Education Secretary Gavin Williams says he expects to announce the scrapping of the school bubble system as part of the end of lockdown on July 19th. The Government is facing pressure from schools and parents alike (and, more recently, from the media), with Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the Business Minister, saying this morning: “My postbag has quite a lot of frustrated parents wondering why the whole class has been sent home.” Sky News has more.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Williamson said he wanted to see restrictions on schools and colleges – including the bubble system – removed “as quickly as possible along with wider restrictions in society”.
“I do not think it is acceptable that children should face greater restrictions over and above those of wider society – especially since they have given up so much to keep older generations safe over the last 18 months,” he added.
“Further steps will be taken to reduce the number of children who have to self-isolate, including looking at the outcomes of a daily contact testing trial, as we consider a new model for keeping children in schools and colleges.” …
Trials have recently been held on using daily contact testing for children as an alternative to an entire school bubble – made up of a class or even whole year group – having to self-isolate if one of their number is infected.
Mr Williamson said ministers were expecting a report from Public Health England on those trials “in the coming weeks”.
But the Education Secretary signalled changes to coronavirus measures for schools would not come prior to the end of the summer term. …
Asked if children would not have to return to bubbles in the autumn, Mr Williamson later replied: “I don’t want to be pre-empting the decision of cross-Government in terms of the next stage. …
“[But] will be very much expecting that children would not be facing that in September.”
Worth reading in full.
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Here’s an idea. What if people feeling really ill just stayed at home until they felt better? Just like we do with the flu. No need for anyone to isolate, test or trace. This thing is endemic now.
After all if we are going to have to live with COVID then treat it as if was the flu.
Back to normal after a 2 minute announcement
You are sane, Paul M.
A rare thing these days.
And totally unheard-of in government.
LS reported on that study a few months ago which showed that about 50% of symptomatic people didn’t bother to isolate. This is the reason the virus is spreading, obviously. Not asymptomatic children…
Ah if only it were so simple. Many people out there don’t take sick leave even when they need it because they just can’t afford to lose out on 2+ weeks’ wages. These are the folks who have been manning the checkout desks and driving delivery vans in order to enable the govt’s agenda.
Yes…. You are so right ——- but they are already talking about the booster — I do feels hard to imagine things will ever be normal again – Big Pharma and Big tech funding have got the governments to do whatever they decide they want done and the Jab is worth Billions to them —
Like the teacher at our daughter’s school who came into work feeling unwell, gave a positive lateral flow test and the class have been told to self isolate. Don’t let anyone tell you teachers have common sense.
Or any consideration for the parents of pupils who maybe don’t have public sector jobs so need to work to pay the bills.
Ah, there we go. You don’t have to go home, you just have to submit to an invasive medical procedure every single day in order to prove your innocence.
Get used to it, kid, this is the New Normal.
Replacing one load of bollocks with another, almost as bad, as bad, worse, but bollocks nonetheless.
I know time is limited but would like to see more context and comment from the writers ATL, destroying the nonsense, for the benefit of casual readers or newbies or to hone arguments.
We’ve seen many “good news” articles that are not really good news at all. Just seems like the site is cheerleading for the govt’s weasel attempts to pretend we are coming out of coronamadness when we are doing no such thing
COVID WAS NOT AN EXCEPTIONAL EVENT REQUIRING OR JUSTIFYING EXCEPTIONAL MEASURES
Yes – I was disappointed to see Ioannides succumbing to the snake oil myths (see Round Up)
They will just replace this with a more pushy testing and tracing policy for kids.
These guys are merciless.
Another idea that was brainless in the first place. The idiot cabinet is the only entity needing a bubble – to shut them away from us.
FFS – We are being governed by people who don’t understand basic terminology like ‘infection’, ‘case’, ‘Covid’, and who still can’t grasp the basic uselessness of blanket testing or are able to read standard pandemic planning documents.
I expect the bubbles will be scrapped but replaced by something worse, like compulsory vaccination and/or testing.
*searches internet for books about home schooling*
Me and my wife are on standby to start homeschooling or boys if shit happens
Me too! Many other parents are planning the same – new community schools being planned across the country.
Parents needs to stand up to this madness, and simply refuse to send their kids to school. It will take everyone to do it, but that would solve it pretty quickly I would imagine
My daughters year have all been told to school from home for the next 2 weeks. Absolute joke.
Please a) stop advising we read ‘in full’ when the summary is enough to have us reaching for the sick bag and b) apply a bit of editorial judgement rather than simply relaying govt toss without scrutiny. We have the BBC for that, remember.
HEAR HEAR.
Toby used to take a robustly critical stance, which has now been replaced by wet lettuce.
