We've had a couple of schools shut here as well with confirmed cases. They all seem to have different rules though... our local one has sent home any child who has coughed or sneezed from Day One, and won't allow them back without a negative test (which nobody can actually order). Where my grand daughter's school is assuming they all have a cold and advising them to come in as normal.
I believe that it depends on what you mean by safe. They can catch viruses but tend to do so less often, and tend to have less severe symptoms when they do.
Just weeks into the new academic year and thousands of pupils are now back home for a fortnight to self-isolate following positive tests among staff and classmates.
Safe from what? Catching the virus or dying from the virus? Obviously two very different things but many people are mixing the two up. I believe many hundreds of thousands of people have already had the virus with no long-lasting effects and in some cases no symptoms. Children will catch all sorts of things at school and unfortunately bring some of those things home. Those who are vulnerable should take precautions and avoid contact with high risk categories and let everyone else just get on with their lives.
As of yesterday ( source statistician BBC) more people were catching flu and subsequently dying of flu that Covid-19.
Focus was getting kids into school so that parents could return to the coal pits and keep Sir Richalot's sherry collection stocked. Nothing to do with safety, so this was always going to happen.
That is very draconian pixie.
How can a school operate in those circumstances?
Our school just says stay off if ill with non CV symptoms until better (in normal times they emphasise the need to attend unless a fever or vomiting involved)
There will be a lot more positives both inside and outside the classroom. (But the government doesn't seem to have cottoned on to how viruses progress and just fantasise being seen achieving a miracle.)
I'm not sure they can operate properly, ich... but they are all following different rules, so maybe they aren't sure what to do. I don't know what advice they have been given, and how much room for interpretation.
The children have been off school and so have not been exposed to the normal germs circulating in the school environment. They need to build up their immunity to the everyday bugs. Teachers need to take a sensible approach. Fever, diarrhoea and vomiting no school. Slight cough and runny nose school with attention to hygeine
Trevor //Focus was getting kids into school so that parents could return to the coal pits and keep Sir Richalot's sherry collection stocked.//
Ridiculous, they were sent back to school so that their education could continue.
"Teachers need to take a sensible approach." Of course, but not entirely down to them, they have to follow Government rules & guidelines as well. A child with "symptoms" would need to be sent for testing and if positive, their entire bubble - or in our case, children in the whole year - sent to self isolate, along with their parents.