Despicable Anti Dementors

[Mascotte]

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The other thing that rattled my cage is all the "my child is too anxious to go back to school and worried about catching corona" who has made them fucking anxious about this - YOU are the parent.

(I say this as a parent whose kids are finding the masks just an added item to dress up!)

Good God (woman on oxygen) the levels of compassion on that thread..

The secondary here is doing something different. they are a large school so around 120 in each year group.

they are planning a summer school or some kind of extra tutor support for those not engaging with the home learning or falling behind (monitoring this and giving a level from 1 to 3)

Sounds sensible. they tend to do things differently anyway such as they give some pupils an extra week off at the end of the summer term while making it a catch up week for some)

iamapixie

I don't think there's anything inherently left or right here? Its not right-wing to point out that shuttering much of our society is disproportionately hurting the vulnerable & the voiceless. I'm not even hardcore anti-lockdown - I would just like more acknowledgment of this issue on the left, and some balance & nuance. I think we're beginning to get there, but I still find it odd to read more articles on, for example, the impact of lockdown on disadvantaged kids in the Torygraph than in the Guardian. And yes of course Torygraph has an agenda, but the Guardian could really do with pausing & looking beyond Tories Bad! Unions Good! for just one fucking nanosecond.

"my child is too anxious to go back to school and worried about catching corona"

I remember when my brother was too anxious about catching cholera to go to school. In the UK.

Is this a reason to keep children off now?

And not just the chancers anxious children, but ALL children.

If anyone fancies murdering some more people by ordering frivolities online, both M&S and Next have quite a few bargains just now. I have ordered myself some dresses to cover my weight gain from buying non-essential biscuits and alcohol...

Surely if your child is anxious about catching it, you can respond in the same way you'd respond to any other anxiety? My DS (8) went through a worrier phase, so I encouraged him to express his worries so we could work through them together & see if a particular worry was justified & if so how we could respond. He isn't remotely worried about catching the virus, but if he was I think I'd explain that children almost always have no symptoms or very mild ones, so it really isn't something to worry about, but some groups of people can get very ill, so we're doing X, Y and Z to protect them by not spreading it.

I feel like a lot of people I know are just rejecting everything the government proposes because they don't agree with them politically (nor do I, but I think the automatic rejection of everything just because it's from the "wrong" political side isn't very helpful).

Yes I am getting this vibe too. It isn't even well thought out objections, just It's the Tories so is wrong. It is getting to the point where you are being told to defriend them if you don't agree with their pov. Any movement forward is bad apparently even if it has overall benefits. Someone I know has 7 children and just before lockdown was allocated a 4 bed council house, but then told they couldn't go forward with it, this week she was given the keys. This is a good thing - the 4 bed houses are massive, it will be so much better for the family. Presumably they should just suck up unsuitable accommodation, so much for a caring party.

(I am centre, with a more leaning to the left)

I stopped reading the guardian for this reason @somewhere east. It is unbearably smug and as you say this us not clear cut left/right issue.
Besides the grauniad did that interview with some bloke in a frock who writes perv teen girl stories. I don't spose losing my custom will affect them much.

One thing I have realised about the Guardian over the last few years is that it just blows in the wind of Guardian reader opinion. One minute they'll be celebrating unions and saying teachers shouldn't be asked to "risk their lives". The next minute someone popular (e.g. Ed Milliband) will make a statement about poor children and everyone will be banging that drum instead. I couldn't believe it when I saw Guardian pieces encouraging people to "raise money for the NHS". Erm hello I thought us Guardian readers believed in state funding of health services through progressive taxation, not 90 year old men walking miles around their back gardens. (No disrespect to Captain Tom but I don't think this is the optimum way to fund health care during a pandemic).

I think I'm probably more lib dem than anything. Not sure really. Always found the Guardian quite gloomy

The masks dementors are getting on my wick this morning.

I'm willing to placate the Mask Dementors by wearing a mask if it means I can have my life back.

To be fair I don't see the harm in masks, they help protect others and as I'm fairly young and healthy and might not know I even have it, I happily wear one, not sure why a lot of people are so against them really.

Oh dear. Michael Gove just said very sensible things about getting kids back to school being safe but never being able to 100% eliminate risk. All good stuff but teachers (rightly) hate Gove. He is not the person to have making these points.

It's them telling everyone else they have to wear them which annoys me. Fair enough everyone can choose to wear them

I don't even care if they protect others from the virus.

If it protects me from their anxiety, I will wear one.

Yes that. I’ll wear a mask if it stops people freaking out.

Anyway, off to murder grannies in the Peak District for the afternoon.

I definitely feel more anxious about other people and their weird reactions in shops and general out and about than I do really about catching the virus.

I struggle with cross and people in general anyway so at least it is a bit quieter I suppose, but it is these aggressive types shouting I don't like

I'm not letting them bully me into wearing masks though. No-one seems to wear them in our shops anyway

It's them telling everyone else they have to wear them which annoys me.

Yes and the implication that you’re selfish and an actual murderer if you don’t, despite people having very legitimate reasons why they can’t.

crowds

I'm not wearing a mask unless it's made compulsory by law.

AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter I lolled at that Dementor post as well. Plus all the ones after that ridiculous scenario all agreeing that that was exactly what was going to happen. Presumably the woman on oxygen has been at home for the last 12 weeks without contact with anybody so how she could possibly have covid in the first place to spread to anyone else I have no idea.

Utterly Demented Dementor posting of the very highest order.

The 8-year old and I went to the garden centre yesterday actually. We had an absolutely lovely time and there was lots of smiling from other customers and pleasant chit-chat. We spent £100 on beautiful flowers for the garden to cheer us all up and then went home and planted them in the sunshine.

Oh God not Gove as face of the reopening schools push! Now teachers won't agree to set foot in school until 2057.

I don't know what schools up here are planning yet, we haven't had any sight of any of it and certainly haven't been asked (although nice to hear the unions talking confidently about how 'most parents' wouldn't send their children back before summer - oh fuck off). I am really reeeeaaallllly hoping this means they're having some kind of constructive conversation with the government about what is needed and we won't end up with an endless howling media fight over it once they do go back. But who knows?

Orangeblossom78 no I've seen very few people around where we live wearing masks. I am not going to wear one unless they are made compulsory by law.

Another lifelong lefty here (Labour Party member, met husband through the party, worked for MPs for years) who is finding more in common with the right than the left on the schools issue. This quote from Gavin Williamson almost made me cry:

"The longer that schools are closed the more children miss out. Teachers know this. Teachers know that there are children out there that have not spoken or played with another child of their own age for two months.
"They know there are children from difficult or very unhappy homes for whom school is the happiest moment in their week and it's also the safest place for them to be."

I can’t believe that a Tory education secretary is giving a more compassionate and sensible view on schools reopening than anyone on the left. How has it come to this?