[tomtom]

Just read that Cambridge have said all lectures will be online until Summer 2021. No mention of supervisions though... (that are  - the bulk?  - of the teaching there)

[chris j]

Our daughter's primary school gave the impression they were going to open (detailed description of how it would work, survey of parents to see who would attend) but today pulled the plug on the idea. Would be good to know what brought about the abrupt change in heart. Given this it would be helpful if they would take more interest in children unable to attend school than just a weekly sheet of paper with some very simplistic ideas.

On the other hand our 3 year old's pre-school is still at the moment planning to open and has confirmed his days attending.

One thing i read today to throw in to the mix - Iceland studied how the virus spread through their population and couldn't locate a single example of a child infecting their parents.

Also contact tracing study in NSW Australia found of the 9 children and 9 teachers infected who attended school in March and April, just 2 of their ~850 contacts at the schools subsequently developed the illness.

https://coronavirusexplained.ukri.org/en/article/und0008

[tomtom]

Change in government attitude apparently. Now no talk of penalising schools for not opening.

[Will Hunt]

We've had a risk assessment through from nursery (embedded below for interest) which describes the measures that they'll take. I'm not particularly worried for her physical health, because the chances of her becoming poorly seem to be very low. I am a bit concerned about her transmitting the disease from nursery to home, but I don't think we know what the risk is. I'm concerned for the staff who work there - again, I don't think the risk is fully understood. I'm sceptical about whether the risk assessment will protect the staff (or children if they do transpire to be at risk from the virus in some way).

However my biggest concern is her social development. We've already had to check ourselves this morning when she asked to feed the ducks on the canal and the reply was "I think we'll avoid the canal as it'll be too busy". I don't want her becoming hard wired to be fearful or uncomfortable around crowded places. Among the measures listed in the risk assessment, I'm concerned about what these might look like in practice:
- Children will play in small groups and social distance from other groups.
- 3plus/preschool and Nursery classroom will have footprints where children have to stand while playing at specific activities.
- More tables with less children on each table will be used over meal times
- Floor markings will be provided for group times to help children social distance

The section on PPE is concerning. It doesn't specify what PPE may be necessary. Perhaps it's unreasonable of me, but I don't like the idea of her seeing lots of people wearing masks. God forbid she ever has to wear one herself. I don't know what it is about them but I hate the things (don't worry, I did wear the natty Cath Kidston tea towel one that my wife made when I went round the shops last night, but I didn't enjoy it).

The section on responding to a suspected case is a great cause for concern, depending on how it's actually carried out in practice.


We're in a very fortunate position that my wife is on maternity leave so is able to look after the kids and leave me free to work. We have to weigh up the risks to her development of not playing with any children other than her baby brother against the risks to her development of attending a nursery from a dystopian future. Because visitors are restricted from attending nursery (obviously) we can't see what the measures look like in practice. Neither of us are child behavioural psychologists, so we'll be making this decision with our guts more than anything. I expect the sprog will be staying at home. Hopefully we will soon have more data about the risks of transmission from children and the measures in nurseries/schools can be relaxed.

[Murph]

I have a 4 year old and a 6 year old. For me (and them) it has been difficult being home full time and juggling homework, work and everything else. Both of them wish things could go back to how they were and obviously school is a part of that. My wife and I have struggled with it quite a lot.

But in my view though, opening school back up as some sort of weird social distance with kids experiment before we can even legitimately have friends round for playdates seems ridiculous. It will be ok for her to have contact with 15-20 family bubbles at school before she can play with just her best friends. At that age it's all about having fun and socialising and there is no way that social distancing will be desirable or practically deliverable in a room of 3/4/5/6 year olds anyway. The actual academic content of school is way less important so for me this is a hard pass.

Playdates first. Then school. I cant be the only one who has had this thought.

[SA Chris]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/18/french-minister-tells-of-risks-of-missing-school-as-more-pupils-return-covid-19

I'm sure you've all read this.

I agree with Murph it's all a bit arse about face, kids have not had much contact with grandparents (beyond a brief conversation from the end of the driveway) or friends (apart from waving from across the road) for over 8 weeks. My daughter is 7 and has a bunch of really close friends, and misses them terribly, but son is 10, with Aspergers and, as far as we know, doesn't communicate much with classmates or have any close friendships and doesn't seem to miss anyone, but is on the "Playground" feed on Teams chatting with other classmates all the time. Maybe it's preferable to doing schoolwork, or maybe the others are desperate for some communication too.

[tomtom]

Quick thought based on Wills and an offline conversation with 3T - is that there’s not much consideration in the debate about the teachers/staff who are likely (according to union polls) very anxious about returning. That is another factor to consider when sending your kids back or not.

Am I alone in thinking the mood music from govt is softening on the schools returning on 1st June? Murmurings from sage of having to have contact tracing up and running first - and no slamming down of that from govt.

[mrjonathanr]

Ditching lectures in person sounds sensible TT; real teaching takes place in tutorials.

