Given schools are largely empty apart from a few key worker kids thats not great though. I also wonder what the delay was between suspected infection 1 and lock down given the lack of testing and also how many asymptomatic kids had it if we presume the two cases are adults?

interesting article about almost certain second wave…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/top-eu-doctor-europe-should-brace-itself-for-second-wave-of-coronavirus

i expect if the school return that 2nd wave will happen alot sooner…I read a interesting reason for the push to reopen schools, it gives deflection for the torys, making teachers into scapegoats.

The 1st of June was a conditional date, the five tests still apply, testing and tracing is clearly our priority

Now I’ve notice it at PMQs, it’s popping up all over the place… the government comms people have already been working hard to get rid of “isolate” from track/trace/isolate… and now they’re busy getting us to forget about “track”, at least for now. Perhaps it’ll come back when they have a decent app for us.

i expect if the school return that 2nd wave will happen alot sooner

Could be, I am also concerned about the intended consequence of schools reopening which is that more adults go back to work its not a simple calculation of the risk to kids and teachers.

Paediatric fecal-oral shedding https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0817-4

I simply cannot see how a child does not contribute to transmission. Seroprevalence surveys are underway. I bet they look similar to adults, but with much reduced morbidity.

Characteristics here https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2005073?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed

Prior belief from previous SARS-COV-1 here
https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/117/6/e1156

Just because they don’t have lots of symptoms does not stop them shedding virus.

Based on the amount of kids in groups out in the woods today they may as well send back years 10, 11 and 6th form back. They’re socialising anyway so they may as well get educated whilst they do it, as opposed to getting stoned and drinking.

I suppose they could have been family groups, family groups where brothers snog sisters…