Whole school bubbles being made to self-isolate?

Lucca in this case, it is true. They wouldn’t have quarantined the entire year otherwise.

Similar happened at the uni where my other son teaches. A student got himself tested for symptoms but carried on socialising, visited the gym and so on while he waited for the result. A positive result meant loads of others now had to quarantine, the gym closed, deep cleaning was required in socialising areas and where he lived. Mind you, this is in the USA, where the President thinks drinking bleach will make it go away.

Yep whilst sitting comfortably at homes or in jobs where you can social distance.

And there is no social distancing on the school buses in all school I know.

Galaxy

What did people expect when they were cheerleading the back to school concept. Of course this was going to happen. This is the new normal in every school I know.

They cheerleaded with their hands firmly over their eyes and ears.

NotSpaghetti

The local secondary school to my daughter has a “bubble” of 300. The entire year group. This is the same as growstuff’s local school.
I would think larger schools will all have 300 in a bubble.

They do. The school building has been divided into different zones. Pupils have lessons in the same classrooms, which means they don't have specialist classrooms for subjects such as science, art, technology or drama and music. They don't share toilets with other bubbles. However, within the bubble of 300, they do a different combination of subjects and are in different sets, so in theory could come into contact with half the bubble during a day. Other pupils will come into contact with other members of the bubble, so if just one is infected, it could spread across the whole bubble within just one day. Teachers and teaching assistants work in all bubbles, so could spread infection to other bubbles.

It's lunacy to suggest that the school should operate as normal, if one pupil is infected or even quite clearly has symptoms. The headteacher has a responsibility to make sure that risks are minimised as far as possible.

What did people expect when they were cheerleading the back to school concept. Of course this was going to happen. This is the new normal in every school I know.

Ellianne

^The schools I’m familiar with are doing their best under difficult circumstances.^
Yes, no one said it would all be fine aonk and schools needed to return being as careful as they can.

I really don't know what some people expected. Where do you stop? If a 14 year old in one school is in a class bubble and there is a case requiring the class to isolate, surely the class of his younger 9 year old sibling in a totally different school across town doesn't have to isolate too? Or even the sibling?

14 year olds aren't in class bubbles. They're in year group bubbles. They will also probably have had five different teachers during the day.

Davidhs

The only sane was to handle Coronavirus in school is to treat it like any cold or flu. If you are ill stay off school and keep away from grandparents, the risk to children is very low.

Vulnerable people are vaccinated against flu. The common cold doesn't usually kill or leave people with long-term health problems.

Riverwalk

I'm wondering if some headteachers over-react or take the safest possible steps, in the absence of official rules or direct guidance?

I say this because last week my friend and I went to a local restaurant which had re-opened along with most others, then after a day or so closed for two weeks. We asked our waiter the cause and he said that a staff member has tested positive, so the place was closed. We didn't interrogate him further.

Then yesterday the owner of Wetherspoon's was on Radio 4 talking about the 66 members of staff that had tested positive (huge workforce and various pubs, so not a very high number I suppose).

He said that the pubs concerned didn't have to close, nor did staff have to self-isolate, unless they'd been with positive colleagues for 15 minutes, something like that.

Do children really have to go home and self-isolate because someone in their bubble has tested positive?

Yes, they do and should. I don't understand how you can think otherwise.

Pupils spend hours every day within less than a metre of others in poorly ventilated rooms, which are ideal conditions for the spread of the virus. Pupils are in closer contact with other pupils than they often are with their own families, so the same rules need to apply as they would if a family member were positive.

Davidhs voice of sanity, agree.

Arriva have put on their Facebook page that school buses services should run with the children socially distancing, but if they can't, then they can travel as they were pre-civil. What!! So multiple year groups on the same bus, no social distancing, then into school. One child on the bus with the virus has the ability to infect multiple bubbles.

SueDonim

An entire year of my GS’s school was sent home for two weeks at the end of the very first week of school! A child had a test after developing symptoms but the parents didn’t inform the school and still sent him in until they got the test result, which was positive. ?

How can people be so idiotic?

Someone was telling me of the exact same scenario in our local school.....
Of course the rumour mill may have said the parents sent him in whilst awaiting result and it just may not be true. If it is then it’s unforgivable.

I'm wondering if some headteachers over-react or take the safest possible steps, in the absence of official rules or direct guidance?

I say this because last week my friend and I went to a local restaurant which had re-opened along with most others, then after a day or so closed for two weeks. We asked our waiter the cause and he said that a staff member has tested positive, so the place was closed. We didn't interrogate him further.

Then yesterday the owner of Wetherspoon's was on Radio 4 talking about the 66 members of staff that had tested positive (huge workforce and various pubs, so not a very high number I suppose).

He said that the pubs concerned didn't have to close, nor did staff have to self-isolate, unless they'd been with positive colleagues for 15 minutes, something like that.

Do children really have to go home and self-isolate because someone in their bubble has tested positive?

My DD Showed me a pic of her twin sons school having a fire drill and congregating in the playground. This is secondary school and the whole school we’re out there all at once. You couldn’t put a pin between them.

The only sane was to handle Coronavirus in school is to treat it like any cold or flu. If you are ill stay off school and keep away from grandparents, the risk to children is very low.