There's no way you can say it is safe to return to school  when you don't know where the virus is. I feel like a broken record, but the quickest way to get schools back safely is to have test, trace and isolate set up properly. A data harvesting app is not going to do that. As SA Chris pointed out above ^^,  it might be difficult to get all UK 5 years olds  equipped with smartphones and using them correctly.

Worth reading everything that Devi Sridhar writes imo (Chair of Global Public. Health at Edinburgh Uni). Scientific perspective on how to resume schools asap https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/20/british-schools-science-children-education-testing-tracing

[Jerry Morefat]

This morning's more or less had a segment on the reopening of schools featuring David Spiegelhalter -  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08dnd81.

In summary the risk to children is almost non existent and the risk to staff and parents aged 20-40 is very small, compatible to the mortality from a week's worth of accidents in the UK as I recall. Personally, from the perspective of the safety of my 20 month old daughter, my and my partner's safety and the safety of the staff < 40 I'd be happy to send her back to nursery. I also think she'd get a lot out of it developmentally. My only concern is if one of us were potentially responsible (directly or indirectly) in transmitting the virus to an elderly or vulnerable person. However, it's not clear to me how such a risk can be quantified.

[SA Chris]

Every school must have several members of staff at out school (lunch ladies, classroom assistants and teachers) who are in their 60s or have underlying health issues, how do they intend dealing with that? "At risk" teacher's classes taught remotely, while the rest return? Plagued with issues.

[galpinos]

Every school must have several members of staff at out school (lunch ladies, classroom assistants and teachers) who are in their 60s or have underlying health issues, how do they intend dealing with that? "At risk" teacher's classes taught remotely, while the rest return? Plagued with issues.

That was something I hadn't considered, but became very apparent as our girl's school was trying to put on Keyworker school. A lot of the support staff were in "vulnerable" categories (age and/or health).

[mrjonathanr]

This morning's more or less had a segment on the reopening of schools featuring David Spiegelhalter -  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08dnd81.
However, it's not clear to me how such a risk can be quantified.

There are 3 risks, aren't there?
1 to children
2 to staff
3 to the wider community through transmission

They are all very serious. Regarding children, one suggested figure for Kawasaki syndrome was per 1,000 cases. That is a worry if at all accurate when there are approx 5 million primary school children.

The countries resuming school are in a different position to the UK. UK reported deaths yesterday 545. Denmark: 0

Would measuring the prevalence of the virus help?

[tomtom]

It feels with many decisions as if our Govt is looking to keep up with Europe wrt unlockdown... clearly - as the worst affected country in Europe we should be on our own timescale here.

[andy popp]

The countries resuming school are in a different position to the UK. UK reported deaths yesterday 545. Denmark: 0

The data I'm looking at shows last Friday as the only no deaths day so far, with seven over the weekend, one Monday, and three yesterday. But the point stands. Even taking into account population differences the contrast is stark. My daughter went back yesterday (it would have been Monday but she had an unrelated hospital appointment) and whilst not completely unconcerned I do feel confident enough about making the decision.

I think TT's point about the UK government being driven by a desire to try and "keep up" with other European nations probably has some merit. I am so sick of people using the example of one country or another to make an argument about what should happen in their own. If I have to have another argument about why Sweden hasn't been "proven right" ...

[SA Chris]

Would measuring the prevalence of the virus help?

What, like some sort of widespread testing system? Nah, can't see that catching on.

[mrjonathanr]

Thanks for correcting Andy.

For 10 May, last date IHME have figures rather than projections, has Denmark on 0.14 and UK on 0.80 per 100k population, projected for today is 0.10 vs 0.55. So maybe 5-6 times greater prevalence of virus in UK. https://covid19.healthdata.org/denmark


Chris, quite.

[Sidehaas]

It feels with many decisions as if our Govt is looking to keep up with Europe wrt unlockdown... clearly - as the worst affected country in Europe we should be on our own timescale here.

I've been trying to work out recently whether we are now actually as far behind counties Ike France, Italy and Spain as it would seem at first glance.
The daily announced deaths still spike up to high numbers, especially on. Monday, but if you look at hospital figures by day of death, the trend is now extremely positive:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
It's not completely clear to me which set of figures is more comparable to those issued by those other countries. From looking at some of the things those countries are now starting to open up (including bars and restaurants in some limited cases) I actually think the UK plan now looks fairly modest.
If anyone knows how comparable the international figures for those countries are (eg day of death vs day of reporting) I'd be really interested. Care home deaths obviously excluded in the data linked above, but from the last ONS dataset we know they are also on a clear downward trend.

On the schools topic, I had an interesting anecdote from my brother yesterday in London. In his school, of the 60 kids in year 6 (the year he teaches), 46 sets of parents have already confirmed their kids will restart on 1st June and only 5 sets of parents have so far said no. I was surprised that many wanted to go ahead given the general mood music.

Edit: peston was also quoting something from PHE yesterday that he said showed there were zero new infections detected in London that day. I'm not sure where he got it from.

