Children Returning To School

[naomi24]

On seeing the news reports of small children returning to school yesterday, was anyone else uncomfortable with it? The social distancing rules they’re obliged to follow through the whole school day can’t make for a psychologically healthy environment for them. I couldn’t help feeling that they’d be better off being allowed to play with their friends and just getting on with school as it usually is - or staying home until such time as they can do that. I wouldn’t be happy sending a child to school in those circumstances.

[fiction-factory]

naomi- did you see something on TV about a few universities that were planning to open their doors and resume lectures in September? Now that did look like a very unnatural and unappealing environment for students as everyone had to have temperature taken as they entered and everyone was wearing masks and visors. Presumably there will be no Freshers Week there

[maggiebee]

I'm quite happy that schools in Scotland won't open until August. Having said that my daughter is working in a school in Aberdeen for children of key workers. She says that social distancing is a nightmare, but so far all is well despite the difficulties.

[fiction-factory]

Just hope they do reopen Maggie. It seems a big jump to go from no classes (apart from children of key workers ) to everyone in one jump in August. I can foresee problems if there is evidence of an uptick in infections or if social distancing is not relaxed to 1m as I can't see how full classes can be accommodated.

[maggiebee]

Agree FF. From what I understand, intake is going to be staggered, primary 1 and 1st year of secondary the first to go back. There's talk of halving classes so that one half goes in two days per week and the other half three days per week. The next week they swap over? My youngest grandson is moving up to secondary school and my DIL says the info keeps changing. Hope they get it sorted before August!

[pixie374]

My 4 year old granddaughter is due to start primary school this September. Not sure how it will be done here.

[teacake44]

The rules directives and set out plans made by this government have been a disaster from the very beginning, you can forgive mistakes that many governments including the Uk have made in this situation, but not continuous cock ups. The teachers will be left with this cock up.

[fiction-factory]

I think a good thread may go off track now

[teacake44]

?? you think wrong. Its my opinion of rules directives and plans for return to school, and who will be left with the problem of bad rules/directives and plans.

[fiction-factory]

Well if you can be sure every other country that's doing it is wrong too then you may have a point and we'll wait and see,

[bednobs]

how is getting children back to school a cock up? In fact the schools have the final say over what they are doing I think. Plus parents also have the final say over whether to send the children in. Are you advocating schools to be closed forever?

[teacake44]

Where did I advocate such, the government set their R level, may be they will tell us now it means Russian roulette because they've not reached (their) R level, that they demanded before easing such.

[vulcan42]

I believe the problems at the moment in getting just some of the children back to school is insignificant compared with when the entire school returns. There was a head teacher on the news recently who said when the school reopens and all the children return, because of social distancing, the school would require 24 MORE classrooms.

[fiction-factory]

The R level is below one still, Teacake. Are you getting confused with level 4/level 3 in the traffic light system (moving from 4 to 3 so modest relaxation)?

[fiction-factory]

There will be real challenged in September. I think unless we try things out now and see how the arrangements work it'll be very difficult to make much of a start in September as schools won't be anything like ready for a full return and with social distancing it may be impossible unless we aim to have say only one third of pupils in on any one day. School buses is going to be an issue too.

[Gromit]

It is far too early to be going back to ‘normal’ .
359 deaths from C-19 yesterday, that Is not normal or acceptable.
The UK closed its schools (and everything else) 3 weeks too late.
They now seem to be over compensating by trying to reopen too early before it is safe to do so.

Track and tracing isn’t working yet, the Corona app will be 12 weeks late, if it ever arrives at all, and because London has passed peak infection they are easing in the rest of the country, where it hasn’t peaked.

[fiction-factory]

>It is far too early to be going back to ‘normal’ .

Of course it is. But we are not going back to anything like normal. So it's a non-sequitur

[teacake44]

If I remember rightly the R number needed to be between 6 and 7 before any such easing of anything, and any how has vulcan points out its almost impossible for schools to distance, all the more reason to wait for the R to come right down to the number they set. But has they allowed people to roam way out of their living area, ie beaches, beauty spots, they've now cocked up reducing the R.

[jno]

ooh teacake, R level is so last week, it's all K level now

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/01/k-number-what-is-coronavirus-metric-crucial-lockdown-eases

[fiction-factory]

Oh dear. R is between 0.7 and 0.9. It needs to be kept below 1

[jim360]

If the R were only "below" 6, we'd be ***, as this means that even with only one person infected, it would spread to almost the entire country in rather less than a month. R of 1 means that the number of infections increases linearly, and R less than 1 means that, over time, fewer people get infected. The target rate is then R less than 1, which is difficult, although not necessarily impossible, with a country opened up but applying social distancing measures.

In about three weeks' time the data on new cases will show whether or not R has grown beyond 1.