Mimi wrote:
On Tuesday one of the teachers at D’s school tested positive, the next day, two more. The next day two more. Now over half the school is out due to it. They aren’t shutting the school, though. As it’s half term and so many staff have it I thought it would make more sense to extend the break by another week.
We’re in a bit of a pickle with this now. More than half the classes in D’s school now have a teacher who is currently isolating as they’ve tested positive, which isn’t great. However, we don’t *really* know the extent of it.
At least one teacher per class, we understand, but we asked just for a total number of staff with current covid cases, just so we could make an informed decision about whether Darwin should go in today, as it seems to have spread really rapidly through the teaching staff, but the school have phoned today to say that they won’t say the extent of the infections among staff. As there are usually 3-4 teachers and support staff per class (as a lot are part times and job share) it would seem odd if it spread between staff in different classes but not teachers and support staff that work together in the classes, not to mention other school staff.
I’m not sure if they are doing this in the grounds of GDPR, as other schools have been pretty transparent about the number of staff affected (though I’ve seen none to the extent of infections that are seemingly within this school), and other workplaces (factories, etc) publish the number of cases, so it just feels like they are not giving parents the full picture, and without the information I don’t know how we can make an informed decision
So today I am reluctantly homeschooling again. Not reluctantly because I mind doing it, but reluctant because of the circumstances I’m which I’ve taken him out for the time being, and because I feel so kept in the dark, and (most importantly) because he’ll be missing his friends.
I don’t think we can make the ‘right’ decision here. And I need a big hug and a dose of confidence
There’s been another message go out today asking parents to immediately come to school to collect their kids from one of the classes as their teacher had a positive covid test on Saturday 24th, the day after spending the sat with their class.
But somehow the school didn’t notify the parents of that class until just now, after all the kids have been back a day and a half.
... but those same kids are allowed to return to school next Monday, the 9th?
Honestly, it’s a shambles. If they had a positive covid test at the start of the half term why did they let the kids for that class back?