I need my DCs to have access to education. They are primary age, but not the year groups going back in early June.
DS1 has autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia. He functions through school, masks through by immitating his peers and crashes at home. At home, he doesn't have to mask so I get the real DS, the one who isn't pretending that it doesn't hurt to grip a pencil due to sensory processing disorder. He hasn't got anyone elses cues to follow. Roles are muddled and he can't handle that. He's not in a learning environment, he's at the kitchen table which is there to eat at. There is the distraction of a TV in the room next door and the rest of his possessions. He doesn't give a toss that I have a decade of teaching experience; in his mind, I'm his mum and my job is to mum, not be a teacher (despite being used to my presence helping out in school including some of his interventions). Home learning is frankly, a disaster. No rainbows in our windows. It's a good day if I get a few coherant sentences written down, and I have a proffessional background and a good reputation in teaching sets dominated by SEN.
Children like DS are not going to catch up effirtlessly. This is a 9 yo who still forgets how to write his name accurately despite having every other statistical advantage in his favour.
As to DS2, as a summer term y2, (possibly dyslexic) he's not benefiting from DS1 as his only peer.
Children are suffering.
The lonely.
The children without access to educational resources. The children at struggling schools where most don't have access to computers, printers or pencils and paper.
The children with parents who don't have time because they have to prioritise financial surviival.
The children with parents who can't intellectually support them.
The children who have been bereaved and have no access to their usual support mechanisms.
The abused.
The over-crowded.
The children whose needs are being neglected unnecessarily by excessively risk adverse and anxious parents who will not take them out in the absence of a specific health concern.
The children who will develop anxiety disorders (social, OCD etc) after months and months of social exclusion.
There are children who are paying an emotional toll which will be carried out for life.
There are children who will not reach adulthood, not because of Covid 19 but because their carers will murder them, or because they will be so damaged that in future years they commit suicide or die of addictions and mental health disorders. The death toll of this will be felt for decades.
Is this really a cost worth paying through the years to preserve a low risk demographic?
Nothing is risk free. I look both ways before walking my children to school across the road because sratistically they are more likely to die in a RTA.
It concerns me that my children will be denied access to appropriate education until social distancing/ bubble rules relax and there is the capacity for their year groups.
I already sacrificed my career because it was incompatible with DS1's needs. I am deeply fortunate that my financial and professional survival is not dependent on full time schooling and wrap-around care. I can tolerate part-time schooling but millions of families can not.
Access to education is a feminist issue as well as a matter of children's rights.