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Coronavirus Covid-19: Schools opening (Read 24741 times)

nai

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Just received this from daughter's school:
Quote
Our ambition is to bring all primary year groups back to school before the summer holidays, for a month if feasible, though this will be kept under review.

which is at odds with the message a few days ago which said they were reviewing how they could bring back YR, 1 & 6 while also saying notinsomanywords they didn't think it was a good idea.

Should have been SATS this week, after that Y6 would normaly be a downhill ride of fun stuff with a bit of token learning. Really not sure what the point in them going back would be at this stage.

SA Chris

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Would have thought that transition / familiarisation days for Y6/P7 to their new schools would be infinitely more useful.

largeruk

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French nurseries and primary schools re-opened this week with limited class sizes, social distancing, staggered/alternating group days/weeks etc.

This image, taken by a local journalist at a pre-school in Tourcoing (a town in NE France near the Belgian border), inevitably went viral - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXzdVSkWkAAR6jJ?format=jpg&name=large.

I'm sure most people have seen it but I still personally find it heartbreaking, disturbing, distressing and deeply sad. If this is now 'school' then how much damage will it be doing? Will children will be more traumatised to resume school in such conditions rather than stay at home? Or is that just the parent in me feeling emotionally very queasy and overly discounting children's capacity to adapt?

Apologies for this stream of open-ended consciousness. These feeling & questions are as much posed to myself as they are to the readers and posters on this thread.

fatneck

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Liverpool Schools Dept have just sent a letter out saying they will not be opening schools on the 1st June and will be leaving when to open decisions to individual headteachers.

This was pre-empted yesterday by old Chippy Tits declaring that Liverpool would be resisting opening any schools...

chris j

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Given the studies suggesting children are less likely to transmit the virus and that schools are a negligble risk for community transmission I have no qualms about sending our 5 year old back. My only concern would be if they followed the union official's (i think) suggestion that children should be sprayed with disinfectant every day before entering the school!

Our view is based on the socialisation issue which we think is massively important for the younger kids. Similarly we'll send our 3 year old back to pre-school one day a week first chance we get. We are very fortunate Lizzy doesn't work so we don't have an economic push to get them back to school full time.

A straw poll among parents we know suggests less than half will send the children back before September, with a surprising number holding out for not until there's a vaccine!

I think there is also a disociation of the risk from coronavirus vs the other risks facing at risk children, who have more or less vanished from the system (i think ~1% have continued to attend school), though unfortunately parents of these are probably among the least likely to send them back early.

Duma

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My daughter's in Y6. They aren't getting that much tbh from the school re homeschooling, certainly nothing like virtual lessons and pretty much no contact from teachers apart from a couple of video messages. That said I've no real concern for her academically as they'd just have been revising for, then taking SATS, and then having fun for the final 6 weeks.

However. She's 11 today, coping really well with the idea of azoom party this eve, and we dropped party bags round her mates houses this afternoon, but it's clearly really hard for her not to have that time with her friends - she's got a really tight group and most of them will be heading to different secondarys in the autumn, she'd be heartbroken if they don't get to go back before the end of the year. I'm pretty sure I'll let her go back if school reopens (as a key worker she has a place anyway but we've not taken it up as we can manage and don't want to increase the pressure on the school.)

mrjonathanr

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Agree about socialisation and relative risk Chrisj.

Quick (genuine) question. You say there are
Quote
studies suggesting children are less likely to transmit the virus and that schools are a negligble risk for community transmission
.

Robust studies? Could you give links/ point to where I can find them?

tc

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Oh, and she "fucking hates Tories".

My therapist told me I should write letters to all the Tories I hate and then burn them. I've done that but now I'm not sure what to do with all the letters.

mrjonathanr

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re children - I'm asking because I know there has been some discussion but have not heard of any strong evidence that kids get/ transmit CV19 very differently to adults. This article seems to concur
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01354-0

edit waffle removed

tomtom

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re children - I'm asking because I know there has been some discussion but have not heard of any strong evidence that kids get/ transmit CV19 very differently to adults. This article seems to concur
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01354-0

edit waffle removed

If that’s based on the German research saying they have the same virus loading profiles then yes - Swiss have been daft letting grandparents see children...

Andy F

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Liverpool Schools Dept have just sent a letter out saying they will not be opening schools on the 1st June and will be leaving when to open decisions to individual headteachers.

This was pre-empted yesterday by old Chippy Tits declaring that Liverpool would be resisting opening any schools...
Liverpool leading the pack again  ;)
In all seriousness, I would am very concerned that teachers are not getting any PPE at the moment. The virus would appear less dangerous to the young (apart from the worrying Kawasaki disease links), but it's the staff who are more at risk. I'm lucky in that I'm healthy, but many of my colleagues are not as fit, some have underlying health issues (COPD, asthma, immune system issues etc) and being in a room with potential super spreaders is incredibly concerning.
From my point of view, teachers would appear to be lined up as cannon fodder for the economy.

chris j

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Agree about socialisation and relative risk Chrisj.

Quick (genuine) question. You say there are
Quote
studies suggesting children are less likely to transmit the virus and that schools are a negligble risk for community transmission
.

Robust studies? Could you give links/ point to where I can find them?