[SA Chris]

That's higher than I would have expected. You have to wonder if there is justification for those 5; at risk, or direct family members at risk.

[rich d]

2 of my friends are primary heads, the responsibility for opening and how to do it, has basically been passed down to them. Both of their biggest issues are the potential lack of staff, due to lots of staff being considered at high risk, so actually having enough staff in may well be an issue for them.
On a slightly separate note they have both asked their parents of the years coming back if they'll be sending hte kids back in. The two schools are quite different in demographics and the leafy suburb looks like higher than 60% of parents will, whilst the lot less affluent area school has around 10% who will.

[tomtom]

Rich - that reflects a survey I posted up earlier in the week (twitter link) that poorer households had a 27% send em back rate and wealthiest 60%.

[chris j]

Change in government attitude apparently. Now no talk of penalising schools for not opening.

After a polite email to the school admin i had a surprise phone call from the headmistress to discuss why the school couldn't open, it appears she is following an interpretation of the guidelines for 2ndary schools (2m distancing to apply within bubbles) rather  than primary schools (it is expected children won't be able to follow social distancing within the bubble...). Given they have to keep space for ~140 keyworker children (out of 400 total pupils, approx 70 are attending), who they would keep in separate bubbles from other attendees, they can't physically manage to bring in a whole other school year.

Whether she's genuinely misunderstood the guideline, or is doing the british thing of taking the rules and adding a bit extra to be on the safe side is open to question (but also no point questioning).

[tomtom]

Just in from our School (ours is in the Nursery there - Reception in Sept) (forgive formatting - copy pasted from a PDF)

"Plans are currently going ahead for what a return to school might look like and were discussed at
a lengthy governors' meeting on Wednesday evening. We understand that on May 28th the
government will assess whether its 5 tests have been fully met and either confirm or halt their
plan for schools to start bringing children back into school. At the meeting we agreed that Y6 will
return to school on June 8th, assuming that the tests are met. Due to the size of our KS2
classrooms, we can have no more than 12 children in a room if we are to maintain the social
distancing recommendation of 2m between their seats. T

One thing to note is that from June 8th we will be operating very strictly timed staggered arrival
and departure times and these will also apply to the children attending the key worker childcare
provision, who will need to be onsite between 8.35 and 8.45 am. Children who miss their time
slot will have to wait off-site with their parent/carer until we can safely admit them. We will also
not be admitting parents onto the school grounds - we will need you to drop your child off at a
designated gate where a member of staff will see them safely onto the playground. We will send
out a detailed 'return to school' document after the half term break to the relevant families.

We plan to have Y1 children return to school w.b. June 15th and again, detailed advice will be sent
to those parents in due course. We have no plans at present for bringing EYFS children back into
school, although that might change, and being honest we would have preferred to bring back
Y5. They have less time left with us and have national tests next year - we don't understand the
government's thinking about which year groups to prioritise but perhaps the scientific
documentation will make it more clear.

As we have previously said, we are completing very detailed risk assessments to make the residual
risk to children and adults as low as possible but we need to make it very clear that we cannot
guarantee there will be no spread of infection once we have more children back. The
government is publishing its scientific advice today but there are so many conflicting views about
bringing children back into school that it feels like we are negotiating our way across a minefield.
The final decision about whether to send your child back into school if they are in Y6 or Y1 will be
yours, and the DfE has indicated there will be no penalties applied for school absence during the
second half of term."

[Oldmanmatt]

We got one from the Grammar headmistress today, regarding the eldest.
Exasperated, springs to mind:

“ Dear Parents, Carers and Students
 
I had hoped to be writing to you today to outline our plans for providing some face to face support for Years 10 and 12.  We have a detailed plan, which we believe will be both helpful to students and prioritises the safety of both students and staff.
 
Unfortunately, the government guidance for secondary schools regarding this has still not been released.  It was due out at the start of the week.  We have therefore been advised by the Local Authority to pause our planning until we receive this guidance in case we need to change our plans based on the medical and scientific advice informing the DfE guidance.
 
We had hoped to start inviting some Year 10 and 12 students into college for face to face support from 8 June.  We will still endeavour to do so, but this will depend upon the date of release of the official secondary guidance and if, and by how much, our original plan needs to change in response to this.
 
Thank you for your patience.  I hope you are all safe and well.”

[tomtom]

Yes - our one pretty clearly reflects annoyance/exasparation about what they are supposed to do. (which I think is completely justfied TBH)

[nai]

Ours said as the guidance was only out 28th there was no way they could open June 1st so would aim for June 8th after they'd heard. But basically asked for a show of hands first so they could base planning on that.
From quite a small sample, I'm one of the only parents to have said she won't be going back but it seems it's mostly the kids being keen to return and parents going along with it.
I don't know why they don't aim for an earlier restart, mid August or something. Doesn't seem likely to me that anybody is going to be having a summer holiday so why not bring the term start forward and plan for a longer, staggered half-term so families can hopefully get away by then.