Anti Dementors, Assemble!

[Mascotte]

I think I finished the last thread by accident...

Look the self employed will re-open, their workers will return, the furloughed are another case entirely. We will see some businesses returning others will go to the wall during furlough.

I don’t understand why they keep wittering on about how the children will social distance? The guidance says very clearly that they know the children won’t and they are not expecting them to.

I know, if I see the phrase ‘social distancing is impossible in schools’ one more time...
Maybe we should add it to the bingo card?
Yes, we know it’s impossible. No, no one is expecting them to do it. So shall we just bloody drop that one now?!

Why are young healthy people thinking they have a 3% chance of dying now? That’s never been the case ffs.

I wonder if the parents currently panicked out of their minds at English schools going back (maybe, for some years, in a few weeks at the earliest...) are going to get more relaxed about this before September. Because there will come a point when the choice is send your child in or withdraw and homeschool them without expecting their school place to be held and online learning to be sent home. A second wave of dementoring?

I’m in Scotland though where who the hell knows what’s going to happen with schools and my eldest is really getting miserable. I’m watching her get more and more unhappy and withdrawn and itching not to get into a yelling match with my panicky friend on FB who is posting about ten times a day to say that HER children won’t be guinea pigs for Boris’s plans! Yeah well I don’t want mine being a guinea pig for the big experiment of “what happens when we keep children out of education and away from all their peers and wider family and even playgrounds for months and months” thanks.

I just feel utterly despairing. Why is no one considering the appalling impact this is going to have on children? Even most people I know in real life seem to have bought into the doom-laden narrative that children can’t go back until it’s ‘safe’. I keep crying when I think of what my DD is missing. Do none of these other parents care? I don’t understand.

Yeah well I don’t want mine being a guinea pig for the big experiment of “what happens when we keep children out of education and away from all their peers and wider family and even playgrounds for months and months” thanks.

Exactly this.

I was on a thread earlier in which I was asking what the unions would do. Can they strike? Would they? Do they have any power? I’m in a union, starting to wonder what their remit is these days. Doesn’t the government consult them?

I asked, because a teacher friend of mine mooted it over the weekend. She was wondering if they’d be balloted. I have no idea.

One came onto the thread and said I was being unreasonable asking. It was premature, there was no need to bring it up.

I didn’t really, my teacher friend brought it up to me.

Teachers on the thread then accused me of being a shit stirrer. In what universe are we now living where we cannot ask questions about what’s in the news? Absolutely no curiosity, critical thinking allowed.

Will we all turn into dementors? I still don’t know the answer to the question about what unions can/will do. I certainly think they ought to have been consulted on plans, however.

Don’t think the unions are helping themselves if the response to all plans is just “no”.

I was holding on to a shred of hope that they might move the summer holidays here in Scotland so we at least wouldn’t have to wait until August, but have been informed on here that there is no way the unions would allow that.

By that logic its like saying I’m never going to let my child play outside in case they get struck by lightning, I’m never buying them a bike in case they fall off, I’m moving to a bungalow so they can’t fall down the stairs etc etc...

Yes, as if keeping them home wasn't also an experiment, one we already know will have huge negative consequences that, given what we now know about the miniscule risk to healthy young people, are clearly and undoubtedly worse than the risks of being in school.

Everything we do with our children, and indeed our own lives, is an experiment.

I’m actually feeling a bit anxious about sending my DC back not because of Covid but because of the attitudes of some teachers, they are as a group not coming across well in all this and I worry if that attitude will come across to the kids in their care.

@LilacTree1

Furlough being extended doesn't mean things won't open.

The extension means that consultations for redundancies dont have to start.

We are unlikely to see a cliff edge to the furlough scheme. As things open then people will return to work and drop off the furlough scheme will wind down.

Those left at the end will likely have to move to UC (which is shit) but the government has a vested interest in making sure this is as few people as possible.

@thesuninsagittarius

for you

There was somebody on the bbc this morning from the NEA Union. I was with her, completely, when she said it was impossible to do some of the stuff being suggested.

Whoever made the suggestions doesn’t understand what it’s like to work in schools with KS1. I totally agreed. Why didn’t they listen to the unions?

However, it then all fell apart a bit and she became quite flustered when the presenter challenged her by asking why Britain can’t do what other countries say they are going to do. There was a lot of ‘won’t work.’

There’s not much ‘let’s see what might work’ about.

In glad about furlough selfishly because without it we'd be destitute right about now.

I don't know what to do though now.

I don't know whether nursery will reopen. I don't know what hours they'll offer us and therefore what I can work. Whether work will even want me back in June? (Suspect not tbh)

I literally am not sure who to contact first.

@thenightsky Fabulous! Thank you

I’m just out of energy for it all now. I’m a shit teacher. There’s a reason I never chose it as a career path. And being stuck here arguing with the older ones about school work while trying to look after a 16 month old who doesn’t fucking nap and is hell bent on destruction makes me a shit parent too.
DH is working full time from home, holed up in the office from 8am- 7pm. But he can’t moan apparently as at least he has a job.
Then you go online and any hope you may have about things changing just gets stamped all over by fucking dementors.
I’m so tired of it all.

It’ll soon be half term....

My son is still at school but the situation and the lack of routine is causing him distress. Anxiety at every little thing, he gets upset if I want to leave the house and says I shouldn't be able to go - even if he's going to be at school at the time and his bedtime routine is getting increasingly obsessive. He's 10, poor little thing.

My youngest is just punching things. Also out of character for him.

Why is physical health more important than mental health. Most people who get CV19 will recover. People banging on about long term (and unproven) physical effects have no idea about the long term effect on mental health.

Driving I feel for you

Outward yes, I totally see what you mean. Looks like some children will be made more fearful through being back at school.

I know Daffodil but at the risk of sounding like a dementor it doesn’t help me all that much. At 6, 4 and 1 mine still require pretty much all day entertaining/feeding/setting up of activities etc, all the time trying to keep them quiet so DH can do all his work calls etc. It’s fucking relentless.

I know, driving. Yours are younger than mine and it must be doubly relentless. I wish I could give you a break and a hug and make you a brew.

@Drivingdownthe101

Mine are 4 and 1. I’ve just allowed my 4 year old to steal the 1 year olds dummy and I’ve stuck Mr Tumble on. We have well and truly hit the wall.

There are a few bits in the guidance that we aren't sure how we are going to do in our school. But just saying no doesn't help anyone.

Thank you for the sympathy, it helps!

Sunshine at least my 6 year old and 4 year old sometimes amuse each other!