Not much that's at all robust, all gleaned from mention in various newspapers/websites.  There was one from Singapore near the start of it all that suggested a negligible increase in risk with schools open,  tracing a single child with the virus (ithink he got it in a chalet in the French Alps) who didn't transmit it to 170 odd known contacts while passing on flu and colds,  something else that suggested a 2% increase in transmission if schools were kept open. I also think some conclusions from Iceland's widespread testing suggested there's not much concern.


mrjonathanr

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Thanks. I found that Nature article after I posted to you, there’s an overview of various studies. Anything published in Nature is reliable. Summary of summaries seem to me that there is some indication that kids are less infectious but there is insufficient evidence to prove it and a lot of scepticism amongst scientists about this.

mrjonathanr

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My personal take on it is that schools reopening means that children are highly likely to catch Covid, no matter what control measures are put in place, largely because classrooms are confined spaces where social distancing will mean nothing after hours sat breathing the same air. Forest schools excepted, of course.

The question is, are you bothered? Or do you reason that infection carries minimal risk to preteens so why worry? And how concerned are you that down the chain of transmission from the classroom is an ICU full of oldies on ventilators?

Oldmanmatt

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Given the studies suggesting children are less likely to transmit the virus and that schools are a negligble risk for community transmission I have no qualms about sending our 5 year old back. My only concern would be if they followed the union official's (i think) suggestion that children should be sprayed with disinfectant every day before entering the school!

Our view is based on the socialisation issue which we think is massively important for the younger kids. Similarly we'll send our 3 year old back to pre-school one day a week first chance we get. We are very fortunate Lizzy doesn't work so we don't have an economic push to get them back to school full time.

A straw poll among parents we know suggests less than half will send the children back before September, with a surprising number holding out for not until there's a vaccine!

I think there is also a disociation of the risk from coronavirus vs the other risks facing at risk children, who have more or less vanished from the system (i think ~1% have continued to attend school), though unfortunately parents of these are probably among the least likely to send them back early.

This assumption, that children are less likely to be infective, is wrong.

Please note point 5 of the main points from the ONS data released this week.

Children are infected and test positive at the same proportions to every other age group. They just seem to be less liable to severe illness.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/england14may2020

mrjonathanr

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Read the summary from Nature

Edit: be helpful if ONS broke age group down more finely than 2-19.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2020, 06:40:36 pm by mrjonathanr »

Oldmanmatt

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My post should have read “infected” rather than “infective”. Different connotation.

The ONS data is from the study that Mrs OMM took part in last week.
(She tested negative).


mrjonathanr

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Fair point. System working as it should do though, would you say?

Oldmanmatt

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Well, the news services are full of this tonight, apparently another study supports or even exceeds the ONS data.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-children-in-england-more-likely-to-be-infected-with-covid-19-than-any-other-age-group-study-warns-11988784

Jerry Morefat

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Fair point. System working as it should do though, would you say?

Yep, agreed. And I do agree that articles in Nature are generally very reliable. I think pedantry got the better of me :)

tomtom

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Problem is - no one is waiting for the science yet. Which can take time.

It’s very seductive to think they because children are more likely to be asymptomatic they are not spreading the virus as much. But is there much science to show that - aside from correlative rather than causative studies...

Today we’ve had headlines saying only 29 people per day are infected in London - yet another 3.5k new cases across the UK.

Nature Group isn’t perfect - but at least it’s peer reviewed - whereas the many preprint studies being bounded about are not - yet (it’s common to dump something in a preprint server when you submit it to high impact journals anyway). I’d rather listen to them than Donald Trump....

mrjonathanr

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I think pedantry got the better of me :)

A kindred spirit, clearly :)

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battery

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An interesting thread that mirrors a lot of conversations we're having at home and within the class parents' WhatsApp group.

It seems difficult for any of the studies to be conclusive at the moment as the data is limited in terms of its longevity. The ONS stats I don't find helpful as the age bracket is so large. This one seems to back up the one from Nature:
https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/05/archdischild-2020-319474

The problem for me is shifting mindset. For 8 weeks I've literally had the fear of death every time I leave the house - sticking to strict rules to stay safe, not seeing family, wiping EVERYTHING that come through the door. And now, suddenly, without any understandable, clear justification we're being told to expose those in our families who we would normally be most protective of.

Our oldest is 5 and in reception. The school have been amazing and we've been getting lots of lessons, learning ideas and contact from his teachers on a daily basis as well as lots of communication from the head. This week they have been diplomatic but very honest about the realities of what the school environment will look like if they do return.

We're not concerned about his academic learning, we are concerned about his social learning and the importance of having other influences on him. He responds very differently to a teacher asking him to do things than he does to me. He is obviously really missing the kind of play that only another 5 year old can give him.

There's been a marked change in his behaviour this last week, he's become really clingy (like has to come with me to the toilet clingy) and he's gone from being really keen to do the lessons to not wanting to engage at all and having huge meltdowns. Not sure if he's picking up on our anxiety, if he's picked up on the news that the school's might be opening or if it's just his time.

We have come to the conclusion that we have to learn to live with the virus and reasoned that we are lucky, the risk of serious illness/complications should we catch it are low so we will send him in. What I am worried about is how he will react to the change in routine/regime in school, he loves his teacher but there's a good chance he won't be with her or in his own classroom which as a very attached little boy he may find very difficult. He's also someone who takes rules to heart so if he's told to keep his distance but others aren't I can envisage him getting very upset about this.

This all may be a moot point as he has hydronephrosis which I've read this week may be cause for concern so I'm going to be calling his consultant on Monday...

Sorry, very long and rambling, there's a lot of thoughts going round in my head!

 

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