Thread by @tes

.@tes is following the @AppgCoronavirus on schools and Covid-19. Follow here for the latest updates #appgcoronavirus

Caroline Lea says she was threatened with fines for taking her children out of school. "I felt very belittled by the whole process because I was being treated like a truant," she says.

She says she explained that if her children caught Covid she would possibly lose her life but the head became "the dragon in our world, threatening us with very real sanctions in our future lives."

Caroline Lea says she feels sympathy with the head because she was following central guidance.

Sughra Nazir says she also had to make a choice in September after it was made very clear all pupils should be in school, with no allowances made for clinically vulnerable parents. Her eldest child is staying in an out-building to keep her safe.

She adds that she felt the only way to keep herself safe was to stay in one room for 23 hours a day. She says her daughters were petrified because they were going back to school where pupils were wearing no masks.

Over that autumn term, her daughters had to self-isolate from letters of positive cases at school. "It was a horrible, horrible time," she says. She decided it was too difficult and kept the girls off school.

The school said it could not offer remote learning for pupils who had chosen to stay away from school. She says the head of pastoral care told her she had lived her life and should sacrifice her safety for her daughters' education.

Dr Lisa-Maria Muller has said over two-thirds of @CharteredColl said the pandemic had impacted their wellbeing negatively.

Teachers are often the first port of call for children suffering bereavement in the pandemic and this is an additional pressure, she says.

Dr Muller says schools needed more time to prepare for closures announced at the beginning of January #appgcoronavirus

Dr Deepti Gurdasani says global evidence is clear that schools are a huge link in community transmission #appgcoronavirus

Dr Anthony Costello says a recent study from Austria showed similar levels of infection in primary pupils as in secondary #appgcoronavirus

Dr Gurdasani says recent Norwegian study showed adults in children's households as a vector, but she argues children will have transmitted the virus to those adults. There is real misinterpretation of global data, she says #appgcoronavirus

Dr Gurdasani says she has communicated with gov't on this but PHE and other studies are highly flawed, based on a time when community transmission was very low and 7% of children were attending schools #appgcoronavirus

She says parents of children in secondary school have a statistically higher level of infection #appgcoronavirus

Dr Sarah Rasmussen says contact tracing studies that are community based rather than household based the susceptibility of children looks similar to adults #appgcoronavirus

Anthony Costello questions whether we should vaccinate all children and that this needs new consideration #appgcoronavirus

Asked by Baroness Masham whether all teachers and pupils should be vaccinated, Dr Costello says teachers are the only group of workers who will spread Covid among age groups because they are in contact with children #appgcoronavirus

He adds we could vaccinate all teachers within a day #appgcoronavirus

Dr Gurdasani says cases are dropping in all groups apart from primary children where they are plateauing #appgcoronavirus

On safety, Dr Costello says students wearing masks, frequent hand washing and moving classes outdoors where possible, stopping high-risk activities like choir practice and staggered arrivals can improve school safety #appgcoronavirus

On March 8, he says the safe rate for opening schools would be below 100 in 100,000 in the local area. Two areas have this and arguably schools could open in those areas now. Having a date is less good than a quantitative explanation to heads of what's happening in their area.

On ventilation, air conditioning doesn't help much and this is probably beyond the expenses of most schools in the country, Dr Costello says. #appgcoronavirus

Dr Gurdasani says @educationgovuk guidance on mask-wearing is out of whack with the rest of the world. A lot more attention has been given to ventilation in Germany and the reduction to transmission is cost-saving #appgcoronavirus

We currently only require isolation of pupils who are sitting next to or behind a confirmed case. Dr Gurdasani says transmission is more like smoking and this does not help with reducing infection. We need a cap on bubbles she says. #appgcoronavirus

Dr Rasmussen says gov't needs to change guidance to say medically vulnerable parents can take children out of school. In a pre-legal proceeding she says @educationgovuk said when questioned on this it was up to schools but they haven't changed guidance to reflect this.

Dr Costello echoes @halfon4harlowMP's call for Nightingale schools, and says there needs to be more laptops for disadvantaged pupils #appgcoronavirus

Dr Costello says reopening schools needs to be based on solid quantification risk.

Dr Gurdasani says there is a 'false dichotomy' between keeping schools open as they are or shut completely, but keeping them open safely has not been properly considered. All the public health measures from WHO need to be put in place.