To be fair, TY is extremely busy and commenting on every article is asking a lot.
Ideally he would have a much bigger team, with a budget to go with it
Scrap the school bubbles.
End of school year.
yeah.
As always, more excuses to prolong the agony from this Branch Covidian government.
They cannot give the experimental vaccine if they give up their emergency powers -that is what it is all about …..
Exactly! I don’t understand why more isn’t made of this point!
“Could be”
Pigs could fly if they had wings.
“Let’s just look at new models with dodgy rules to pile on the agony…because we can…and we know lots will not hesitate to comply. Isn’t this fun?” is what Williamson meant.
Gavin Williamson makes Matt Hancock look competent. Perhaps The Sun have some video of him.
This is really easy.
STOP TESTING CHILDREN UNDER 18.
Stop testing everyone
He wouldn’t even know where her arse was. Probably get it confused with her elbow.
200 lines for The Secretary of State for Education. Decline the following sentence.
I am a cretin.
You, Matt Hancock, are a cretin.
He, Boris Johnson, is a cretin.
We the Government are cretins.
You, SAGE, are cretins.
They, the Main Stream Media, are cretins.
This is one of the best comments I’ve read
love it 
They were all cretinous.
Love it
The depravity, the sheer, utter, merciless evil of these people is to me, beyond belief.
There are no excuses for what these SICK bastards are doing to children.
NONE.
NONE — it is EVIL
Prove first that all this testing isn’t harmful! Parents should refuse to allow these invasive repetitive tests until it can be proven not to harm the children’s mucous membranes, cilia etc. We know it harms their psyches.
They should, but they don’t. I’m a teacher and have to give the damn things out to my form every week. No one in my own household has ever been tested once; people don’t seem to understand that none of it is mandatory and are incapable of doing even the most basic research. I despair.
You say it’s not mandatory, yet you “have to” give the damned things out. So that part is ‘mandatory’.
They “could” be scrapped immediately if anyone in government had any integrity.
They do NOT know the meaning of the word.
Why cant Williamson pronounce Bubbles properly have you listened? its really odd
Is it because he’s a Fucking Cunt?
So, end the ridiculous bubbles 4 days before the summer holidays start? What a cunning plan from the Baldrick of British politics.
Some areas break up before the 19th. But this date has been pushed by the opposition i.e. the minority who are apparently on our side in the tory party.
The reason of course Boris/Stanley/Carrie/Klaus love the chaos in schools e.g. whole classes and year groups sent home for one (false) positive test is because they want to vaccinate kids. If they keep sending them home they think parents will more readily offer up their dim witted progeny for ‘vaccination’. Same with travel.
This morning, I should be caring for my youngest granddaughter while her sister, my other granddaughter, goes to school. I am not doing this however because someone in her class has “tested positive” so she has to stay at home until next Thursday.
Instead, I will come here to leave this comment from Christian Drosten (boo, hiss) who provided the first “PCR test” for the WHO to use last year and which was held up as the gold standard. The results of this test are used by governments to legitimise massive restrictions and take away our human rights.
As early as 2014, Drosten said about this PCR test method “The method is so sensitive that it can detect even a single molecule of the virus genome. If such a pathogen has, for example, spent one day on the nasal mucosa of a nurse, without her getting sick or noticing anything, she suddenly becomes a case of MERS. Where previously there were reports of people who were ‘sick to death’ (my inverted commas) the statistics now contain mildly ill people and people who are in fact perfectly healthy. This is how the explosion in the number of cases in Saudi Arabia could be explained. In addition, the media on the spot have inflated the matter incredibly. “
Exactly what has happened with the Corona virus.
This idiot Williamson seriously thinks that schoolchildren should be subjected to daily testing? What planet is he on? He should be sectioned for his and everyone else’s safety.
Especially after concerns have been raised over ethylene oxide – exposing children to it 5 days a week is simply a risk not worth taking, especially as children (who don’t have compromised immune systems) have a vanishingly small chance of dying from the virus (1-in-2.5 million or thereabouts, I believe) and are not vectors of the virus.
This is simply to make life so unpleasant that parents will agree to letting their children be jabbed – does anyone with critical thinking skills still believe this is about curtailing a virus?
When life becomes so unpleasant, why take it out on your children instead of those causing the misery?
Indeed – but the propaganda machine will urge parents on.
God, they’re so obsessed with their bloody virus – and selling tests and jabs.
Bubbles are utterly pointless – anyone with half a brain would know that – as many, many kids have siblings that span bubbles.
I asked my 11 year old grandson how many in his class of 32 have siblings in other bubbles. He estimated at least eight! Even he realises these ridiculous bubbles are pointless. Just “experts” pretending they are “doing something”.