The schools I’m familiar with are doing their best under difficult circumstances.
Yes, no one said it would all be fine aonk and schools needed to return being as careful as they can.

I really don't know what some people expected. Where do you stop? If a 14 year old in one school is in a class bubble and there is a case requiring the class to isolate, surely the class of his younger 9 year old sibling in a totally different school across town doesn't have to isolate too? Or even the sibling?

Just, coincidentally heard from my grandson. His friend started at college, did ONE day. Now is home for 2 weeks!

The local secondary school to my daughter has a “bubble” of 300. The entire year group. This is the same as growstuff’s local school.
I would think larger schools will all have 300 in a bubble.

An entire year of my GS’s school was sent home for two weeks at the end of the very first week of school! A child had a test after developing symptoms but the parents didn’t inform the school and still sent him in until they got the test result, which was positive. ?

How can people be so idiotic?

I’m a retired teacher, a school governor and a grandmother of 7, 6 of whom are school age. You cannot make a school Covid free. You can only take precautions. The schools I’m familiar with are doing their best under difficult circumstances. Accommodation is cramped at best and areas such as playgrounds and corridors become overcrowded. There should be more stringent guidelines as to how each school should deal with the situations mentioned in this thread when children become unwell. This is inevitable at this time of year. Also people are so aware of the possibility of Covid that they’ve forgotten about the coughs and cold we regard as normal.
I would like to say as well that I’m sick and tired of the criticisms levelled at the Government. The electorate voted them in quite overwhelmingly. If you look at other countries’ current positions we compare quite well with many of them. How many of us can say hand on heart that we would have known what to do in this situation? At least Jeremy Corbyn isn’t our PM!

Yesterday I popped round to take some magazines to my next-door neighbour. We stood in her hall and had a chat. We weren’t wearing masks.
Towards the end of our chat she told me two things I wasn’t aware of : firstly that one of the village primary schools had had to close because one of the children had tested positive for Covid19 and second, that her 12;year-old granddaughter, whom she looks after on a regular basis, together with her younger sister, while their Mum is at work, was quite ill with a very sore throat. They also live in the village and go to two other schools.
If the sore throat turns out to be Covid 19, I was wondering where that leaves me and my husband. Presumably, our neighbour will have to quarantine, but will we??
As I have said before, we think we both had it back in February, but I know I haven’t got any antibodies in my system, because I had a test a couple of weeks ago, so, presumably, my husband doesn’t have any either.
I was told by my acupuncturist this morning that an immunologist she treats told her that you should look at your t-cells, not your antibodies to see if you are immune, but I have no idea how you get your t-cells tested!

My two eldest grandsons are 19 and they are cleaners at our local schools in Bucks (7 different schools)
There is barely any social distancing, no masks, the kids all use the water fountain. They are playing sports and games together outside, they all queue as normal at the ice-cream van at the end of the day with parents in tow, mums with buggies and toddlers on scooters, majority acting as though this is all over.
My GS's dont blame the children, they have been sent back to act as normal, and when you're young, you feel invincible anyways, this is too much for youngsters to take in.
Teachers are doing their level best, but there is no way several of the schools near me can promote social distancing in the class, its unachievable!
This govt opened up the schools, not because they are worried about the childrens mental health, they needed the parents to be able to work again, despite the fact they themselves have continued to stay at home and pick up the perks.
It all opened up far too quickly, we tried to run before we could crawl.
I despise boj job and his incompetence for putting our children at risk. Yes, it might be low, and yes, kids will be bored and some even lonely, but they need to find out their magic money tree that miraculously appears when a Tory mate needs a few million for PPE that doesn't even work, and sort our schools out to make them safer again so our children can work safely and happily and have the most important thing in the world, no, not an education a CHILDhood!!

Do excuse my passion, but for ten years I have watched the Country I love fall to its knees under the Tory regime. Now, we can go and eat out, we can go to work, we can send our babies to school with a virtually unknown about pandemic, but god forbid we have two friends round for tea!

Tell on your neighbours, BE A spy! But of course, its fine for Cummings to do it, or for Boj jobs dad to bugger off whenever he pleases....

This is a farce, and I have ended several friendships over their defending of the undefendable. The Tories are in this for one thing: Money, and the rest of us can go hang.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

My daughter is a teacher in an independent school. They’ve been told that if a child has a positive test the whole class would not be sent home just the children in immediate contact with that child - the ones sitting next to him in class. The fact that she describes the children as being all over each other ( year 5s) seems to be ignored. The school have been sent 4 tests for the whole school which they are keeping for staff.

annodomini

My DGS in Y11, told me that his 'bubble' is the entire year group. What's more, the wearing of masks in public spaces is not being enforced. Imagine if one child in each year were to have a positive test. Would the whole school be quarantined? It seems to me that their school has a remarkably laissez faire attitude. I wonder if it's a policy across the academy group or left to the school's management.

The government guidelines are that pupils and staff shouldn't wear masks, except in corridors and some other areas. In secondary schools, year groups are treated as a bubble and stay in a designated area of the school. The teachers move from one class to another and across bubbles. Movement around the school has been minimised. However, pupils are sitting within a metre of each other for hours at a time. Classrooms are poorly ventilated and the pupils will mix with other bubbles on school buses and outside the premises. Schools have been issued with guidelines, but it's up to the schools how they are implemented.