Parents’ and teachers’ attitudes to and experiences of the implementation of COVID-19 preventive measures in primary and secondary schools following reopening of schools in autumn 2020: a descriptive cross-sectional survey
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Abstract
To assess implementation and ease of implementation of control measures in schools as reported by staff and parents.
Design
A descriptive cross-sectional survey.
Setting
Staff and parents/guardians of the 132 primary schools and 19 secondary schools participating in COVID-19 surveillance in school kids (sKIDs and sKIDsPLUS Studies).
Main outcome measure
Prevalence of control measures implemented in schools in autumn 2020, parental and staff perception of ease of implementation.
Results
In total, 56 of 151 (37%) schools participated in this study, with 1953 parents and 986 staff members completing the questionnaire. Most common measures implemented by schools included regular hand cleaning for students (52 of 56, 93%) and staff (70 of 73, 96%), as reported by parents and staff, respectively, and was among the easiest to implement at all times for students (57%) and even more so, for staff (78%). Maintaining 2-metre distancing was less commonly reported for students (24%–51%) as it was for staff (81%–84%), but was one of the most difficult to follow at all times for students (25%) and staff (16%) alike. Some measures were more commonly reported by primary school compared to secondary school parents, including keeping students within the same small groups (28 of 41, 68% vs 8 of 15, 53%), ensuring the same teacher for classes (29 of 41, 71% vs 6 of 15, 40%). On the other hand, wearing a face covering while at school was reported by three-quarters of secondary school parents compared with only parents of 4 of 41 (10%) primary schools. Other measures such as student temperature checks (5%–13%) and advising staff work from home if otherwise healthy (7%–15%) were rarely reported.
Conclusions
Variable implementation of infection control measures was reported, with some easier to implement (hand hygiene) than others (physical distancing).
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.03.21258289: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: The sKIDs and sKIDsPLUS studies were approved by PHE’s ethics committee as a part of its responsibility to investigate SARS-CoV-2 infections among children in educational settings. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources , PHE initiated enhanced surveillance in 132 primary schools which were selected as previously described12 in five sites across England (East London, North and West London, Derby, Oxford and Manchester), during the summer half-term where staff and students were tested for SARS-CoV2 infection through weekly swabbing or blood sampling for SARS-CoV-2 … SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.03.21258289: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: The sKIDs and sKIDsPLUS studies were approved by PHE’s ethics committee as a part of its responsibility to investigate SARS-CoV-2 infections among children in educational settings. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources , PHE initiated enhanced surveillance in 132 primary schools which were selected as previously described12 in five sites across England (East London, North and West London, Derby, Oxford and Manchester), during the summer half-term where staff and students were tested for SARS-CoV2 infection through weekly swabbing or blood sampling for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies at the beginning and end of the summer half-term (sKIDs studies). SARS-CoV-2suggested: NoneSoftware and Algorithms Sentences Resources Data analysis: Questionnaire responses from SnapSurvey were imported into Stata 15.1 (StataCorp, Tx). StataCorpsuggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:With the full reopening of schools in the autumn term, limitation of class sizes into small distinct bubbles was no longer possible, especially for secondary schools, where classes are much larger than primary school classes. In England, the experiences of the current autumn term when all the students returned to school is very different to the previous summer half-term, when only some primary and secondary school years, returned to school and with small class bubble sizes. At that time, detailed interviews with headteachers of the sKIDs schools identified different challenges in implementing infection control measures, including difficulties in prioritising teaching because of the additional requirement and practices, physical space constraints, staffing issues, finances, lack of adequate protective equipment and parent. The inability to maintain the 2-metre distance between the students and between students and staff, especially in primary schools, has been a consistent finding and not only challenging to implement but also considered incompatible with good teaching, especially in early-years classrooms.17 The autumn term is different to the previous summer half-term for a number of reasons. The number of students returning to school was much higher, increasing the challenges already encountered in maintaining physical distancing and infection control measures. At the same time, community infection rates were much higher between September and December 2020 than they were in...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
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- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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